Twenty questions (and expert answers) about the negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine
Ukraine is still standing, more than eleven years after Russia seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas region, and more than three years after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion. But what Ukraine will look like in the future remains the subject of intense negotiations—and continued bloodshed. As the United States pushes diplomatic efforts to end the war, we turned to experts across the Atlantic Council to answer twenty burning questions about what’s happening and what’s next.
1. What is the current state of the battlefield?
The battlefield needs to be understood broadly. Most of the commentary on “the battlefield” focuses on Moscow’s monthslong land offensive. The key point, well understood but incomplete, is that Moscow is making very slow, if painful, gains. There have been moments recently when Russian forces moved forward hundreds of meters, especially toward Pokrovsk, a key town in western Donetsk. Moscow has announced for weeks that it would “soon” take the town, but it has not, as Ukraine regained territory north of it and crack Ukrainian troops moved to the area to push the Russians back.
In the air, Moscow continues its savage war on Ukraine’s cities and civilians, which causes weekly casualties, but with little strategic impact. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s ever-growing drone capability—in both distance and explosive capacity—is wreaking havoc on Russian hydrocarbon installations, transportation hubs, bridges, railroads, weapons depots, and strategic industries. This is already having an impact on Russian oil supplies. Shortages are being felt throughout the country—even in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok—and are also magnifying the pressure on industrial production, which has been battered by high inflation and interest rates. Putin’s notion that he can inevitably take a good bit more territory—reflected in much Western media reporting—does not take into account Ukraine’s growing air campaign. Meanwhile, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is cowering in the eastern reaches of the Black Sea, far from its base in Sevastopol. Ukrainian drones have reduced the fleet’s role to shooting missiles from afar, and Ukraine’s ports remain open for commerce.
—John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.
2. What’s next for diplomatic negotiations?
It is no surprise that negotiations with Russia are going nowhere fast. Putin does not want to end the war. His goal is not to lock in his gains or to take the rest of the Donetsk Oblast, but to take effective political control of Ukraine; and he thinks that he can continue to grind forward on the ground. We have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity this month for one reason: Trump had set a hard deadline of August 8 for Putin to stop shooting or to face massive sanctions, including secondary sanctions on his principal trading partners. To evade this, Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and hinted to US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff that he could be flexible. This prospect persuaded Trump to let the August 8 deadline pass without new sanctions and to meet with Putin, which he did on August 15 in Anchorage.
While Trump and Witkoff said that Putin demonstrated a readiness to make concessions there, we have no public evidence of a new, more conciliatory Kremlin position. Moscow rejects Trump’s intermediate goal of a cease-fire and continues its intensive bombardment of Ukrainian cities and civilians. The attack the night of August 27 was one of the largest of the war, killing at least twenty-three people in Kyiv. It proved an embarrassment to the White House, which still insists Russia is now more flexible, even as it demands a solution to “the root causes” of the war. This means a peace deal that includes a commitment that a “neutral” Ukraine would never join NATO; would not host foreign troops; and would hand over to Russia the territories in Luhansk and Donetsk that Kyiv controls, including the easily defendable towns in the western Donbas (Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, and Pokrovsk) that Moscow has been trying to seize for years.
Following the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and seven other European leaders to the White House for talks on August 18, the focus has turned to a potential Putin-Zelenskyy meeting. But Russian statements suggest that any such meeting is far off. This is no surprise. Putin has consistently rejected meetings with Zelenskyy for years and, with the sanctions pressure off, has had no reason to change his mind.
Trump has expressed his frustration with the difficulty of arranging a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting and mentioned the possibility of placing massive sanctions on Russia; but he has also floated suspending his efforts to achieve peace. He has threatened to walk away in the past and did not actually do it. While Trump still says that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is former President Joe Biden’s war, not his, he likely understands that as president of the United States, it is now his responsibility.
—John E. Herbst
3. What has the impact of this war been on Russian society?
The most visible impact of the war on Russian society has been a sharp escalation in repression, censorship, and the curtailment of all forms of dissent. In this sense, the fates of Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Alexei Navalny—two people with little in common—are illustrative. Prigozhin, the onetime Putin ally who led the Wagner Group, died in a highly suspicious plane crash in August 2023 after leading an armed rebellion against the Kremlin a month earlier. Navalny, an opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader, died in prison under very suspicious circumstances six months later. The message was clear: The Kremlin was prepared to use lethal force and extrajudicial executions to eliminate its opponents.
The Kremlin has also aggressively curtailed dissent using methods short of lethal force. New laws criminalizing criticism of the military and spreading what the regime considers disinformation about the war have resulted in more than twenty thousand arrests and more than one thousand criminally charged. Independent media outlets such as Novaya Gazeta and TV Rain (Dozhd) have been forced to relocate abroad.
