‘Putin only understands force’ Former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker on how Trump could seek to end the war
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to end Russia’s war in Ukraine by inauguration day. But in the weeks since his election win, the situation on the battlefield has been evolving rapidly. After entering the lame-duck phase of his presidency, Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use American missiles for longer-range strikes on the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces are trying to cling to territorial gains made during their surprise incursion into Russia in August. In response, Vladimir Putin ordered a strike on Ukraine’s Dnipro with a new ballistic missile and lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons, while accusing the United States and its allies of escalation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, has called on allies to continue pressuring Russia and supporting Ukraine — policies many fear Trump will abandon in his bid to broker a peace deal. For more insight into what Moscow and Kyiv can expect from the second Trump administration, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to Kurt Volker, former U.S. ambassador to NATO and Trump’s former special representative for Ukraine negotiations.
The following interview has been edited and abridged for length and clarity.
My first question is about the Biden administration’s recent decisions to authorize Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes deeper into Russian territory and to provide Ukraine with antipersonnel mines. What do you think of these policy shifts?
I have no idea why we didn’t just allow them to begin with. Why did we even have these restrictions? And if we’re willing to do it now, why weren’t we willing two years ago?
This idea of limiting the range of weapons use has no basis in international law. Ukraine is being attacked, it has a right to defend itself. Russia is attacking Ukraine from deep inside Russia — [there’s] no reason not to strike back. Having these restrictions was entirely made up by the Biden administration. They didn’t have to do it, and no one would’ve said a word. Now, Russia’s making a big deal about lifting these restrictions, and they should’ve never been there to begin with. So it’s a wholly manufactured issue and a very unfortunate one.
That said, it’s high time for these restrictions to be removed. I also don’t understand why we announce things. If we’re going to lift [restrictions], just lift them. If we’re going to provide landmines, provide landmines. This shouldn’t be a big deal.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war but he never went into detail about how he would approach getting Moscow and Kyiv to the negotiating table. What do you expect his strategy will be?
First off, there’s no problem getting Kyiv to a negotiating table, it’s getting Moscow. The problem with Putin is that his demands are to take over Ukraine, so nothing short of that is going to satisfy him. You can’t start talking about ceasefires, demilitarized zones, autonomous regions, and all that stuff and satisfy Putin because he’ll never be satisfied. Somebody like that just has to be stopped.
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I think what Trump will do is call Putin and tell him to stop the war, and I don’t think Putin will. He’ll make all these demands — Ukraine has to do this, and Ukraine has to do that — and even if he says, “Yeah, okay,” we’ll have this temporary stoppage and then they’ll blame Ukraine for not stopping because Russia will keep attacking anyway. I think it’s going to irritate Trump; it’s going to look like they’re just playing games.
I hope what Trump does is tell Putin not only to stop the war but if you don’t, we’re going let Ukraine borrow as much money as they need, and they can buy whatever they want to buy, and use it however they want to use it. That would be the right message to convey to Putin that Ukraine and the West are in a position of strength compared to Russia and they can outlast them.
What the Biden administration has done is the opposite. They’ve always hesitated, always delayed, always placed limits. So it conveys to Putin that we don’t really have the resolve, or the will, or the capacity. We have to flip that and convince Putin that we have as much capacity as we need, as much money as we need, [and] as much time as we need, so you’re only going to hurt yourself — so stop. I think that could be effective if that’s the way President Trump handles him.
According to media reports, the plans for ending the war Trump’s advisors are floating to him have to do with freezing the current front line, creating a demilitarized zone, suspending Ukraine’s NATO accession for 20 years…
These are all things that I think other people are floating. I don’t think this is coming from Trump.
You don’t think that Trump would be likely to pursue a deal along those lines?
President Trump is going to make his own decisions about what he’s going to do. None of these other people are in that position. And I don’t think he cares very much about these details, so these aren’t the drivers. What he cares about is ending the war; just stop the killing, this has to end. The rest of this people can talk about for years as far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t care.
So I don’t think these things are coming from Trump, and I don’t think they’re that relevant. Because, as I said before, with Putin it’s not a matter of this detail or that detail either. He just wants to take over Ukraine. So he has to be told in very simple language, You have to stop; this is it, no more. He has to be forced to stop.
