Mr. Trump has rightly turned international attention to ending the Russia-Ukraine war and taken important steps to open channels of communication at the highest levels. A key piece of the puzzle is still missing, however: a real negotiation process.
The diplomacy we have seen thus far has been episodic, unstructured, and highly public. But the negotiation processes that successfully resolved past armed conflicts of similar intensity were continuous, structured, and largely confidential. Such talks, involving empowered representatives of the belligerents and their key external supporters as well as experienced mediators, are required to identify trade-offs, understand the space for compromise and, crucially, test the proposition that the other side is willing to commit to peace. Real negotiations offer the only way for embittered enemies to gain the modicum of confidence in one another's intentions needed for them to give peace a chance.
In the short term, negotiations should be targeted at breaking the current deadlock on sequencing. Mr. Zelensky, Mr. Trump, and European leaders are calling for an immediate halt to hostilities to allow talks to proceed in peaceful conditions. Mr. Putin believes that continuing the fighting provides him needed leverage and thus insists on a political settlement up front. Sanctions on Russian oil companies or even providing Ukraine with long-range missiles like Tomahawks are unlikely to persuade him to give up that position.
Putin believes that continuing the fighting provides him needed leverage and thus insists on a political settlement up front.
Negotiators should aim to unlock a cease-fire by pursuing a framework agreement: a concise document that sets out the principles and parameters of a future negotiated settlement. It would foster confidence and a shared understanding of the key elements of an eventual fully fledged peace deal—enough to convince Mr. Putin to end the fighting.
A final settlement will take many months, if not years, of structured negotiations to conclude. But with a framework agreement and a concurrent cease-fire, those talks would proceed without the death and destruction that now extend from the battlefields of the Donbas to Ukraine's major cities.