Additionally, since February 2022, there have been numerous deaths of high-profile Russian officials and business leaders under mysterious circumstances, including defenestrations, suspicious “suicides,” sudden illnesses, and unexplained accidents. Among these are Andrei Badalov, vice president of pipeline giant Transneft, who fell to his death from a high-rise; Vadim Boyko, a colonel involved in troop mobilization, who was found dead from gunshot wounds in his office; and Roman Starovoyt, who was found dead with a gunshot wound shortly after being fired as transportation minister.
Russia’s intensified repression and the wave of mysterious deaths of high-ranking officials have instilled a climate of fear among both the elite and the public, eroded public trust, and effectively neutralized civic groups that are autonomous from the state. As many as 1.3 million Russians, many of them highly educated and highly skilled, have fled the country to escape military mobilization, repression, and diminishing opportunities.
Additionally, the war has accelerated the Kremlin’s efforts to indoctrinate the country’s youth. From early childhood, children are now exposed to militaristic curricula and patriotic propaganda in schools. Youth are also increasingly recruited into paramilitary-style training camps where they engage in drills, weapons exercises, and ideological indoctrination.
—Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of The Power Vertical podcast. He previously worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow.
4. What is the real state of Russia’s economy?
The commonplace view on the Russian economy is that it has been remarkably resilient but that it will eventually face an uncomfortable reckoning.
After the initial shock of Western sanctions in February 2022, the Central Bank of Russia’s high interest rates and capital controls did enough to preserve trust in the financial system. Then, for the remainder of the year and some of the following, Russia benefited from the very uncertainty on the oil market that its war had caused. Record income from oil exports more than compensated for lower gas exports as Europe weaned itself off Russian gas.
Since 2022, the long-term liabilities of Russia’s economy have become more apparent. Every year, the government has been unable to cover its increased spending on the war and its domestic crackdown. Entire economic sectors and regions are now dependent on the war effort and would struggle to adapt if it were to stop.
With no recourse to borrowing from international markets, Russia has had to deplete liquid savings in the National Welfare Fund, albeit at a slower rate than is usually predicted. Intractably high inflation forces the central bank to keep interest rates high, which prevents firms from investing. Earlier this year, it became clear that a combination of government subsidies and political pressure was leading banks to lend to the military-industrial complex at preferential rates.
This year, the scant government data available suggests the government is heading for a fiscal deficit even higher than the 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) it has managed to sustain since 2022. But this will not be enough to help Ukraine. Regardless of medium-term consequences for inflation, Moscow can always sell nonliquid assets it controls and mobilize the more than $200 billion of its central bank reserves that aren’t blocked by Western sanctions.
—Charles Lichfield is the deputy director and C. Boyden Gray senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.
5. How has the war impacted Ukraine’s economy?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Ukraine’s GDP growth will slow from 3.5 percent last year to about 2 percent this year. On the ground in Kyiv, though, you can see that this is a much harder year economically for everyone—and conditions in the outlying regions are worse.
With six million Ukrainians still abroad, another one million serving in the military, and daily attacks on factories and infrastructure, economic capacity is suffering. Consumers are feeling the effects of inflation, which is estimated at 12.6 percent, according to the IMF. The price of imported goods is rising as the hryvnia exchange rate continues to slide upward. Western aid helps, but much of it goes to defense and maintaining the status quo for social services. Unfortunately, until a cease-fire is reached, Ukraine is caught in an economic trajectory that does not give it much room for changing the paradigm to create dynamic growth.
—Brian Mefford is a nonresident senior fellow at the Eurasia Center and director and founder of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv.
6. Is Ukraine eager to end the war?
From the political leadership to the men and women on the front lines and ordinary folk across the country, almost everyone in Ukraine is utterly exhausted and desperate for peace. This is reflected in recent opinion polling, with the number of Ukrainians who want to fight on until victory now a fraction of what it was during the first year of the war. Ukraine’s hunger for peace is hardly surprising. Russia’s invasion has killed hundreds of thousands, forced more than ten million Ukrainians to flee their homes, and left dozens of towns and cities in rubble. As fighting continues to rage along a front line measuring hundreds of miles, the civilian population faces nightly air raids that target residential districts in a calculated bid to break Ukraine’s national resistance.
These grim realities are fueling widespread acceptance of the idea of a negotiated settlement that would allow Russia to continue occupying the approximately 20 percent of Ukraine that is currently under Kremlin control. However, Ukrainians overwhelmingly reject the idea of officially ceding land to Russia, as most believe this would legitimize Putin’s decision to invade and make further Russian aggression all but inevitable.
