Trump’s path to ending the Ukraine war: A delicate balance – Marc Champion

Donald Trump claims he can end Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a day, but achieving a meaningful peace requires more than quick fixes. To avoid a disastrous ceasefire that favours Moscow, Trump must shift from his admiration of Putin and send a competent envoy to understand Ukraine's resistance. A genuine resolution will depend on strategic Western support, Ukraine's economic stability, and a clear commitment to defeating Russian aggression before it spreads further..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..The seventh BizNews Conference, BNC#7, is to be held in Hermanus from March 11 to 13, 2025. The 2025 BizNews Conference is designed to provide an excellent opportunity for members of the BizNews community to interact directly with the keynote speakers, old (and new) friends from previous BNC events – and to interact with members of the BizNews team. Register for BNC#7 here..By Marc Champion.Donald Trump says he can end Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a day, and he'll soon be in the White House to prove it. It isn't impossible, it just depends on which day. But short of capitulating to Moscow, the dramatic resolution he wants is conceivable only if he starts laying groundwork now and drops his fanboy approach to Vladimir Putin..Trump had Elon Musk sit in on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy last week, and has now ruled out inviting one of the few people in his orbit with foreign policy experience — former secretary of state Michael Pompeo — into his cabinet. According to the Washington Post, they talked about issues of territory in a phone call with the Russian President. None of these are good signs..Trump and his team need to rethink what winning and losing in Ukraine would mean — and they have time if they're willing to use it. Because to give Moscow what it wants out of ignorance would represent an historic failure that stores up deep trouble for Europe, the US and likely Taiwan, let alone Ukraine..Trump should — for now — try to stay off the phone to the Kremlin. The Post said he also asked Putin not to "escalate" in Ukraine; at this point in the war what does that even mean? Instead he should send a competent envoy to Ukraine to understand why it is the Ukrainians are so resistant to a quick "at any costs" ceasefire, and why working with Kyiv is in US interests. .When such an envoy gets there, I'd suggest heading straight to the mine I just visited outside Pokrovsk, the town in the eastern Donbas region that's become the hottest focus of the war..It's the only mine in Ukraine that produces coking coal, the essential ingredient for providing the carbon that hardens steel. One of its three shafts is now less than seven kilometers (4.3miles) from the front. Without the operation, steel companies in Ukraine — including the mine's owner Metinvest BV — would have to import coking coal, which the European Union lists as a critical raw material. The increased cost would make an estimated 50% of the country's current steel production non-competitive. This is the same steel that supplies Ukraine's growing arms industry and will be vital to reconstruction after the war..Read more: BizNews Briefing – Trump Bump; Bitcoin above $80,000; MKP founder; Rupert batting for SA.Russian missiles have already hit the Pokrovske mine, yet it continues to operate. With troops and artillery closing so quickly, Metinvest chief executive officer Yuriy Ryzhenkov wants an instant ceasefire as much as anyone, inside Ukraine or out. Yet even he told me that shouldn't happen until the terms of any deal would create "a definitive end to the war.".That's because his company, which already lost its biggest steel plants in Mariupol in 2022, can't invest if whatever gets built is likely to be quickly destroyed, or have its output blockaded at Ukraine's sea ports. And if Metinvest, one of Ukraine's biggest companies, won't put more money into the country, it's fanciful to imagine foreign companies piling in. How can you rebuild under such conditions? Or persuade the millions of refugees who've found ways to make a living abroad to come back? .This is the essential message Trump's envoy needs to take home.The White House, the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Western media need to stop measuring victory or defeat in terms of Ukraine's ability to recover the territory Russia has seized. Ukrainians made that mental shift long ago, after 2023's failed counteroffensive. Winning's no longer a question of getting all the land back, but of creating the security Ukraine needs to emerge as an economically viable independent state. .Read more: 🔒 Wall Street and Musk bet on Trump, auto stocks surge on emissions rollback hopes – Liam Denning.Russia understands this, too. Its strategy is to prevent such a Ukraine from materializing. For Putin, issues of territory, while important, are secondary to his original war aims. He still wants to "denazify" Ukraine, that is, replace its leader with a Russian client; and he still wants to "demilitarize" it, meaning to make it incapable of defending itself from future