On October 23, White House spokesperson Levitt said that the planned U.S.\u2013Russia meeting in Budapest had not been completely canceled, stating, \u201cThe president and this administration look forward to holding such meetings again in the future, but we must ensure that the talks can yield concrete positive results.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Levitt\u2019s clarification rekindled hope after U.S. President Trump announced the cancellation of the summit the day before, the wide gaps in the parties\u2019 positions mean that even if the Russian and U.S. leaders gather in Budapest, the summit\u2019s prospects would still be bleak. The summit was set during a phone call between Trump and Putin on October 16 and received active cooperation from the Hungarian government. However, the situation took a sharp turn within just a week, showing that brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine is by no means easy.<\/p>\n
On the 22nd, Trump announced to the media that he was canceling the planned meeting with Russian President Putin because he felt the two sides \u201ccould not achieve the necessary objectives.\u201d However, Trump did not shut the door on a new round of U.S.\u2013Russia summits, stressing that he would meet with Putin in the future and reiterating the principled position of \u201cadhering to a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
As efforts for a Russia\u2013U.S. summit were impeded, the United States and Europe further increased pressure on Russia, casting a greater shadow over the possibility that the summit would proceed and make positive progress. On the 22nd, the Trump administration first announced sanctions on Russia related to the Ukraine crisis, citing Putin\u2019s \u201cdishonesty and lack of candor\u201d in the relevant talks, and imposed sanctions on Russia\u2019s two largest oil companies\u2014Rosneft and Gazprom\u2014to cut off financial sources supporting Russia\u2019s prosecution of the war. It is reported that the crude oil exports of these two companies account for 50% of Russia\u2019s total crude oil exports.<\/p>\n
At the same time, to reinforce these sanctions, the Trump administration launched \u201csecondary sanctions\u201d and indirect containment measures, imposing a 25% tariff on Indian goods exported to the United States to retaliate for its purchase of Russian oil at discount prices, thereby undermining Russia\u2019s ability to maintain a military edge. Reuters commented that this was a major shift in Trump\u2019s Russia policy.<\/p>\n
As a new measure tightening the screws on Russia in step with the United States, the 27 EU member states also announced on the 22nd a 19th round of sanctions against Russia, focused on the energy and financial sectors. Under this sanctions order, the EU will for the first time ban Russian liquefied natural gas from entering the European market and will lower the price paid for Russian crude oil to 47.6 dollars per barrel; in addition, Russia\u2019s two major oil companies will face a comprehensive trading ban, financial institutions in Russia and certain other countries will be restricted by trading bans, and crypto partners will be included in the scope of sanctions for the first time.<\/p>\n
Of course, to some extent, the U.S. and Europe stepping up sanctions on Russia is also a punishment for Russia\u2019s joint exercises of its land, sea, and air strategic nuclear forces on the 22nd, during which it launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles. At this point, the Russia\u2013U.S. Budapest summit that once offered a glimmer of hope to the international community is likely to be aborted completely. The fundamental reason is the huge gap between the positions of Russia and Ukraine and their European partners, as well as the United States, with differences hard to bridge.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s demands are very clear and not open to doubt. Specifically, a peace agreement must be reached first before a cease-fire can be discussed. Moreover, Russia does not intend to give up the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula it currently occupies; it is only willing to trade parts of the Ukrainian territory it occupies in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions for Ukraine\u2019s withdrawal from the remaining areas it controls in Donbas, allowing Russia to have full possession of the more strategically significant eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The U.S. position has wavered but ultimately accommodated Ukraine and its European allies. Trump has repeatedly hoped for a local cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine followed by a peace agreement. In essence, he wants to persuade Ukraine to give up the land occupied by Russia and to avoid futile and unwinnable battles so as not to fall into a passive situation of losing more territory the longer the war lasts. It is reported that during Ukrainian President Zelensky\u2019s recent visit to the White House, Trump, who had missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize and lost patience with mediation, was extremely displeased. He not only tossed aside the battlefield map of Ukraine presented by Zelensky, but also received this deferential leader of a small country coldly, leaving him to hold a press conference only on the street outside the White House fence. The reality that a weak country has no diplomacy is lamentable.<\/p>\n