With a decisive Ukrainian military victory no longer looking attainable, the current priority for Ukrainians is to negotiate a settlement that includes security guarantees from the country’s Western partners. These guarantees must be credible enough to deter a new Russian invasion. Ukrainians regard the current war as an existential struggle for national survival. They believe Putin is intent on erasing Ukrainian statehood and national identity altogether, and they have no faith whatsoever in Russian promises of future peaceful coexistence. They are therefore focused on securing commitments from the international community to prevent the renewal of hostilities once Russia has had an opportunity to regroup and rearm.
—Peter Dickinson is the editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert section and the publisher of Business Ukraine and Lviv Today magazines.
7. How much Ukrainian territory is Russia seeking in these talks, and what is it likely to get?
Moscow has set a very specific territorial condition for a peace deal. It wants all of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, including territory currently under the control of Kyiv. There are three reasons for this. The first is that these are the first two oblasts, aside from Crimea, that Moscow has tried to capture since the war began in 2014. The second is that there are critical minerals and rich farmland in the area. The third and most important reason is that the western slice of Donetsk has terrain that makes it difficult to conquer. It contains the three key cities of Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and Pokrovsk that Moscow has been trying to capture for years without success. The territory to the east is largely open ground, making it much harder to defend.
If Ukraine gave Russia this territory, it would be much easier for Putin to take the rest of Ukraine in the future. In exchange for this, Moscow is ready to offer bits of Ukrainian territory under its control. Zelenskyy has rejected this unusual Kremlin demand with the clear support of his European partners.
—John E. Herbst
8. Would that territory be recognized as part of Russia?
There is a world of difference between recognizing the reality that Russia is currently occupying Ukrainian territory and formally recognizing such territory as legally and legitimately part of Russia. The first would allow for a durable peace with an acknowledged demarcation line separating the two sides. The second would reward borders changed through aggression, a violation of over ninety years of US foreign policy. It is the job of diplomats to find the wording that gets us to the right outcome.
—Daniel Fried is the Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe.
9. What could security guarantees look like for Ukraine?
The most effective security guarantee for Ukraine would be membership in NATO, but Trump has ruled that out. Instead, Witkoff has suggested “Article 5-like protections” for Ukraine, a reference to the North Atlantic Treaty’s collective-defense provision. Trump has said that the United States would not put boots on the ground inside Ukraine but would back up European security guarantees for the country.
The language of the security guarantees from the United States, as well as Ukraine’s partners known as the “Coalition of the Willing,” should draw on Article 5 and should be either legally binding or, at least in the US case, backed up by Congress in some form. Anything short of Article 5’s language would be seen as a weaker guarantee, perhaps an invitation to Putin to resume the war.
The substance of security guarantees should start with a steady stream of Western and other military equipment plus defense industrial cooperation to enable the Ukrainians to defend themselves. To meet Trump’s promise not to rely on US grants, the United States could work out lend-lease arrangements for Ukraine or European countries to fund the US weapons flows.
Security guarantees should also include deployment inside Ukraine by Coalition of the Willing countries, including air defense, air patrolling, surveillance, intelligence, logistics, and training units. These could be backed up by US air units, including both reconnaissance and combat units stationed in Poland and Romania, plus US and European air and naval forces stationed in Romania and Bulgaria, with Turkey’s cooperation, to support security for the Black Sea. The United States would also provide intelligence, logistics, and other backup for the coalition forces and Ukraine itself. NATO could support this by providing intelligence and even command-and-control support. (Hungary’s predictable objections might be overcome by Trump’s personal intervention with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is deeply invested in his political alliance with Trump.)
That’s a lot. But that’s what “Article 5-like,” invoked by Witkoff, means. This sketch of security for Ukraine could work if, but only if, the United States means it and is willing to commit the forces it takes and to stare down Putin when he objects.
—Daniel Fried
10. What are the potential shortcomings of a security guarantee for Ukraine?
The best-case scenario for Russia would be to allow the United States and its European partners to offer security guarantees to Kyiv. And then see them fall apart.
A spectacular failure to fulfill the pledge would prove Putin’s claim that the “collective West” is a bumazhneey zhuravlik, an origami bird, or—using a more familiar term—a paper tiger, unable to defend not only Ukraine but also itself.
Military guarantees, especially when provided to a non-allied state, always boil down to political decisions. The same principle applies to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which—contrary to conventional wisdom—doesn’t stipulate that all NATO members should respond automatically to a potential attack on one of them. Rather, it states that each member “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.” In case of a hypothetical “minor incursion” of Russian forces in Lithuania, Estonia, or Poland, for that matter, the initial reaction of most leaders in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels wouldn’t be to assemble a bunch of generals and walk through military options. It would be to consult pollsters.
