Analysis | Trump presses to quickly end the war in Ukraine, but many things could go very bad

CNN
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The lazy and brief elements of a peace plan for Ukraine are taking shape. Despite a relative silence in policies on this war by a Trump administration that is usually still expressive, in the next two weeks important indicators of public route appear. It is unknown if they will achieve any support in the Kremlin.

Last week, US president Donald Trump officially appointed the retired general Keith Kellogg, as his envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Almost Kellogg’s first act was announced that he would discuss his vision of peace in Ukraine with the allies at the Munich Security Conference, from February 14 to 16. It is expected that, four days later, Kyiv visit in his first and expected trip there, according to Ukrainian state media.

Each of Kellogg’s statements is anxiously analyzed in Kyiv. He responded to the suggestions that at the Munich conference the draft of a peace plan would be publicly revealed and told Newsmax: “The person who will present the peace plan is the president of the United States, not Keith Kellogg.” Trump will have the potential great revelation, apparently, after Kellogg consults with his allies in Germany.

Trump has tried to launch the process, it seems, in recent days and on Saturday he declared to the New York Post that he had spoken with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, about the end of the war, but did not give details. The Kremlin refused to confirm that call, but spokesman Dmitri Peskov told CNN: “There could be something I don’t know.”

It could be expected that a complex diplomatic symphony would be sang to try to end the greatest war in Europe since the 40s. On the other hand, at least in public, an improvised version of Karaoke online causes participants to fight to maintain the same melody .

Trump has been surprisingly explicit in terms of the need to put an end to the conflict, but has not given public ideas. He launched the idea of ​​meeting with the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky this week. However, a date has not been set and Trump’s comments seemed an impromptu answer to a question about whether his ambitious vice president JD Vance would meet with Zelensky in Munich. In truth, we don’t know how much it happens in private. The Kremlin has hinted “intensified” discussions and the United States National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, has spoken of work in private.

Unusually, Kellogg Plan for Peace has been made public since April, which provides a stable frame of reference with which to compare the real details of an agreement. In summary, it implied that Ukraine received more military aid in exchange for negotiations and a ceasefire, followed by a possible deployment of European peace forces in the front lines.

Kellogg has also suggested that a cessation of the initial fire could be the time to hold elections in Ukraine, if a truce is possible to establish. This week, in the Ukrainian media an alleged calendar appeared for any agreement, which suggested a high fire around the Easter of Resurrection at the end of April, a peace conference and a broader agreement in May, but only presidential elections for The country in August. The presidency also placed this idea, considering it false. But the leaks, invented or not, will continue to arrive, because all parties will try to launch or reject ideas.

It is difficult not to interpret the call for elections as a way of making Zelensky be done to the side slowly and perhaps offer an incentive for the Kremlin to sit at the negotiating table. The animosity of the Ukrainian leader towards Putin is unsurpassed, whose invasion has devastated large areas of Ukraine and has allegedly committed war crimes against its citizens. Zelensky and the US president also had a tense relationship during his first mandate for Trump’s demand to investigate the Biden family.

Zelensky now enters a phase in which the two most powerful voices in any peace agreement do not share the generalized adulation he has enjoyed by the West for three years.

Rumors about elections have unleashed unbridled speculations in Kyiv about Zelensky’s future. In the last week he has granted long interviews, in which he sometimes seemed angry and anxious for Ukraine not to be the center of conversations. In his daily speech on Thursday he was “sure” that “there” was not an official peace plan. He added: “What certain publications say, I repeat, I am sure that maybe I am wrong, but I am sure that it is not an official plan of President Trump.” His superior staff has spoken with Kellogg and Waltz in recent days, they have said. But Zelensky is no longer an unsurpassed figure.

Heading some surveys, in case of presidential elections in Ukraine, is Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the military chief dismissed by Zelensky last year. Zalyuzhnii is currently Ambassador of Ukraine in the United Kingdom and was recently photographed by meeting with British Foreign Minister David Lammy, in Kyiv.

The elections in Ukraine are currently delayed as part of the martial law, with the valid argument that the country – under constant bombing, with millions of its inhabitants in physical war or refugees abroad, and defending themselves from an aggressive neighbor who has interfered vigorously in your votes for two decades – you cannot have a free and fair choice until there is peace.

But a cessation of the initial fire could provide that calm, and even an opportunity for Zelensky Negotiate a broader agreement. Zalzyuzhnii could demand the loyalty of the Ukraine Armed Forces to reach a less than perfect agreement with Moscow.

But it can also happen that many things that go very badly. Electoral chaos can generate an imperfect or questioned result. A greater pro -prorusal feeling can reach the polls, through computer piracy or irregularities. The threat of corruption investigations causes many officials to worry about their own destination. It is the type of chaos that would be expected in times of war and that is why the elections can be excessive complexity.

This conflict has been defined as one of the most unexpected. Zelensky has been compared to a modern Winston Churchill, who has given the force that he didn’t know he needed. It would be consistent with the wild hesitations of the war that would be set aside at the time of greatest vulnerability of Ukraine.

Another obstacle to peace is whether Kremlin wants it now or not. They are currently winning on the battlefield, not at a fast pace, but they gain ground. The Russian forces seem to have taken the city of Toretsk and could soon capture Pokrovsk, more inside the Ukrainian region of Donetsk. This would also leave them relatively open land to the key cities of DNIPRO and ZAPORIYIA. It is not clear why Russia would seek to freeze its advance in the front line when Ukraine, in the words of a frontline soldier to CNN, “does not have much to say about it.”

This week we will see how fragments of a private plan come to the public (or spontaneously imagined) for peace. Each nuance affects the lives of millions of Ukrainians and dictates security in Europe for decades. Even Taiwan is safer if Russia does not embarray. As the silhouette of a plan appears to the surface, they only have to expect it to be as serious as the moment.