In the old days of the econoblogosphere, there were regular and often intense exchanges about what the decent-sized community of finance practitioners, economists, journalists, and other experts trying to understand what was going on, since alarmingly top officials were clearly way behind the curve. That included occasional critiques of posts by individuals we more often cited, which in my case included Paul Krugman (back in the days when he was sane), Felix Salmon, and Steve Waldman. But that does not seem to happen much if at all in this era of podcasts, YouTubing, and Substackers. So I trust this post on why there will not be a negotiated settlement with in Ukraine will be taken in that spirit, that highlighting points of disagreement is essential in coming to better approximations of reality.
The very short version of the argument is that top Russian officials, most visibly Putin, have taken to regularly and in very long form describing the US and Western record of duplicity, not just with Ukraine but on other fronts. This line of commentary has only become more pointed and the bill of particulars of Western treachery, longer.
This means the Russians are clearly, repeatedly, and consistently saying any agreement with the West would be worthless. The obvious implication isn’t simply that there would be nothing to gain in signing one, but that it would be self-destructive to do so, since it would give Russia a false sense of security that the West would exploit, as it has again and again and again.
In other words, all of the focus on the content of a potential agreement misses the elephant in the room: the content is almost irrelevant. Russians cannot get to a process by which the perfidious West can be made trustworthy.
The second impediment to a deal is political time versus military time. We saw a version of this phenomenon in the financial crisis.1 Here, Trump flailing about to try to find leverage over Russia, when there is none to be had, means that he looks to be falling into the trap Steve Bannon and many others have warned about, of coming to own the Ukraine war, as opposed to dumping the mess on the Europeans.2
Finally, to address briefly the provocative headline point, your truly is NOT saying that a Ukraine government in exile (which would mainly be a Western-face-saving device) is a likely outcome. But despite Zelensky being on the ropes, the fact that he is still in office and has eviscerated domestic opposition means that he has considerable, and generally underestimated, survival skills.3 His green T-shirt act is protective coloring.
The EU is in a panic about what to do about Trump attempting to pull the rug out from under them, from demands for sudden and large increases in military funding to tariff threats to the insistence that the US will seize Greenland from Denmark, which amount to a declaration of war. Having the ferociously anti-Russia UK host a Ukraine government in exile is at best a high-profile poke in the eye, but the non-US NATO members are likely very keen to preserve a fig leaf of agency. And recall MI-6 is widely believed to be a moving force behind some of the high profile Ukraine terrorism stunts, such as the Kerch bridge truck bombing.
So in a more ambitious “government in exile” scenario, the UK (and EU) could try (stress “try”) to mount a campaign of terrorism in Russia. Such a move, were it to occur, would be exceptionally unlikely to move any needles, but the Western press would be sure to pretend otherwise.
Russia Officials Have Been Saying More and More Pointedly That the West Cannot Be Trusted…So Why Exactly Should They Bother With Negotiations?
Early in the Ukraine conflict, much of the commentary focused on battlefield action. As the Russians now obviously have the advantage, as the Western press has finally had to concede, the line-of-contact updates perversely seem to be of less interest, and so many have turned to the Trump promise to end the war, which has become a bit of an exercise in Trumpology, as in very high noise to signal.
Many of these discussions turn to the content of what a theoretical agreement could look like in light of the repeated Trump statements that he wants to end the conflict.
The wee problem with this formulation is that Trump wants not just to end the war but to be seen as ending the war. He has resorted to grasping at straws4 to pretend that he is the Big Man driving events. Sadly, this is the Trump-personalized version of the Biden fantasy:
We’re the most powerful nation in the history of the world. We can take care of Israel and Ukraine and still maintain our overall international defense. pic.twitter.com/j3ajSs5sG8
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 16, 2023
So we have Trump trying to pretend he has leverage over Russia, threatening to continue the war with his new pet idea of mortgaging Ukraine assets, including ones it no longer controls and ones it is set to lose control of soon, and yet more Russia sanctions.
The fact that Trump has not yet set a date for a meeting with Putin or an official call,5 and is instead (somehow) going to use the Munich Security Conference for messaging is a further admission of weakness or at best, a gross misunderstanding of the Russian position. It also may be a concession to another complication, one that Alex Vershinin pointed out in a RUSI paper, that the war against Ukraine is a coalition war. That leads to the dynamic we’ve mentioned before: the need to negotiate within Team West to decide what to do next, including what positions to advance. So if the Vance presentation is to do anything other than convey some “don’t expect more US money or free weapons” tough love, it’s more proof that Team Trump is wrestling with the war tar baby.