attack, should Kyiv ever again fail to bend to his will. He'll only compromise if he's on the back foot on the battlefield, which is not the case right now..Russia's president might well say yes to a Trump insta-deal that halts the fighting along current battle lines, even if that wouldn't yet give him full control of the four provinces he claims, or his demands for NATO to shrink back to its size in 1997. He'll surely ask for more, because he feels he holds all the cards. But all he really needs for now are terms that leave him free to break the pact and achieve his goals more easily later, against a largely disarmed opponent. This is the Trump "deal" Ukraine fears most..It's happened once already, after all, when Putin violated a 2015 ceasefire to invade in 2022. That's the reason Ukrainians keep fighting, despite the extreme cost and even though it's clear they can't roll Russian forces back to the international borders. To see them as obstacles to any genuine peace is at best a display of profound ignorance..It's telling that there's nothing about territory in the five public points in Zelenskiy's so-called victory plan. Four concern security, while one aims to show that Ukraine can provide something to its allies in return for their continued backing. This is the kind of language Trump, with his transactional approach to foreign policy, can relate to. But he needs to act with a coherent game plan — something he isn't known for — and with Ukraine in a stronger position than it is today..Proposals being floated in Washington — such as one for a ceasefire line enforced by European peacekeepers, and Ukraine abandoning its NATO membership aims for 20 years in exchange for US arms — have elements that could form part of an eventual solution, but are half-baked and premature. The stakes are too high for this..A compelling point that's strongly felt if rarely said in polite Kyiv society is that if the West doesn't step up to ensure Ukraine's independence, Europe's geopolitical situation will be fundamentally altered for the worse. I've talked about some of the possible costs elsewhere, but one risk is that a defeated Ukraine's natural, agricultural, human and military resources would go to strengthen a vengeful Putin as he pursues a zero-sum contest with the West he'll continue no matter who is in the White House..Read more: Ramaphosa speaks to Trump: Pair discuss strengthening US-SA ties."Does the West not understand that if Russia isn't defeated in Ukraine, it will eventually win and then all of our resources — including our army, our drones and our arms industry — will be used to fight you. We won't want to, but we will end up fighting you," says Roman Motychak, a Kyiv resident who works in renewable energy..What Motychak says sounds hyperbolic, but it's neither inconceivable nor without precedent. Remember, most people — especially Putin's admirers — also dismissed US predictions he would actually invade Ukraine. The Chechens, meanwhile, fought two brutal wars of independence against Moscow in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since their defeat, they have provided some Moscow with some of it's best-trained shock troops, including in Ukraine. Men who remained in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine also have been forcibly mobilized to fight their erstwhile compatriots. .There are other Ukrainian resources that might be turned against the West by Russia and its partners, including China, rather than benefit it. These include large coterie of software engineers who've been a driving force behind the world's most prolific and innovative drone industry. The country also has natural gas (and massive storage facilities for it), lithium, rare earths, titanium and uranium, not to mention Pokrovsk's coking coal..The lithium may prove a valuable resource for European car makers if the current slump in demand for electric vehicles and their batteries revives. Of Ukraine's four significant deposits, two are west of the Dnipro River and relatively safe from Russian troops for now. A third, near Ukraine's Azov Sea coast, is already under occupation. The last — called the Shevchenkivske deposit, after the nearest village — holds an estimated 350,000 metric tons of ore. It's situated 60 kilometers south of Pokrovsk, and just 20 kilometers from the front lines. The European Lithium Institute estimates total European reserves of the metal at 8.8 million tons..Read more: Anthony Ginsberg: US stock's Trump bump is just the beginning.How then should Trump and his team think about ending the war? A hasty ceasefire deal cut on Putin's terms would only contribute to future instability. Ukraine would become a financial black hole swallowing European and — like it or not — US support. The country would attract no investment and become economically unsustainable. Eventually Russia would decide to finish what it started, leaving Trump looking less than a deal-making genius..Many in Trump's camp believe the US has few interests in Europe and can safely walk away from Ukraine altogether. This is naive. Add Russia's now deep alliance with US foes in Asia and the Middle East to precedent — a then isolationist US tried to stay