Former President Trump and President Zelensky will be meeting on Friday, as had been expected. In this context, we think it worth re-flagging a point we have made before but we believe remains underappreciated, which is that while a potentially reelected Trump 2.0 would certainly struggle to convince Ukraine of the merits of the ‘Trump peace plan,’ perhaps even greater would be Russia’s reluctance to
adopt the mooted roadmap.
- Indeed, we see at least three major obstacles to Russia’s acquiescence:
- 1) Rightly or wrongly, Russian President Vladimir Putin feels as though he is winning the war. Seen from that perspective, Russia would therefore have ‘more to lose’ from a ceasefire than Ukraine.
- 2) While the obvious ‘sweetener’ a future President Trump might turn to to convince the Kremlin would likely be sanctions-relief, the US lacks control over the two levers Russia is likely to be most interested in:
- I) Access to its c. USD 280 bn in frozen foreign exchange reserves (of which the US only controls 5-8 bn).
- II) Access to the European gas market (with Trump unable to ‘force’ Europeans into buying more Russian gas).
- 3) The Trump peace plan envisions Ukraine (controversially) becoming ‘smaller’ (via territorial concessions), but also stronger (via security guarantees from, and greater anchoring to, the West). The notion that such a proposition would appeal to Putin in our view overstates his interest in Ukrainian land over Ukrainian submission.
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Andrew D. Bishop
Senior Partner, Global Head of Policy Research
Head, Washington, D.C. Office | Signum Global
Signum Global Advisors is a policy and strategy firm with offices in New York, London, Washington and Dubai. |
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