If negotiations among Russia, Ukraine, US collapse, what’s next?

It may be that the US-Russia and US-Ukraine negotiations are going off the rails.

Meanwhile the US is anxious for Europe to take over responsibility for supporting Ukraine as Washington turns to the Middle East and Pacific regions. The Europeans then will need to decide if they are ready, willing and able to make up the difference.

One strategy for them is to try to secure western Ukraine, figuring the Russians will be successful east of the Dnieper, But that idea is not a cake walk and could trigger a wider conflict. Washington will have to make up its mind on what is next regarding Ukraine.

President Trump is complaining that the Russians are dragging out negotiations on a comprehensive ceasefire, and he is threatening Russia with new energy sanctions. The main feature of the threat from Trump is that countries that buy Russian oil will be cut off from trade with the US. This includes India and China.

US total goods trade with China was an estimated $582.4 billion in 2024. US goods exports to China in 2024 were $143.5 billion.

In 2023-24, the US was the largest trading partner of India with $119.71 billion bilateral trade in goods ($77.51 billion worth of exports, $42.19 billion of imports, with $35.31 billion trade surplus).

President Trump said he intended to speak to Russian President Putin soon (the exact timing of a phone call not revealed).

Both Ukraine and Russia are trying to position themselves as best they can before any ceasefire begins (if one actually occurs).

Russia has multiple military operations in Ukraine covering areas from Kursk on down through Luhansk and Donetsk, including Zaphorize and, possibly, Kherson. The Russians have also signaled their interest in Odesa which they claim is a Russian city.

In all areas except one, Ukraine is trying to hold onto territory and prevent Russian breakthroughs. CNN has described Ukraine’s army as “on their back foot,” meaning those forces are losing ground.

The one exception is the Belgorod region. Belgorod is Russian territory south of Kursk. The town of Belgorod and surrounding villages have been subjected to Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks for months. Now, however, the Ukrainians have launched attacks and made some important headway on Russian territory.

The actual goal of the Ukrainian attacks is unclear. Some observers think the idea is to force Russia to redeploy forces to the Belgorod territory, taking the pressure off of Ukrainian defenses elsewhere, as in areas such as Pokrovsk.

Reliving Russian pressure was also part of the idea behind the Kursk salient, along with Ukraine having a territorial bargaining chip in a forthcoming possible negotiation (land for land). But that is not the whole story. Ukraine hoped to capture the nuclear power plant in Kursk, offsetting Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The Russians were able to block Ukraine’s army from getting that far and, over seven months, began to roll up Ukraine’s attack. Today Ukraine’s forces are almost completely out of Kursk, and the Russians have crossed the border into Ukrainian territory in Sumy.

It is too soon to predict the outcome in Belgorod. Two villages, Popovka and Demidovka, have come under multiple Ukrainian attacks. Ukraine continues to beef up its assault forces, the latest the redeployment to Belgorod of the 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade, suggesting that Ukraine thinks it can be successful.

Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov says that in all Ukraine has attacked more than 20 villages. There is no word yet on losses on either side.

Ukraine might get a temporary morale boost if it can hold onto some of the villages it is attacking, but for how long no one can yet say.

Meanwhile, France and the UK, and possibly some others, are working on a new idea on injecting European forces into the conflict in support of Ukraine. The latest is for Europe (or at least those who will support the venture) to send both air and naval forces to Ukraine.

Reports say that a mission is being dispatched to Ukraine to decide where to position such forces if they are sent. Combat aircraft would be vulnerable anywhere near eastern Ukraine, considering Russia’s layered air defenses. Similarly, naval forces have few options outside of Odesa, and Odesa is exposed to Russian missile attacks.

Putin has agreed to a Black Sea deal, but that would collapse if the UK and France move naval forces to ostensibly protect Ukraine. Both France and the UK have aircraft carriers, but whether they would risk such assets so close to Russia is open to considerable doubt.

It may be that the UK and France, perhaps even with the backdoor support of the United States, want to protect western Ukraine should the Russians overrun the Ukrainian army and collapse the Kiev government.

To do this both France and the UK would need support from Poland, and Polish authorities have not shown much enthusiasm for getting involved.

If the negotiations on a Ukraine-Russia deal go off the rails, as seems more and more likely, then the fallback “security guarantee” for part of Ukraine could be an option for Europe if Europe actually believes it is threatened by Russian land armies.

But air force and naval assets are only a temporary hack for the Europeans. They would have to put boots on the ground in western Ukraine. Europe does not have deployable forces in sufficient numbers (nor do they have stockpiles of weapons) to be any more than a tripwire, and the Europeans would have to expect pushback from the Russians – who may decide to attack staging areas and supply depots in Poland and Romania.

Depending on how the war evolves, and how much force the Russians are prepared to bring to the conflict, Russia could achieve its territorial and local political goals in a relatively short time. The territorial goals are already spelled out by Russia. The political goal is to force NATO out of Ukraine and change the Ukrainian government to one friendly to Russia.

Some say Russia cannot sustain the war, that its economy is a shambles, and that pulling in more conscripts to fight is politically difficult because the conflict has dragged out. If that is true, Russia is without an exit strategy other than for its political and military institutions to collapse. That is a recurring theme in NATO circles, but is it because NATO does not want to lose or do people in those circles really believe the scenario?

An important question is what steps the Trump administration is willing to take if the so-called peace process stalls or collapses. Sanctions won’t change the military situation, and might backfire on a US economy and stock market already in panic.

Furthermore, the administration is trying to fry too many eggs in foreign policy at the same time and that can lead to mistakes and blunders. If the reports on Pentagon plans are right, the administration wants to contain China, not so much Russia.

It is at least possible, given the limits of the US arsenal and the deployment of US forces, that Washington will be inclined to turn Ukraine over to Europe. The White House dream of huge deals with Russia aimed at sidelining the Russian-China partnership mostly has evaporated.

As matters now stand, soon Washington will have to make some hard decisions.

Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.