out of the two world wars that began in Europe, but was forced to fight both — and that should be clear. It was, after all, an attack on the US by Germany's Asia ally, Japan, that drew America into the World War II..In contrast, given a settlement that provides genuine security, Ukraine could serve as a back office for the West, a route for countries to shorten their supply lines in this age of de-globalization, much as Poland, Hungary and countries did on joining the European Union 20 years ago. More importantly, a financially viable Ukraine would become a defensive buffer for Europe against further Russian destabilization efforts. This is more than a geostrategic consideration. The country is now extremely dependent on foreign military aid, but if a sustainable ceasefire is achieved, it could also contribute materially to the defense of the West..Back in 2021, Ukraine produced no ammunition and had total arms production worth $755 million. This year, it was Europe's largest producer of ammunition. Over breakfast in Kyiv, I caught up with Oleksandr Kamyshin, Zelenskiy's advisor for strategic affairs and, until September, the minster in charge of Ukraine's defense production, to understand the bigger picture..Today, Kamyshin said, Ukraine's increasingly private arms industry has the capacity to produce $20 billion of arms per year, rising to $30 billion in 2025. This includes the ability to produce vast quantities of drones, as well as ballistic missiles with ranges up to 1,500 kilometers..Read more: 🔒 Trump assembles business-heavy team for new administration.What's holding Ukraine back is a lack of government contracts — meaning cash from Kyiv's budget. The industry, for example, can make 200 missiles a month, capable of reaching the airfields from which Russia launches the planes that drop devastating glide bombs on Ukrainian troops. Yet there's only enough money for Kyiv to make a few of them. It's a widespread problem. This year, the government will have ordered $8 billion in contracts for everything from ammunition and artillery pieces, to drones and ballistic missiles. Next year that budget will be $10 billion, just a third of what the country will be capable of building and sending to the front..This has major implications for US policy. Ukraine, for example, has long begged for permission to use US-made ATACMS missiles against targets in Russia. But this controversy is out of date. The Russian air force has by now moved its combat jets to airfields beyond the 300 kilometer range of ATACMS. Ukraine's ballistic missiles, however, can do the job. The issue today is money for Ukraine to make missiles, not ATACMS..Denmark has taken the lead in a Scandinavian effort to address the problem. In July, Copenhagen ordered and paid for Ukraine to produce 18 Bohdanov self-propelled 155mm howitzers. In September they were delivered to the front. It's the kind of program Trump should encourage if he truly wants the rest of NATO to be able to defend itself, rather than rely on the US. So long as Kyiv's arms industry remains out of Russia's hands, a post-war Ukraine can provide not only much of its own security against further invasion, but also the high-volume, lower-cost equipment and ammunition that European NATO members need..At this moment, however, Pokrovsk and Ukraine's frontline soldiers don't have the luxury of time for Kyiv to develop a world-class defense industry. So, Zelenskiy's victory plan envisions a surge of Western military aid to help Ukraine stabilize the front, forcing Putin to recognize he can go no further and may lose gains if he continues. What might that look like? More Ukrainian-made but Western-funded drones and missiles inflicting damage on Russian airfields and arms depots. These can disrupt the flow of glide bombs and artillery that are pounding Ukrainian positions until they're forced to retreat. The additional long-range weaponry can also increase the pace of attack on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure, just as Moscow is doing to Ukraine with help from Iran and North Korea. That formula of a stabilized front line, combined with rising cost to Russia's economy is the best chance to bring the Kremlin to the table for a genuine negotiation..Read more: Trump Card: Mainstream media meltdown – Koshiek Karan.Some issues of territory do need to be on the table in any settlement talks. For one, Pokrovsk's coking coal needs to remain in Ukrainian hands. To be viable for investment, Ukraine's sea ports and the Dnipro river must also be safe from attack and open for business, says Tomas Fiala, chief executive officer of Dragon Capital, Ukraine's largest investment bank. For that to happen, Russian forces can't remain on the Kinburn Spit, just south of Kherson, which faces the mouths of the Dnipro River and the Bug, where the major port of Mykolaiv has been blocked since the start of the war..The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, further up the Dnipro, also needs to be returned to Ukraine, for reasons both of safety and its six gigawatts of power. Russia can't use it without hideously expensive and impractical reconstruction, both due to degradation during the war and the