Trump may really believe that Russia is taking big losses and that its economy is suffering, along with his self-discrediting patter about Ukraine having lots of “rare earth”. That would equate to time being on the Collective West side. But if he actually thought that, he would not keep bringing up Ukraine and trying to act as if he is Doing Something. He could afford to a make a Big Man statement to the effect of “Russia needs to come to its senses, we can’t make them do that, Putin needs to call us” and hang back.
But let us not get caught in the trap of thinking overmuch about the Western side. To make the Russian long story very short, Putin has been admittedly playing a bit of three-card monte, which is not his normal style, in repeatedly, even floridly saying that Russia is open to negotiations. But for instance, in his massive end of year press conference, he stated that he was willing to talk without preconditions, and then immediately walked that back by reiterating what amounted to preconditions. My best guess that this is posturing for the benefit of Russia’s big economic allies. Fortunately, the US and NATO have been so unreasonable that the bar for Russia to look accommodating has been set very low.
After that, Putin ruffled some feathers in the Western media in the first in series of recent interviews with Pavel Zarubin. In the late January talk, Putin reiterated his earlier remarks that a Zelensky-imposed October 2022 ban against negotiations with Russia would need to be removed for anything to move forward. But since Zelensky was no longer the legitimate leader of Ukraine, per the Russian reading of the Ukraine constitution, he could not take this step. There was some upset that Putin was saying he could not negotiate with Zelensky. But Putin has been saying that for months, that Zelensky would need to hold a vote and be re-elected before anything he did in an official capacity could be seen as binding. As far as I could tell, the only change in Putin’s stance was making explicit what was clearly implied in longer, earlier recitations, and showing some exasperation in doing so.
The focus on this particular element of Putin’s ongoing discussions is that the Western press has chosen to ignore what comes close to Putin filibustering over time on the depth and extent of US/NATO dishonesty. He admittedly does regularly add new bits of evidence to his long-running indictment. It’s hard to think Putin is doing this for the benefit of a domestic audience. Again presumably it’s primarily aimed at Russia’s allies, nearly all of whom are still trying to stay on good terms with the US. But Putin has become more hard-edged in his critique and his stance as Russia’s battlefield position continues to improve, yet the West has yet to come to grips with that.6
For one-stop shopping on the depth of Russia’s fully-earned distrust, please read Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at an embassy roundtable discussion, The Ukraine crisis: Failed cancel culture, Moscow, February 5, 2025. Here, Lavrov extends the idea of “cancel culture,” as in attempting to extinguish the Russian state and Russian identity, to the broader notion that that the US has embarked on tearing down any pretense of hewing to laws or its own agreements. His very long bill of particulars includes how the US has suborned the UN to do its bidding, for instance, by refusing to take any bare minimum steps sought by Russia to get to the bottom of the Bucha massacre, which was one of the pretenses for breaking off the Istanbul negotiations.
A key paragraph:
But this is already a broader topic – the architecture of world order, the fate of the globalisation system which the United States built, only to then cancel it once they realised it no longer served their interests. It benefits those who agreed to work within the rules of this system – free competition, respect for property, presumption of innocence, among many others. All that was propagated has now been cancelled, because it does not serve the interests of the United States. What serves its interests today are ultimatums. We will see how this unfolds. As yet, we have not had the opportunity to observe the actions of the new American administration in practical terms.
Consider the statement by Iran’s supreme leader two days after Lavrov’s recitation. Per France24:
“You should not negotiate with such a government, it is unwise, it is not intelligent, it is not honourable to negotiate,” Khamenei said during a meeting with army commanders.
The United States had previously “ruined, violated, and tore up” a 2015 nuclear deal, he said, adding that “the same person who is in power now tore up the treaty”.
On Wednesday, Trump suggested striking a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, adding in his social media post that Tehran “cannot have a Nuclear Weapon”.
Some commentators have argued that this means that Khamenei might consider a multi-party negotiation. I find that to be an exceedingly strained reading. Khamenei has stated that the US is fundamentally untrustworthy. The JCPOA had been a multiparty deal, ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany and the EU. So Iran should repeat the same failed experiment and expect a different outcome?
