In war, victory often goes to those who know how to use time to their advantage. Military tactics and diplomatic maneuvers often serve as tools to influence the timeline of a conflict.
At first glance, the Anchorage summit [in Alaska, on August 15] between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin did little to make progress on the situation in Ukraine. Yet it marked Trump's adoption of a principle long repeated by Putin: that a peace agreement must be reached before, not after, a ceasefire. While the method of "negotiating while fighting" has proven effective in the past – for instance the Kissinger-Le Duc Tho talks on Vietnam in Paris between 1969 and 1973 – it inevitably heightens violence on the ground.
But this timetable reversal mainly serves to push any prospect of an truce further off, prolonging the window during which Russia believes it has military superiority. Moreover, Moscow's ultimate goals are so maximalist (the annexation of not-yet-occupied territories in the Donbas, and full political-military control over the remaining "free" Ukraine) that a political settlement seems unattainable – because it is unacceptable for an independent Ukrainian government.
To balance out these concessions, the US has reintroduced the idea of offering Ukraine "security guarantees" in exchange for a "frozen" front line (which, in reality, would be a Russian gain). From Kyiv's perspective, the subject is not new and carries bitter memories. The first "guarantees" go back to the Budapest Memorandum of December 1994, when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise from the signatories (Russia, the US, and the United Kingdom) to respect "its independence and sovereignty."
A springboard for further aggression
After violating both the spirit and the letter of these agreements in 2014 – by annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in the Donbas – Russia signed the Minsk Agreement, which was also initialed by France, Germany, and Belarus, committing to the withdrawal of all foreign units from Ukrainian territory. In both cases, the promises only bound those who believed in them; No effective enforcement mechanism existed to sanction Moscow's breaches.
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