- President Trump held his latest conversation with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
- The two agreed to set in motion a reduction of targeting in Ukraine, with more negotiations later.
- There are still serious — and difficult — questions ahead to end Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
After being bullied into accepting the American proposal, Ukraine has signaled a willingness to accept US-made plans for a cease-fire with Russia. Moscow doesn't seem to be on the same page.
President Donald Trump spoke on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The two leaders agreed on a preliminary reduction in missile and drone attacks on energy and infrastructure, setting the stage for follow-on negotiations, according to a White House readout of the call. The agreement does not end Russia's effort to seize more land from Ukraine, which is happening amid a reduction in US arms support.
"The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace," the US readout said. "These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East."
The readout lays out a framework for further talks to end the war, but it remains unclear whether Ukraine will be part of those direct negotiations and whether the Russian leader is willing to end the war.
It has been a hard road, and there are tough questions hanging over the Trump administration's efforts to end the bloodshed in this three-year war that Russia launched to dominate Ukraine at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and devastated cities and towns.
Some of the looming questions are whether a cease-fire deal, as Trump has sought, is achievable and will hold, how Kyiv's security can be guaranteed, and what will deter Russia from invading again. On some of these issues, the history is far from reassuring.
Ukraine will need to maintain a large standing force and a wartime defense industry, with Western arms backing, to defend itself if the front lines are frozen. An added element would be an international peacekeeping force of 30,000 that still may not be enough to slow a renewed Russian offensive.
Can Russia be trusted?
The biggest challenge with a cease-fire deal could be getting it to actually hold. Russia has violated previous agreements with Ukraine since the invasion first began in 2014, not to mention earlier ones.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced these concerns during last month's Oval Office meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance when the Ukrainian leader pointed to the fact that Putin broke a cease-fire deal with Kyiv in 2019. The Ukrainian president was then accused of not wanting peace.
Kyiv has long feared that a cease-fire would be a respite for the bruised Russian army, a breather before it takes another swing. Russia, which currently has the battlefield initiative and is closing the Kursk salient while pressing forward inside Ukraine, has said it worries about giving the Ukrainians a chance to rest.
Defense experts at the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a January analysis of efforts to end this war that "Ukraine will need to determine how to deter Russia from using any period of calm as an opportunity to rearm, wait for the world to lower its collective guard, and then attack again."
Trump has said that he trusts Putin. The same can't be said for Zelenskyy.
The distrust between Kyiv and Moscow could be trouble in negotiations. Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Ukraine's "stumbling block" will be security guarantees. He told BI that Russia would also need to step back from maximum demands regarding Ukrainian sovereignty, territory, and disarmament to get to a cessation of hostilities.
It is very possible that a cease-fire without strong arms support to Ukraine and a reduction in Russian aims fails to end or even substantially pause the war.
The US has leverage over Ukraine because of its heavy arms support, but excluding Ukraine from direct talks with Russia may lead to a flawed cease-fire framework.
Can Ukraine's security be guaranteed?
After Tuesday's talks between Trump and Putin, the Russian leader said he wants Western countries to stop arming Ukraine as a condition to end the war, according to Russian state media.
This raises questions about Ukraine's security during the cease-fire process.
Kyiv has asked NATO for considerable security guarantees as part of a cease-fire deal with Russia. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe and defends a 600-mile frontline through its land from the Black Sea to its northern border with Russia.
While the UK and France have both indicated they are willing to send forces to Ukraine as part of a multinational security presence to ensure that Russia doesn't violate a cease-fire, Moscow has said it will not accept NATO countries participating in such plans. Even if it warms to the idea, it's a delicate and tricky situation.
Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an analysis that a multinational force would demand structure, including an overarching strategy, unambiguous rules of engagement, and a very clear mission statement, among all the various other political and military considerations.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last month that any security guarantees must come from European and non-European militaries and not be deployed as part of a NATO mission. He said the US would not send troops to Ukraine.
However, Vance said just days later that the US could send troops to Ukraine if Russia doesn't negotiate in good faith.
Michael Waltz, Trump's national security advisor, said over the weekend that Ukraine might have to concede territory to Russia in exchange for security guarantees; Russia still occupies around 20% of Ukrainian territory in the east and south. What these guarantees might ultimately be remains uncertain.
"Security guarantees must be tangible," Cancian said, noting that assurances on paper mean very little.
"We saw from the Budapest agreements of 1994 that signatures on a piece of paper are just that," Cancian said of the agreement that pledged the US, UK, and Russia wouldn't use force against Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons. Russia then invaded the country exactly two decades later.
If Ukraine can't get Western forces to help ensure its security, history paints a bleak picture of potential outcomes. The Korean War is a frozen conflict, one in which aggression is deterred by around 30,000 US troops and the American nuclear umbrella. The grim alternatives when a country's security isn't guaranteed can be seen in the collapse of South Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Experts say that Ukraine needs to bolster its defenses to be self-sufficient, regardless of security guarantees.
In their CFR analysis, Paul Stares and Michael O'Hanlon argued that any strategy should focus on strengthening Ukraine's military with strong deterrence abilities. They argued that post-war force planning should start now.
Stares and O'Hanlon said that Ukraine needs a multilayered territorial defense system for the territory it still controls.
"This step," they wrote, "would comprise a hardened outer defense perimeter, a strategic rapid-response force to respond to serious threats, and enhanced protection for major population centers and critical infrastructure." They called for an active-duty force of 500,000 and nearly the same in ready reserve.
To deter Russian military power, Ukraine will need to further fortify its long lines with Russia and rebuild its arsenal with an aim that should Russian forces attack, they will be slowed by a defense-in-depth strategy, buying time for Ukraine to counter-attack. Layered defenses have proven effective and contributed to the war's largely static lines.
An international peacekeeping force could serve as conflict monitors. They could also have orders to assist Ukraine in fighting off a renewed Russian attack, a contribution that may be especially useful if they have air forces with stand-off weapons that can airstrike Russian assault columns.
Can Russia be deterred?
Ukrainian and European officials have said that hard military power and smart decision-making are needed to deter potential future Russian aggression.
The European parliament said last week that Ukraine "must be empowered to reject hasty deals that weaken its security in the mid- and long-term and risk subjecting it and other European countries to renewed Russian aggression in the future."
A belligerent Russia poses a threat beyond Ukraine. It has one of the world's largest arms industries and is mass-producing the firepower needed to advance on modern battlefields. Analysts worry it may only need a few years to regroup to re-attack Ukraine or seek conquest elsewhere.
Parallel to the Ukraine war, there have been consistent concerns about increasing Russian aggression on NATO soil, especially amid questions of US support for the alliance under the Trump administration. These developments have pushed European countries to rearm and strengthen their militaries to deter Moscow.
"In Europe, the long-term risk is a renewal of conflict after Russia has been able to rebuild its military forces," said Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel. "In the Pacific, the risk is that China will see this partial Putin victory as an encouraging precedent for taking over Taiwan."
Russia could choose to go after Ukraine again. It could choose another target. Ukraine isn't the first European country it's invaded. How this war eventually ends will shape Moscow's thinking, either deterring or emboldening it.