Khamenei in fact is saying out loud what is implicit in the extended Russian critique of US conduct. Again, Russia may feel compelled out of its desire to model best practices in the emerging multipolar world, as well as to get communications with the US out of the deep freeze (there are issues other that Ukraine, after all) so as to indulge US approaches. But official interactions, even on a contested topic, and negotiations are not the same.
I once attempted to come to an agreement with a party I did not trust. The result was a very long contract draft that would have adequately protected my interests that they rejected and took umbrage at the message it conveyed, that I thought I needed very strong legal protection.
Here, even if the US were to get past the “How do we get a government in place in Ukraine that can credibly enter into agreements?” problem, there is the matter of how the US can be trusted at all. Look at how Trump violated free trade agreements with Mexico and Canada with his 25% tariffs executive order (which remember is still in effect but has merely been paused) or his WTO-violating latest round of tariffs on China? Vance just said the Trump government might defy court orders on DOGE. This is an openly lawless US regime.
So the only thing that could conceivably succeed with Ukraine, short of Russia in the end taking the entire territory or installing a captive regime with some autonomy in whatever it decides will be rump Ukraine, would be for the agreement to include hard limits on the type and number of weapons Ukraine could possess, with Russia having what would amount to strong audit rights. That sort of scheme was part of the Istanbul deal. Recall Victoria Nuland complained about a long annex listing weapons types and proposed ceilings as being an outrage. At the point when the negotiations were scuppered, there was allegedly a big gap between the Ukraine and Russian levels.
But even in an alternative universe where talks actually got that far (as opposed to limits being imposed on a captive rump Ukraine), what about enforcement? What would happen if Russian ISR determined Ukraine was cheating? Would Russia be allowed to march in and destroy the verboten materiel? Who could be a sufficiently independent guarantor who could do that? The US would never tolerate
China in that role. Would India or Turkiye be willing to stand up and take on that potentially dangerous position?
Ukraine’s Ever-Shortening Military Time Versus Political Time
Most readers know that experts and insiders have been predicting Ukraine’s imminent demise for some time, but the very tough Ukrainians have kept defying expectations. Nevertheless, that over-predicted end game seems to be coming in sight. The Pentagon had opined a few months back that Ukraine would run out of manpower in six months, ex a mobilization of younger men. In late January, Ukrainska Pravda reported in a leak on a closed-door meeting with the Rada, that military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, predicted “If there are no serious negotiations by the summer, then very dangerous processes for the very existence of Ukraine may begin.” Denials were slow in coming and inconsistent, suggesting Budanov himself was the leaker.
Mark Sleboda, who has been the most accurate forecaster of the trajectory of the war, had said the Russian general staff estimated that Ukraine could raise another 100,000 men for each year it dropped the mobilization age. However, yield on conscription has been plummeting. Even so, Ukraine could conceivably field another 200,000 men. That might enable Ukraine to hold out until next winter, ex Russia deciding to drop the hammer by destroying more power generation capacity.
Admittedly, Vance, who has been very opposed to the war in Ukraine, might put the US on record as committed to an exit. That would end any pretense at bargaining leverage with Russia. But recall how diehard neocon Mark Rubio is now giving at least lip service to multipolarity. Vance may be pressed by
Trump to alter his position on Ukraine. Or he may be going mainly to tell the Europeans to cough up more dough for NATO, and keep his cards to his chest about Ukraine plans. Or perhaps he will tell Zelensky privately he need to go. We’ll see soon enough.
The question of whether Ukraine will muster yet one more army by dropping its mobilization age to 21 or 18 and the West will scrape together enough arms to keep Ukraine on the military version of life support is still in play. Zelensky appears to be holding out for a credible arms commitment before sending younger men to slaughter. Appallingly, Trump seems to be playing along with his “weapons for Ukraine minerals” scheme.
But thinking that Ukraine can hold out as long as early 2026 seems charitable. And given the Trump team’s apparent complete misreading of Russia’s cards, they seem vanishingly unlikely to believe how Russia can and will simply proceed to roll over Ukraine and not even break all that much of a sweat in the process. And that’s before Trump’s outsized ego getting in the way. I don’t think he is constitutionally able to deal with Putin from a position of real weakness, which will result in further delay in setting up a meeting, and that eventual session resulting in Putin and Trump talking past each other.
