When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he did so with a bold promise: he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. It was his most repeated pledge during the campaign, and a message that resonated with parts of the American electorate weary of foreign entanglements. Nearly a year into his second term, however, the war continues unabated and has even escalated. Trump has unveiled multiple peace plans and deals, each labelled transformative—but none have produced results.
The latest proposal, unveiled suddenly Thursday, is yet another attempt to broker a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow with 28 elaborate and yet inscrutable, unimplementable points. The plan has the same inconsistencies that plagued previous ones. It remains disconnected from the realities of the battlefield and the political context on both sides.
The plan is all about Russia’s maximalist demands. It allegedly stipulates significantly reduced defence capabilities for Kyiv, a constitutionally enshrined end to its NATO aspiration, and handing over the four annexed territories regardless of whether Russia has won them.
No wonder that the peace deal has already been rejected outright by Ukraine as unworkable and unserious. Brussels too has iterated its position afresh in the latest publication from the Foreign Affairs Council on 20 November 2025, and has rejected the deal.
The impasse is undeniable.
War dynamics
Two questions become pertinent: Why does the Trump administration continue making the same mistakes on the peace proposal? And what does a hurried peace plan mean on the ground?
The first answer lies in understanding Trump’s well-known desperation to take credit for mediations and his pursuit of an elusive Nobel Peace Prize. It also lies partly in Trump’s generic endorsement and liking for strongmen across the geopolitical spectrum—including Putin. However, these features remain incommensurate with battlefront realities. Ukraine’s hardships and demographic decline continue alongside Russia’s slow and painful advance that would take years to breach the fortress belt it is currently fighting for.
Despite claims of taking Pokrovsk, it has still not fallen, and the cost being paid by the Russian side is immense—a factor widely acknowledged and repeated by Marco Rubio himself.
One cannot make sense of war dynamics without considering the shocking Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory. These strikes and daily attacks knocked 20 per cent of Russia’s refinery capacity offline between August and October. Russia’s oil exports are at their wartime lowest. Even for India, a major buyer, US tariffs have caused a 65 per cent drop in oil imports from 18 lakh barrels per day (BPD) to 9.4 lakh BPD. China, Russia’s indispensable senior partner, has cut its imports too.
Of course, many of these developments may prove temporary rather than lasting, amd their overall impact will depend on a mix of factors that could unfold either simultaneously or sequentially. Moreover, those advocating a smooth reversal of the current conditions operate on the assumption that the war will end quickly in Russia’s Russia, allowing Moscow to be reintegrated into the global economy—with its defence exports, energy sales, and connectivity projects returning to normal—an outcome that would be ideal for India.
But what stands in the way is Europe’s surprising solidarity on the significance of Ukraine’s security, despite outliers such as Orban and other differences of opinion. Europe today has an undeniable agency and entanglement in how the war must end.
For a dissenting Hungary or Slovakia, there are hardening security stances in Germany, Poland, Scandinavian countries, and Turkey. Poland’s stance here is important to underline because its leadership has given the most unambiguous statements on attempts of hybrid warfare, such as drone incursions from Moscow. Warsaw, a frontline NATO state, has also worked relentlessly to mainstream security on the European agenda alongside France and Germany. Macron’s unwavering leadership on European security and Germany’s commitment of $11 billion to Ukraine in 2026 are factors that stand on their own.
And yet, these favourable factors are neither eternal nor without immediate problems. The European appetite for providing financial aid is not limitless. It is exacerbated by the economic travails of prominent countries like France as well as the rise of the far Right across the continent, which has a different vision for Europe.
The European discomfort about how to use the frozen Russian assets for Ukraine adds to the financial stress. Using merely the interest generated on roughly $300 billion in frozen assets is not the same as the $300 billion itself.
The combination of all the points listed above reveals three obdurate realities:
- “Peace”, if any, remains elusive.
- The war in Ukraine cannot come to an end because of a secret or otherwise negotiation between Trump and Putin.
- Neither Ukraine’s valour nor Russia’s military industrial capacity can alter the outcome on the battlefront decisively.
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Culmination point
Based on the field work in and around Ukraine so far, I am of the opinion that the war would reach a natural culmination/saturation point in about six to eight months. It is getting increasingly expensive and unsustainable for Ukraine and Europe, as well as for Russia.
Without both sides making concessions, a reasonable ceasefire or an end will not come. Any other shortcut would merely create an illusion of a ceasefire, which would unravel as quickly. Alternatively, it would force the war to evolve to guerrilla warfare against Russia, which would be costly for Moscow. For the international community, implications go beyond Ukraine.
The war is not just being fought in Ukraine. It is being fought through fluid geopolitical contests across the world—from the many consequences of Assad’s ouster in Syria, to the undermining of Russian influence in Mali and the wider Sahel, to Turkey’s challenge to Moscow’s foothold in fragmented Libya and the Caucasus. Russia’s grip continues to loosen across its strongholds, where mil-tech leakage, digital espionage, and an availability of cheap weapons in huge quantities to non-state actors complicate the endgame in more ways than one can imagine.
These are complex dynamics deserving deeper analysis. The critical truth, however, looms large—the world may face far greater instability from a rushed end to this war than from a measured path to a realistic, sustainable peace.
However, there are certain factors in the short term that would play a role too.
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The Energoatom affair
Ukraine has recently been rocked by a significant corruption scandal. It is alleged that officials and associates of the state nuclear energy company, Energoatom, demanded 10-15 per cent kickbacks from private suppliers. Investigators say companies that refused to participate were removed from approved vendor lists, leading to the embezzlement of nearly $100 million. The main suspect, businessman and longtime Zelenskyy associate Timur Mindich, reportedly fled the country just hours before investigators attempted to arrest him. He is now believed to be in Israel. Several high-ranking figures, including the justice and energy ministers, have been linked to the case, with some being fired already.
These revelations dealt a serious blow to Zelenskyy, particularly after recent mass protests against his attempt to curtail the independence of anti-corruption bodies NABU and SAPO. For a president elected on promises to clean up politics, the optics are anything but favourable.
Yet the scandal simultaneously highlights Ukraine’s democratic resilience. “Operation Midas”, built on more than 1,000 hours of covert recordings during active warfare, shows that oversight institutions remain functional even under siege. It strengthens Ukraine’s case for EU membership and proves that it is not a nation that can be pressured into surrender.
But if a scandal of this magnitude repeats, it certainly will ramp up pressure on Zelenskyy to quit office or render his leadership illegitimate in the eyes of his own people. Both scenarios are favourable to Russia. Until then, the ground reality shows little support for a quick solution to last in the war, especially if forced top down by Trump’s vision of himself as a global mediator.
Swasti Rao is a Consulting Editor (International and Strategic Affairs) at ThePrint. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)