Ukraine and its European partners who firmly back its resolute resistance to Russia take a hard line. Zelensky has repeatedly emphasized that territorial issues are non-negotiable, that talks can only be based on the lines between the two sides before Russia launched the \u201cspecial military operation,\u201d and he rejects ceding land for peace. Most European countries reject the \u201cland swap\u201d plan Putin recently proposed to Trump and oppose Ukraine obtaining a peace agreement at the price of giving up territory, because in essence it still sacrifices Ukraine\u2019s territory and sovereignty.<\/p>\n
Recently, Ukraine and its European partners also jointly formulated a \u201c12-point plan\u201d to comprehensively end the Russia-Ukraine war. Its main contents include that, after both sides agree to a cease-fire and commit to stopping territorial advances, Ukraine will obtain security guarantees, funds needed to repair war damage, and a fast track to join the EU. Europe will gradually lift sanctions on Russia and, after it agrees to help Ukraine with reconstruction, return the 300 billion dollars of Russian assets frozen in European countries. If Russia attacks a neighboring country again, European sanctions will quickly resume. In addition, Russia and Ukraine will open negotiations on the governance of occupied territories; however, neither Ukraine nor Europe will legally recognize any occupied territory as belonging to Russia.<\/p>\n
In this sense, Ukraine and Europe have still made concessions to a certain extent, namely acknowledging the reality that it is difficult to defeat Russia militarily and retake the territory Ukraine has lost, being willing to first stop the war based on practical considerations, solidify the zones of control and the battlefield pattern, treat the occupied territories as a \u201cgovernance issue,\u201d and hold to the final bottom line of not recognizing Russia\u2019s legality over Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n
Power determines the course and outcome of war; circumstances overpower individuals. Because Russia has won an overwhelming victory at the battlefield level and continues to expand its occupied areas, it insists that Ukraine and Europe must accept a package peace treaty before a cease-fire, and it demands that Ukraine not join NATO in the future and that there be no foreign troops stationed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The vast negotiating gulf between Russia and Ukraine and their European partners buried Trump\u2019s passion and optimism and left the White House master, who believes in \u201ctransactional diplomacy\u201d and is eager for quick results, at a loss, increasingly showing dissatisfaction with Putin, and in the end hitting both sides: brandishing sanctions to try to force Russian concessions while refusing to sell Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine so as not to worsen U.S.\u2013Russia relations and bring trouble upon himself.<\/p>\n
The Ukraine war has lasted three and a half years, and the stalemate cannot be fundamentally changed in the short term, so various peace proposals are naturally being floated to break the deadlock. However, history shows that wars are easy to start and hard to end, because neither side wants to be the loser or readily accept defeat. The large-scale military contest in the Korean War lasted only one year, but peace talks continued for two years. America\u2019s Vietnam War lasted 14 years, with peace talks continuing for seven. The Soviet Union\u2019s Afghanistan war lasted 10 years, with negotiations taking three. America\u2019s Afghanistan war lasted 13 years, and after Obama announced the end of the war the two sides still fought and negotiated for as long as seven years\u2026<\/p>\n
The Russia\u2013Ukraine war will not change the overall pattern of \u201ca miserable victory for Russia and a disastrous defeat for Ukraine.\u201d It will likely end in the \u201cKorean War model,\u201d namely both sides fight to exhaustion, find the optimal stop-loss point, halt fire, sign an armistice, and then wait for a better window to sign a peace treaty. It has been 72 years since the Korean War armistice and a peace treaty is still far away. Therefore, expecting the ongoing Russia\u2013Ukraine war to cease fire soon and reach a peace treaty is wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
Prof. Ma is the Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University in Hangzhou. He specializes in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle Eastern affairs. He previously worked as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine, and Iraq.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On October 23, White House spokesperson Levitt said that the planned U.S.\u2013Russia meeting in Budapest had not been completely canceled, stating, \u201cThe president and this administration look forward to holding such meetings again in the future, but we must ensure that the talks can yield concrete positive results.\u201d Although Levitt\u2019s clarification rekindled hope after U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":11973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13927,319,683,800,822,821,444],"class_list":["post-11972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-budapest-summit","tag-donald-trump","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine","tag-us","tag-vladimir-putin"],"yoast_head":"\n