Alexander Mercouris has held out the idea that the US could offer Russia a new European security architecture. Again, I cannot fathom that happening. First, now that the US is clearly trying to reduce NATO funding and pull back to its Americas sphere of influence, it cannot deliver the Europeans. Second, Putin may have has a variant of his old not entirely unserious ask of Russia joining NATO. Again, with the US diminishing its position in NATO by planning to lower its contributions, I can’t imagine the US entertaining this idea, even before the rabid UK, Balts and Poland nixing it. The big reason for us to keep NATO as a viable force is to help with containing China. Of course, it might help if we weren’t so keen on speeding up European de-industralization via seeking their dependence on pricey US LNG.
To put it another way: it took a full 17 years from Putin’s 2008 Munich Security Conference speech, where he called for a multipolar world order, for the US to officially acknowledge, via Mark Rubio, that the US unipolar period was unnatural and had ended. It will likely take as long for Russia to get its new European security architecture. Putin is hardy enough that he may live to see it.
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1 There, financial time moved faster than political time. Those of us on duty then saw each of the four acute phases of the crisis met with measures that only stemmed immediate damage and did nothing to address the underlying issues (this pattern persisted with post-crisis “reforms” and the failure to prosecute any financial firm executives).
Even more alarming, there were obvious information gaps (like which specific major financial players were protection-writers of US subprime credit default swaps) where the authorities could have demanded and gotten answers to at least attempt to get in front of the situation.
sup>2 The failure do so may come from US reluctance to risk breaking NATO. That would mean no or limited EU support for the intended US escalation with China and losing arms sales to NATO members. Even if NATO states, due to their own budgetary and resulting political crises, can’t pay as much as Trump would like, odds favor they would in the end pony up more than now.
3 Exhibit 1 is his betrayal of the man who made him, Ihor Kholimoisky. Kholimoisky was the second richest man in Ukraine. It was Kholimoisky who elevated Zelensky to the Presidency of Ukraine. He owned 70& of the production studio that produced The Servant of the People, which portrayed Zelensky as an honest everyman elevated to the top office in Ukraine, and then backed the campaign that made that story real. Kholimoisky supported Zelensky to defeat then-president “chocolate king” Petro Poroshenko, who had nationalized Kholimoisky’s wobbly PrivatBank. Later criminal and civil cases accused the bank of money laundering and looting it via unsecured loans to shareholders. Despite being a leader in Ukraine’s Jewish community, yours truly has read several accounts depicting Kholimoisky as being entirely uninhibited about forming alliances with Banderite muscle to further his aims.
Kholimoisky’s position weakened in 2020 when the US has launched a criminal investigation. Wikipedia covers what happened then:
In 2020, he was indicted in the United States on charges related to large-scale bank fraud. In 2021, the U.S. banned Kolomoyskyi and his family from entering the country, accusing him of corruption and being a threat to the Ukrainian public’s faith in democratic institutions. Zelenskyy reportedly stripped Kolomoyskyi of his Ukrainian citizenship in 2022. Later that same year, those of Kolomoyskyi’s assets deemed to be of strategic value to the state in light of the Russian invasion were nationalised. These included Ukraine’s largest gasoline companies. In 2023, Kolomoyskyi was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on charges of money laundering and fraud, and placed under pre-trial arrest.
The Wikipedia account has lots more gory detail.
4 Plastic, of course.
5 I do not believe that Trump was truthful when he told the New York Post that he and Putin have spoken about the Ukraine war. The Russians had flatly denied any communication between the men since the past Trump presidency. Eight days ago, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen interviewed the Russian first deputy ambassador to the UN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK2FDlrEf9w, who specifically denied that there had been any meaningful contacts between the Trump Administration and the Russian government. On February 7, three days ago, Peskov effectively called US claims about communications with Russia lies, in admittedly a highly coded manner. Peskov’s point was that one-way communication is not remotely the sort of dialogue that the Trump Team weirdly keeps trying to pretend is happening. From Anadolu Agency:
Peskov responded to remarks made by US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, at a news briefing in Moscow about a possible ceasefire ahead of peace talks, saying only a series of daily statements from Washington have been observed, many of which are later refuted.
“We have nothing to add on this topic yet. There are many statements and reports that are later denied, altered, or dismissed as misinformation. There is neither a need nor a desire to respond to every such claim. Until something substantive emerges, patience is required,” he said.
6 Even with more and more press accounts and officials admitting Ukraine is losing the war, even many of the accounts are in the “They have changed their minds, but not their hearts” phase, that they can’t cope with the notion that Russia therefore will win.