conversion of its controls and systems by the US's Westinghouse Nuclear, Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine's nuclear power company Energoatom told me. Ukraine, on the other hand, desperately needs Europe's biggest nuclear plant back online. .Read more: 🔒 FT: US Big Tech's shift on Trump – from 2016 outrage to 2024 anticipation.Still, Fiala says the most important thing is "the war has to finish and there have to be security guarantees that it won't be repeated any time soon." If that happens, Ukraine may be in some ways be in a better situation than before the war. It will enjoy largely tariff-free access to EU markets and a membership process that could transform the economy and state..Nobody says this would be easy. Putin has his own agenda and — ludicrously — claims he needs to win in Ukraine for Russia to continue to exist. Yet there are opportunities for negotiation. Trump will have carrots to offer as well as sticks, including lifting sanctions and releasing frozen Russian funds. The Kremlin would resist NATO membership for Ukraine at all costs, but that isn't a hill that Trump — already a skeptic of NATO's value — has to die on. So long as "demilitarization" isn't part of the package, there are other ways to provide security for Ukraine on the models of Israel or South Korea..Putin, however, will not stand still. The Pokrovsk mine's chief executive Andriy Akulich said there were three missile strikes on the facility in September and October. About 1,200 staff out of a prewar total of 8,000 have been mobilized to fight, with 106 killed and 274 wounded. Many moved away since the Russians redoubled their offensive, but 3,500 continue to work. A September blast killed two workers in the offices above the main shaft, both women, and blew debris down the stairs to where the elevator starts. Another, in October, hit the mine's electrical substation and bus depot..Read more: BizNews Briefing: Eskom v Jhb; Trump stock bump; Sappi; Truworths; Comrades; SA v Scotland.From the surface, it's a 600 meter (almost 2,000 ft.) drop to 300 kilometers of connected tunnels below. Management has since moved the lift controls for all three shafts to the bottom. Underground, I walked to reach one of the long-wall coal faces along a tunnel that ran three kilometers toward the front, where the fighting rages above..Miners continue to drill in three 500-person shifts for double "combat" pay. For Oleksandr Zheltyakov, the foreman in charge of 26 men at the face I visited, that amounts to roughly triple the average Ukrainian salary. The miners are no strangers to war operations: They've dug rows of trenches behind Ukrainian lines to help slow the Russians. Some have already been overrun..For some at the coal face, like 44-year-old Vadym Trotskyy, who wore a khaki "I am a Ukrainian" t-shirt, this is also about patriotism. But for the most part, he and others said they want the work and need the money. Trotskyy has to pay rent for his family, who he's sent to the relative safety of Odesa, on the Black Sea Coast. Mikhailo Chulkov, who dynamites rock in the tunnels, recently moved with his family to a village west of the mine, from their home in Selydove, 20 kilometers east. That small town was being overwhelmed as we spoke. Unverifiable reports emerged later that day that Russian forces had killed two Ukrainian women who stayed behind..Despite the fighting, people are still applying for work. Khrystyna Boyko, a 19-year old student, joined the mine just three months ago. The high salary will help pay for the online university studies she needs to pursue her dream of opening a travel agency. One day, she hopes to send Ukrainians abroad, and bring foreign tourists to Ukraine..Perhaps she will. But with his dramatic reelection, Trump now has the power to destroy Boyko's youthful dreams, Ukraine's economy and independence, as well European security. This, tragically, seems the most likely outcome — and yet he doesn't have to. Trump doesn't actually need to do much to ensure that he and Ukraine are in a stronger negotiating position after he's inaugurated. For that he can thank US President Joe Biden, who's said he'll push through the rest of the $5 billion he authorized for Ukraine by the end of his term. That's a surge of about $1.5 billion per month that Trump doesn't even have to approve..All the incoming president needs to do is hold tight while he develops a clear plan to help stabilize the front, encourage Europe to overmatch the US effort and project a message of strength and commitment that his friend in the Kremlin takes seriously. It's up to him. The Kremlin, Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang and US allies around the world will be watching his every move..Read also:.NewsWrap: Trump election victory – Hersov, Kooyman, Cilliers react; Gauteng's high-tech crime-fighting; Sappi quarterliesWhat Trump's presidency could mean for SA: Insights from Jakkie CilliersRob Hersov on Trump's win: A new path for the US and lessons for South Africa.© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Trump’s path to ending the Ukraine war: A delicate balance – Marc Champion

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