Some analysts are claiming that Putin “won the war” after Trump held a phone conversation with Putin on February 12 going over the heads of Europe and without consulting Ukraine. The two leaders have proposed to meet in Riyadh for a bilateral negotiation, again without the participation of Kyiv or Brussels and the Trump team has already conceded to two of Putin’s three main demands to end the war.

Zelenskiy was particularly upset, saying in public that the fact that Trump had a phone conversation with Putin before calling him was deeply upsetting for him. Zelenskiy said on February 13 Ukraine would never accept any bilateral agreements cut between the US and Russia on its fate without participating in the talks.

Under the Biden administration, the line was that only Ukraine could decide how and when to end the war, but Trump appears to be taking matters into his own hands and will do a deal over Zelenskiy’s head.

After being blindsided by US President Donald Trump's call with President Putin, European leaders also rallied on February 13 saying that the EU and Ukraine must be included in any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

European leaders are afraid of Trump cutting a “quick and dirty” deal to bring the war to an end that will not take Kyiv’s needs into account and lumber Europe with the burden of supporting Ukraine in the post war period.

Moscow is clearly relishing the prospect of one-on-one talks between Putin and Trump. The Kremlin has already seized the gauntlet, saying it is willing to negotiate with the US “in a tough bargaining mode, taking into account the realities on the ground and national interests,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said, who heads up US relations in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, echoing the position put forward by Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Putin himself has repeatedly signalled he is waiting for Trump to make the first move. He claimed that “if Trump’s victory was not stolen in the 2020 [election], there would be no war” and that the new US president “will quickly bring Europe’s political small fry into order.”

This will be the third attempt to bring the war to an end. The first was the failed Istanbul peace deal in April 2022 that floundered at the last minute when Zelenskiy rejected it after the West failed to offer him security deals to prevent a renewed Russian attack sometime in the future. Preliminary talks to negotiate an end to Russia’s bombing campaign against Ukraine’s energy assets was slated to happen in August last year in Qatar, but was called off before it began after Ukraine launched the Kursk incursion. However, with all sides war weary and running out of resources, this attempt to end the war looks the most likely to succeed.

No Nato after all

As the talks get closer some of the rhetoric that has sustained Ukraine over the last three years has begun to fall away. Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte admitted this week that Ukraine has “never been promised Nato membership”, which has been a core demand from Zelenskiy, recently repeated as the top item in his victory plan.

Ukraine's Nato membership could happen, but only after 25 years, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth told the BreitbartNews portal in an interview on February 12. He went on to say some positions ahead of negotiations on settlement in Ukraine, including that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is "unrealistic," that no US troops would be deployed to Ukraine, dashing hopes of a Nato-back peacekeeping force to ensure a post-war peace.

"Nato membership was unlikely considering the realities of where we are. No one’s throwing a stake in the ground for 25 years from now or any defined period of time," he said.

"It’s just a recognition that <...> if we want a negotiated peace, you want a ceasefire, you want an opportunity for enduring peace, realistically, right now that’s not in the cards — just like going back to the 2014 borders realistically right now is not in the cards. That’s not a that’s not a definitive value statement."

This began in February 2022 after Russia demanded “ironclad guarantees” that Ukraine never join Nato and invaded the country after the US and EU refused to promise to exclude Ukraine. However, it has been clear from the start that Ukraine’s Nato accession was never on the cards, although throughout the war, EU officials have said that the country’s “natural place” is in Nato.

Despite Rutte and Hegseth's admission that Ukraine was not going to be admitted to Nato, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer repeated the rhetorical line that Ukraine's path to Nato membership is “irreversible.”

The Ukrainian delegation to peace talks in Brest at the start of the war actually agreed to forego its Ukraine’s Nato ambitions in March 2022 in the first month of the war, as part of the failed Istanbul peace deal, only to backtrack on that commitment after being persuaded by former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to fight on. Since then accelerated Nato accession has become a core demand of Zelenskiy, who has argued that it’s the “cheapest” option for his Western allies.

Zelenskiy has made it clear that real security deals with the West is essential for any lasting peace, but as those hopes rapidly recede in the last few days, he has also said that Ukraine will have to build its “own Nato” by beefing up the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to at least 1.5mn men and investing heavily into Ukraine’s domestic defence production sector.

Land give away

Bloomberg analysts outlined three possible scenarios for ending the war:

● Most likely scenario: Ukraine's occupied territories will remain under Russia's de facto control, barring some minor land swaps, including the return of the Kursk region to Russia. Ukraine will receive partial security guarantees but not commitments to military support in the event a new attack.

● Ideal scenario: the US and EU commit to intervene bilaterally if Russia violates the ceasefire, as well as increase military support for Ukraine and renew or enhance sanctions against Russia. Assist Ukraine in rapidly developing its defence industry and rebuilding its army to serve as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.

