Donald Trump has told Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. ‘Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous war!’ he wrote on Truth Social yesterday. ‘IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.’ But if the new president wants the war in Ukraine to end, American diplomats may have to open talks with Russia on issues much wider than Ukraine. Russia’s problem, after all, is not just with Ukraine, but with the West. Is there a deal that will make Russia, Ukraine, the US, Europe and the rest of the world, happy?

Russia went to war to prevent Ukraine joining Nato and to regain for Russia a say in European security issues, and Donald Trump made it clear in a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron that his administration will not support Nato membership for Ukraine. Moreover, the fact that the Biden administration and every other Nato government has publicly ruled out going to war for Ukraine makes the idea of a Nato Article 5 guarantee prima facie empty.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov recently explained where he thinks a post-war Ukraine should fit within Europe’s security architecture. He said that Russia ‘recognised the sovereignty of Ukraine back in 1991, on the basis of the Declaration of Independence, which Ukraine adopted when it withdrew from the Soviet Union.’

Another option that has been discussed is the so-called ‘Israeli model’

Lavrov added: ‘one of the main points for [Russia] in the declaration was that Ukraine would be a non-bloc, non-alliance country; it would not join any military alliances… on those conditions, we support Ukraine’s territorial integrity.’ Until 2014, neutrality was indeed part of Ukraine’s constitution – although governments in Kyiv had already violated this by seeking Nato membership.

One alternative to formal Nato membership – in fact, to membership of any military alliance – would be having a large, well-armed ‘peacekeeping’ force provided by European countries and based in Ukraine. This has been discussed recently. In December, officials from Nato, the EU, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Ukraine met to discuss possible security guarantees for Ukraine, including this. Officials familiar with the talks say that ‘any European troops on the ground would be part of a specific peacekeeping or ceasefire monitoring force and wouldn’t be a Nato operation.’ In practice though, this would be a Nato operation in all but name, since all the contributing states would come from Nato. The Russian government has therefore made clear that they will reject this idea. Zelensky probably didn’t help by saying that the peacekeeping force would require at least 200,000 soldiers to be massed near Ukraine’s border with Russia – more than the entire deployable armies of Britain, France and Germany put together.

Although the Trump administration is considering this idea, it will also certainly in the end reject it. For as the Wall Street Journal has reported, ‘French officials have made clear that the idea would need to involve some kind of US backup.’ According to the Financial Times, officials familiar with the December talks on security options have said that ‘binding security guarantees from European capitals that would potentially involve them in a war with Russia if Ukraine was attacked again are unfeasible without a guarantee that the US would support those European armies.’

The Trump administration will never give such a guarantee – nor should it, since in the event of a new war this would leave the US with the choice between utter humiliation and direct war with Russia, involving a severe risk of nuclear annihilation.

Key European states have already ruled out participation in such a force – unless the Russians agree to it, which they will not do. When Macron discussed the European peacekeeping option with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, despite being one of Ukraine’s strongest allies, Poland spurned Macron. Tusk replied: ‘To cut off speculation about the potential presence of this or that country in Ukraine after reaching a ceasefire… decisions concerning Poland will be made in Warsaw and only in Warsaw. At the moment we’re not planning such activities.’

The leader of the German Christian Democratic Union (and probable Chancellor after the elections due in February), Friedrich Merz, called talk at this time of German troops being part of such a force ‘irresponsible.’ He said: ‘If a peace agreement is reached and Ukraine needs security guarantees, we can only discuss this if there is a clear mandate under international law. I don’t see it at the moment. I would like such a mandate to be given in consensus with Russia, not in conflict.’

Another option that has been discussed is the so-called ‘Israeli model’, or heavily-armed neutrality – for Israel, although armed and strongly supported by the US and other western countries, is not a US or Nato ally. This might be acceptable to Russia if the weapons supplied to the West were defensive (ruling out for example long-range missiles and advanced fighter jets), but in Russia, Ukraine is facing a vastly more formidable adversary than any that Israel has ever faced.

One partial answer to this difficult situation is to get the United Nations and the international community as a whole to endorse the peace settlement. While the great majority of countries have refused to join western sanctions against Russia, they also did not want this war and would not want it to resume. Since Moscow has made reaching out to what it calls the ‘global majority’ a central part of its diplomatic strategy, it would be very unwilling to alienate them by starting a new war.

In the end however, the only truly strong guarantee of peace in Ukraine and between Russia and the West will be a new security architecture that over time reduces fear and distrust between them. This was the great chance offered by the end of the Cold War, which (due to faults on both sides) was tragically lost. Russia proposed a treaty along these lines to the US two months before launching the invasion of Ukraine. Some of its provisions were clearly unacceptable, but others made good sense. Yet the Biden administration refused to discuss it at all.

This would not be an absolute and permanent guarantee of Ukrainian security – but then, in history there is no such thing as a permanent guarantee. As long as Russia exists, so will the possibility of Russian aggression against Ukraine; and as long as the US exists, there will be the possibility of a future US administration launching a new anti-Russian crusade.

We cannot tell what the world will look like generations from now. There may be some kind of global disaster that renders our present security concerns irrelevant. But as the great Gandalf says in the Lord of the Rings: ‘It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set.’