If Trump’s priority is ending the war, full stop, do you have any concerns that he might prioritize ending the war over Ukraine winning the war?
Yes, if by winning, you mean Ukraine getting its territory back or a defeat of Russian forces. I think he would rather just end it right now without a defeat of Russian forces and without Ukraine getting its territory back militarily.
But if by winning, you mean that Ukraine is now a sovereign, independent, European democracy, has permanent security guarantees, ideally becomes a member of NATO and the E.U., and the war is over, then I think that’s very achievable. And then you have a dispute over the status of occupied territories in Ukraine, just like we had a dispute over the Baltic states for 40 years, or over eastern Germany, or like there’s still a dispute over Northern Cyprus within the E.U. That can persist for a long time without there being an active war.
Right, but that latter scenario is at odds with how Ukraine defines victory at the moment.
Yes, that’s right. And obviously you’re not going to do anything without talking to Ukraine. But I think the Ukrainians are also in need of an end to the war and the ability to move on. When you talk to some people in Ukraine — not everybody, but some people — they recognize that these territories in eastern Ukraine, for example, are largely destroyed and depopulated and so there’s much less of an attachment now than there was in the past.
In terms of freezing the front line, you often hear that this runs the risk of giving Russia an operational pause and that it’s just going to rearm and re-invade. But let’s say you have a scenario like the one you laid out. What opportunities do you think that would create for Ukraine?
First off, I think that’s exactly what Russia would do. They would take the pause, they’d rearm, and they’d plan to attack again. That’s why we have to be very clearly motivated to strengthen Ukraine and provide credible, serious security guarantees. In my view, that means NATO [membership], get them into the European Union, [and] rebuild their economy. All those things have to happen so that they’re in a stronger position in the future.
The opportunities for Ukraine are to strengthen the economy, get refugees back home, integrate into the European Union, and become part of NATO. And frankly, they’ll have a stable, resilient government because they’ll have democratic institutions, and [then they can] wait out Putin. Putin isn’t going to last forever and when he leaves the scene, in whatever way that happens, Russia’s going to change. It’s not necessarily going to be a wonderful, peaceful democracy, but I think almost everybody else among the elites in Russia knows that this war was a huge mistake and really costly to Russia, and I think they would want to regroup after [Putin].
Some Ukrainians are optimistic about the incoming Trump administration simply because they’re tired of this drawn out pace of U.S. support under Biden —
They describe that as “slow death.”
Exactly. So, how do you think Kyiv should approach working with the Trump administration if they’re going to make the strongest possible case for themselves?
I think they have to be unrelenting about [saying,] “We’re a sovereign, independent, European democracy and we’re not going away. We’re going to preserve Ukraine, and we’re grateful for the U.S. and the West for the support they’ve given us. We’re not against peace — we actually want peace.”
President Zelensky has put out a peace plan, they had a conference in [Switzerland] this year trying to promote peace, so we’re all in favor of that. The obstacle to peace is Putin, who wants to have a war. So that’s what we need to focus on: How do you convince Putin to stop the war?
And then, if he can be stopped, that peace needs to become permanent. That’s where these steps for strengthening Ukraine’s position come in. They should keep pushing for NATO and the E.U., and be reasonable about that. NATO Article 5 would only apply to the territory the government actually controls; you have a dispute over the occupied territories but you agree not to retake them militarily. Those sorts of things, I think, would be very reasonable from Kyiv’s point of view, provided it all starts with enough support for Ukraine to stop Putin and to guarantee Ukraine’s success.
Fox News reported last week that Trump plans to appoint a peace envoy to lead negotiations on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. This sounds similar to the role you held during the first Trump administration. Before I ask a hypothetical question, is it you?
No, no.
What would be your advice to someone stepping into this role now?
What we said earlier is the most important thing to understand: Keep it simple. This isn’t about this or that political fix, or changing Ukraine’s constitution. Don’t get bogged down in stuff like that — that’s all a distraction. The issue is stopping Putin; either he stops the war or he doesn’t. You can’t satisfy him with this stratagem or that stratagem. He only understands force and when the force is aligned against him, then you have a chance of stopping the war. So just keep it simple and stay focused on that, and be prepared to build and show strength because that’s what Putin responds to.
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Interview by Eilish Hart