● Worst-case scenario: Trump loses interest even before a settlement agreement is reached; military and financial aid are cut off, and Europeans forced to independently support Ukraine. Ukraine's sovereignty will be preserved, but Putin is allowed to consolidate significant gains, taking control of a large amount of mineral-rich territory and blocking Ukraine's accession to Nato.

Not only is Nato membership off the table, it is almost certain that Zelenskiy will be forced to cede most of the 20% of Ukraine Russia currently occupies.

The US delegation has become increasingly explicit on the loss of territory in recent days with special envoy to Ukraine retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg telling Fox News this week that Ukraine’s possible territorial losses may be “formalized without recognition by the US.”

"I think there will be a certain agreement on the potential loss of territory. But, look, you don't have to admit it," US Kellogg said on February 13, leaving Ukraine in a similar position as northern Cyprus or Georgia’s breakaway regions following an eight-day war with Russia in 2008.

Hegseth tried to put a positive spin on the territorial give way in separate remarks. "I think realism is an important part of the conversation that hasn't existed enough inside conversations amongst friends, but simply pointing out realism like the borders won't be rolled back to what everybody would like them to be in 2014 is not a concession to Vladimir Putin," he said.

Two out of Putin’s three demands met

Trump’s team has already given away two out three of Putin’s key demands to end the war: no Nato for Ukraine and major territorial concessions where Russia will keep land it already occupies. What is missing is Putin’s demand that sanctions on Russia be eased. Summer 2024, Putin said the removal of all sanctions was an essential precondition for Russia to enter talks.

As bne IntelliNews recently outlined, easing sanctions is one of the few levers the West has over Putin. Most of the sanctions have failed and have boomeranged back to hurt Europe more than they have hurt Russia. Easing some of these restrictions would alleviate some of Europe’s economic pain more than they would benefit Russia’s embattled economy which is cooling, but the political inertia the sanctions regime has built will be hard to halt or reverse. The EU is currently preparing a sixteenth package of sanctions that will be released next week on the third anniversary of the start of the war.

The alternative is to threaten to increase the number and severity of the sanctions on Russia and indeed, last year’s US financial sanctions and the recently released harshest oil sanctions have proven to be particularly effective, after the previous disappointments. Trump himself has threatened extreme tariffs for Russia and a blanket 100% tariff on all BRICS goods. He has also threatened to sink the price of oil, which could do serious damage to Russia’s fiscal health.

It is not clear which way Trump will go. Trump’s advisers and cabinet members are divided in their views on what pressure should be applied and on which side. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Ukraine envoy Kellogg want to increase pressure on Russia to force it to begin negotiations. On the other hand, others advocate reducing aid to Ukraine to force Kyiv to agree to end the conflict as quickly as possible.

EU left holding the baby

The EU leaders are alarmed at being left on their own to support Ukraine should the war continue and Trump has already made it clear that he expects Europe to shoulder most of the responsibilities for ensuring compliance with the terms of a potential agreement. One of Trump’s core beliefs is that the war in Ukraine is a European affair, whereas former US President Joe Biden saw the Ukrainian conflict as a threat to global order.

All three of Ukraine’s major backers – France, Germany and the UK – are facing budget crises. Both Germany and France have already significantly cut allocations to Ukraine as they run out of money. A Dutch study released this week ahead of the MSC estimates that if the war continues it will cost Europe $3.1 trillion over the next decade to bolster not only Ukraine’s defences, but their own in the face of open aggression by Russian in their own backyard – money that an increasingly stagnating Europe doesn’t have. And that is before calculating in the estimated $500bn-$1 trillion needed to rebuild Ukraine’s economy – spending that currently remains entirely unfunded other than an estimated $75bn the International Financial Institutions are expected to commit.

Rebuilding the Ukrainian Armed Forces could cost $175bn and a modest 40,000-strong peacekeeping force to police a mooted demilitarised zone (DMZ) would cost another $30bn. But the most significant expense would be strengthening EU members' militaries by increasing individual defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, The Telegraph reported.

Moreover, the EU members are scrapping the barrel of their weapons stockpiles to supply Ukraine, after tardy investment into the European defence sector has failed to keep up with Russia. Experts say that Russia is now producing more weapons a year than all of the EU members combined. However, after heavy investment and a 500% increase in defence sector production last year, Kyiv is increasingly able to supply itself, but several senior EU politicians have recently said that Europe is not able to support Ukraine without US help going forward. No one in Europe wants to see the US abandon the talks.

The foreign ministers of France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany, and the EU issued a joint statement: "We share the goal of continuing to support Ukraine until a just, comprehensive, and sustainable peace is achieved. A peace that guarantees the interests of Ukraine and its European allies. We look forward to discussing the way forward together with our American allies. Our common goal should be to ensure a position of strength for Ukraine. Ukraine and Europe should participate in any negotiations."

The politicians emphasized that only a “just” agreement with security guarantees can become the basis for sustainable peace. The Foreign Ministries of Germany and Spain noted that no decision on Ukraine should be made without Ukraine.