Major progress towards the end of the nearly 3-year-long crisis between Russia and Ukraine, US President Donald Trump announced on February 12, 2025, that he talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it is upon agreed terms they are going to begin peace negotiations, "right this minute. The announcement through Trump's own channel generated considerable international interest and Trump asserted that he and Putin "forged a plan to act side by side" to stop the war which has resulted in needless loss of life and displacing. Trump emphasized the seriousness of the situation stating that "millions of deaths" have occurred, though these are unsubstantiated figures. He further reported on having shared the discussion and Ukraine's inclusion in the following session of discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine.
The Trump-Putin exchange comes after a racially charged controversy of weeks of reporting concerning a friendly meeting, during which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied stories of supposed secret talks as being "absolute fiction. Nevertheless, pronouncements recently by both sides also seem to indicate a change of course in that direction to diplomacy. Trump has tasked an interagency team to conduct the negotiations, which includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and on the on-the-ground Russian ambassador Steve Witkoff. Remarkably, Keith Kellogg, special representative of Ukraine Russia, though has a meeting coming up, is not on the original list, to attend Ukraine after a meeting in Munich.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although willing to negotiate, has remained skeptical of Russia's motives. In an address on February 12, 2025, Zelenskyy warned that Putin "is not prepping for peace" as Russian hostilities persist, including a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv that left one person dead, inter alia. Zelenskyy asked allies to reiterate the pressure on Russia and pointed out that "strong measures" can only halt the "violence", i.e., the ongoing violence. He has also emphasized that a peace agreement with Ukraine should involve not only and/or by the United States of America, Europe, Ukraine and Russia, to establish a lasting peace, in addition, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine is obliged to be maintained.
In contrast, Russia has maintained a rigid stance. Furthermore, representatives of the Kremlin (for instance, Deputy Minister of foreign affairs Sergei Ryabkov) have declared that the fighting will stop upon completion of all of Putin's demands. These conditions, defined in Putin's address on June 14, 2024, are the Ukrainian rejection of the possibility of joining NATO and the suspension of the Russian military in the four occupied administrative units (provinces walled by the Russian army). The Kremlin has also suggested that peace talks could only succeed if the "fundamental reasons" behind the conflict are addressed, a position that has raised concerns about Russia's willingness to compromise.
The U.S. approach in the Trump period has been one of increasingly confrontational towards Putin, but support for Ukraine has not been significantly increased. Trump has offered Ukraine a $500 million bargain to have access to rare-Earth minerals and gas in return for future peace agreement security guarantees. This proposal has been criticized by some as transactional, with Zelenskyy suggesting that Russia's attempts to discredit his presidency are aimed at excluding Kyiv from direct negotiations and favoring talks with the U.S. alone.
International reactions have been mixed. European political elite, with a special concern for NATO countries, is cautious about the Trumpian approach to negotiation agreements, even with the latest words of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who reiterated that the U.S. will not back (defer, endorse) Ukraine's NATO membership and the majority of the Ukrainian peace agreement platform. Analysts point out that the outcome is that there is very little room for maneuver left to Zelenskyy. In the meantime, the Chinese have also been proposed as a possible mediator, in fact, US President Donald Trump suggested that the Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, could be one of the mediators, which has aroused concern in the European partners.
Diplomatic pursuits are gaining momentum (office of United States Secretary of State, January 26, 2023), but peacemaking there is far from evident. On both sides, military activities are unabated with attacks against Russia's energy grid and against its civilian population by Ukraine, and attacks in Russia against UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). The next few weeks are going to be of the essence in deciding whether negotiations, in this case, can be instrumental in achieving a ceasefire and a long-lasting solution, or that they will break down, as they have done in 2022.
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