If the Trump administration is crafting an arrangement worthy of being described as a peace deal, many outstanding questions must be answered.

The Trump administration is posturing as though it has succeeded in elbowing a recalcitrant Ukraine to finally engage with the aggressor nation that is dismantling it and subjugating its people. That was the easy part, but you might not know it from how much energy the Trump administration expended in the process.

To get there, Trump officials ceaselessly aired their grievances with Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in public, cut off weapons supplies and the intelligence sharing required to use U.S.-provided platforms effectively, withdrew diplomatic support for Kyiv at the United Nations, and engineered a modest trans-Atlantic schism among America’s European allies. “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a 2×4 across the nose,” Trump’s envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said last week of America’s embattled partners in Kyiv.

All that muscle has paid off, according to Trump officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this week that Ukraine has “agreed to enter into a cease-fire and immediate negotiations” for a more permanent cessation of Russian hostilities. “We’ll take this offer now to the Russians,” he added. Trump’s all-purpose negotiator, Steve Witkoff, cast an air of doubt on the notion that the Kremlin will be grateful for the administration’s efforts. “We hope that they’ll say yes,” he mused, “that they’ll say yes to peace.”

Hope is not a strategy. A just peace — and, therefore, an enduring peace — is a noble goal, but what the Trump team has negotiated is not yet peace. What’s on the table right now can best be described as the outlines of a shaky truce with at least as many prospects for disaster as success.

The terms Trump seeks to impose on the combatants in Russia’s war of conquest have not been wholly disclosed to the public, but some of its terms are agreeable. The cease-fire would put a halt to all combat operations — both by Ukraine and the Russian-led coalition, including North Korean fighters — across the entire Ukrainian theater. Ukraine had initially sought only a cessation of air and drone combat as well as a halt to maritime operations, so this represents a concession from Ukraine. But Kyiv did extract some compromises from Washington, too. “An important element in today’s discussions is America’s readiness to restore defense assistance to Ukraine and intelligence support,” Zelensky said in a statement. The cease-fire deal does not provide any security guarantees for Ukraine, but nor does it compel Kyiv to formally cede territory to Moscow.

The withdrawal of U.S. support for Kyiv in recent weeks has not just compelled Ukraine to submit to Washington’s terms, though; it has also materially weakened Ukraine’s position. Halting the provision of intelligence that allows Ukraine to target Russian forces, in concert with a flurry of Russian military activity, has led to the significant degradation of Ukraine’s position in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. The few hundred kilometers of Russian soil Ukrainian forces seized last year served only as a bargaining chip that Kyiv could trade away in negotiations over a more permanent armistice. That leverage, which was also the West’s leverage, is steadily eroding.

That raises the question of what Russia would like to achieve in forthcoming talks with its new partners in the White House. The Kremlin does not lack for incentives to cooperate with Trump. The tantalizing prospect of reintegration into the global economy and the legitimation of its conquests are already on the table. Even Russia’s culpability for its own nakedly expansionist war is open for debate. Moreover, Russia’s experience following the collapse of the Minsk and Normandy Format agreements suggests that it can bide its time, all while violently testing the parameters of the agreements to which it is ostensibly a party.

If the Trump administration is crafting an arrangement worthy of being described as a peace deal, many outstanding questions must be answered.

For example, will the 30-day pause that is on offer to Russia be backed by the provision of arms and ordnance to Ukraine sufficient to deter Russia from resuming the war after it, too, has reamed and regrouped? After all, Russia’s war footing and the support of its anti-American allies (China, Iran, and North Korea) will allow it to reequip faster than Ukraine can on its own. Is the cease-fire the basis for future peace talks or a reprieve that Russia can take greater advantage of than its opponent?

In addition, what will the cease-fire’s monitoring regime look like? Is there one, and what organizations and nations will administer it? Would the Kremlin accept a politically neutral authority that is willing to identify Russian violations? That seems unlikely. And if past is prologue, even an objective monitoring operation cannot be trusted to guarantee a cease-fire. When the Minsk 2 agreements were in place, the so-called “line of contact” separating Ukrainian and Russian forces in the Donbas never went cold. It was defined by a simmering level of violence that the West rarely acknowledged lest they be compelled to act on its convictions. Will the same thing happen this time around? Will the West convince itself that preserving something it can call a deal is more important than the peace it was supposed to achieve?

The cease-fire deal is supposed to serve as a trust-building exercise ahead of more involved negotiations over a permanent cessation of hostilities. But what are the metrics for success? And what concessions will be expected of Russia in stage two? “Putin has also set out demands for a lasting deal that appear to be impossible for Ukraine to accept, including a ban on European peacekeepers and international recognition for the territories occupied by Russia,” Politico reported on Wednesday. There are, as yet, few indications that the Trump administration is applying pressure to the Russian side of this equation and fewer signs that Moscow has abandoned its maximalist goals for Ukraine.

Lastly, at a certain point, the Trump administration will have to consent to the direct participation of America’s European allies in this process lest they go it alone. In justifying its initial efforts to cut Ukraine out of talks on its future, Trump’s allies like to cite the Korean War model in which the U.S. negotiated against North Korea and China to secure the 1953 armistice. But that model entails stationing U.S. troops in South Korea to deter future aggression. In the absence of security guarantees from Washington, the French and British are openly contemplating deployments to Ukraine to act as a tripwire if Russia were to attack again. That could create a uniquely dangerous set of conditions that the U.S. should work to avert. Trump and company wanted Europe to take a larger role in its own security, and they may get their wish in the worst possible way if they’re not careful.

For all we don’t know about the terms of the cease-fire that will be presented to the Russians, we can safely assess that the ball is now in the Kremlin’s court. Moscow has every tactical and strategic incentive to appear cooperative in the short term. And yet, the number of overtures and concessions the Trump administration made to induce Russia’s participation in this process might have given the Putin regime the wrong idea about how far it could push its counterparts in Washington. If Moscow overinterprets its freedom of action, the deal the Trump White House covets could come apart before it even comes together.