Speculation About Future of War in Ukraine Intensifies

The imminent change in presidential administrations in the United States has fueled speculation about what 2025 may hold for Ukraine and its war with Ukraine. 

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end the war within 24 hours following his return to office. While that appears unlikely, Trump’s transition team has signaled that resolving the fighting will be an immediate priority for the new administration. 

The Reuters news service reported Dec. 17 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-ukraine-envoy-plans-january-trip-kyiv-other-european-capitals-2024-12-17/ that Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy, retired lieutenant Keith Kellogg, is set travel to Kyiv and other European capitals in early January on a fact-finding mission.      

“Allies and advisers to Trump have advocated or outlined multiple plans to wind down the Ukraine war, all of which would result in Ukraine ceding large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future,” Reuters noted. 

Kellogg, who served Vice President Mike Pence as his national security adviser during Trump’s first term in office, has proposed that Ukraine/Russia battle lines be frozen and NATO membership for Ukraine be taken off the table. 

Raja Menon, writing in The New York Times in December, cited four possible scenarios https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/opinion/ukraine-russia-security-guarantees.html for ending the war. 

Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at the Powell School at City College of New York and senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Salzman Institute War and Peace Studies. Like many other observers, he believes the chances for an end to ther war now seem likelier than ever. 

He cites a Gallup poll in which 52 percent of Ukrainians favored a quick, negotiated end to the war versus 27 percent a year earlier. 

Menon’s four scenarios for Ukraine’s future security: 

• NATO membership. This is a long shot. Menon notes that a unanimous vote is required to admit a new member to Ukraine and seven countries have been reported to oppose Ukraine’s entry or to favor deferring it indefinitely. Opponents include the United States. 

• A coalition of the willing pledges to protect Ukraine. The trouble with that possibility, Menon points out, is that Ukraine “won’t consider any coalition reliable unless it is fortified by American troops and weaponry.” Trump, meanwhile, has said that he wants to scale back U.S. security commitments in Europe. 

• Europe takes the lead by stationing troops in postwar Ukraine. There have been tentative, preliminary talks about such a possibility, but no decisions or commitments have been made. 

• Armed neutrality. Explains Menon, “This would require Russia to pledge not to attack Ukraine and for Ukraine to forswear both NATO membership and the deployment of foreign troops and arms on it soil.” While it would leave Ukraine more vulnerable than other options, Menon views as likely the most achievable tack. 

The course of the war and its possible unwinding will have a profound bearing on efforts by ArroTech, a TechFarms tenant, to commence and expand demining operations in Ukraine, employing its GEON E61 drone/metal-detecting system. 

At the conclusion of his commentary Menon sounds a note that is at once optimistic and ominous: 

“After more than 1,000 days of a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed large parts of Ukraine, the end may be approaching,” Menon writes. “But for a durable peace, rather than a freeze just long enough for Russia to regroup and re-attack, it’s what comes afterward that counts.”