From the viewpoint of both Ukraine and NATO allies, the best we can do is to keep supplying Ukraine with state-of-the-art weaponry such as long-range missiles, investing in its industrial base, lifting all restrictions on strikes in Russian territory, and sharing as much intelligence as possible. This way, the Ukrainians will be able to take care of themselves.
—Marek Magierowski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and the director of strategy for the Poland program at the Freedom Institute in Warsaw. He previously served as Poland’s ambassador to the United States and to Israel.
11. How prepared are European countries to put boots on the ground in Ukraine?
The short answer is: not prepared enough. Of the thirty-one countries in the “Coalition of the Willing” (which includes both European nations and non-European countries such as Canada and Australia), only a few have publicly committed troops to enforce a peace in Ukraine.
Privately, there are many countries interested, but eyes are on Europe’s largest and leading countries to set the pace. So far, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been the most articulate about his willingness to station British troops in the country. Others such as French President Emmanuel Macron are moving cautiously. In the past, Macron proposed a small “reassurance” force, but he has since stressed that moves “should not be rushed.” The Germans are equally cautious and have yet to commit to any moves. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been skeptical about any NATO force in Ukraine. Poland, with Europe’s largest army, has already nixed the idea of contributing any Polish troops for a reassurance force.
The hesitation stems from two main sources: limited capacity and an uncertain US backstop. The sad reality is most European militaries are still in sorry states. Germany’s foreign minister warned that German participation would “overwhelm” its military. Even the most forward-leaning countries in the coalition have a very limited number of fully operational brigades to deploy and rotate boots on the ground. Any forces available would likely replace current reinforcements on NATO’s eastern flank.
Equally important, Europeans will remain non-committal in the absence of a credible US backstop for their deployment of a security force. Germans, Brits, Danes, and more don’t seem to be convinced yet that if the Russians start shooting, there will be US backup. That is a fair concern—one that must be a priority for European leaders to confront. With limited European capabilities and uncertain US policy, what remains is a collective action problem, with too few of the so-called Coalition of the Willing in Europe actually willing to act.
To cut the knot on this, Europeans should make offers now to leverage their successful White House summitry and the support they won from Trump for a US back-up role. Rather than losing momentum in working out every detail of specific capabilities needed, what Europeans should focus on now is announcing pledges of troops, generating mass, and as much participation as possible to make the reassurance force the political tool it is at this stage. Commitments for a significant force could lock in Trump and remind him of his own promises to empower the Europeans, and they would help put Putin on the spot about whether he actually wants to move forward with negotiations.
—Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
12. What are the prospects for Ukraine joining NATO?
In the near term, the prospects for Ukraine becoming a NATO ally are slim to none. But Ukraine’s path toward NATO membership—a goal enshrined in Kyiv’s constitution—is central to both Ukraine and NATO’s future security and should not end as a part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to a close.
Ukraine is officially an aspirant country for NATO membership, alongside Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the 2024 Washington summit, allies reaffirmed that Ukraine’s future is in NATO, that its path to membership is irreversible, and that allies would extend an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO when they agree to do so and the necessary conditions are met.
Decisions of NATO enlargement are driven by NATO’s open-door policy, which is based on Article 10 of the Alliance’s founding North Atlantic Treaty, which states that allies may, by unanimous agreement, “invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.”
While Ukraine’s near-term prospects for joining NATO are slim, it is fundamental to the strength of the Alliance’s founding treaty, as well as the principle of self-determination enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter, that this decision remain one between Ukraine and NATO allies. If Putin can determine Ukraine’s security arrangements, then Ukraine has lost an essential element of its sovereignty and democracy, and the United States and its European allies have negotiated away a central tenet of the post-World War II international order.
—Torrey Taussig is the director of and a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Previously, she was a director for European affairs on the National Security Council.
13. What are the prospects for Ukraine joining the EU?
Ukraine’s prospects for joining the European Union (EU) ultimately remain strong, but the path is long and full of roadblocks. The good news: Ukraine has made real progress on its reforms and aligning with EU standards since 2022, even while at war. The European Commission released another tranche of aid on August 21 after it concluded Ukraine satisfied over a dozen reform indicators. Support for Ukraine’s membership remains strong both in Ukraine and across the bloc, underpinning much-needed political will to keep up the pressure.
But there are real obstacles. The Ukrainian government’s attempt to subjugate Kyiv’s corruption watchdogs before it had to ultimately reverse course in the face of massive opposition both from its own people and the EU, is a lesson that Ukraine’s reforms are neither linear nor permanent. They will require constant vigilance and political pressure to make sure the country stays on track. Beyond Ukraine, the accession process provides ample opportunity for political spoilers to stall Ukraine’s progress, which Hungary is already doing, leaving the country in limbo. Here, Trump’s recent intervention confronting Orbán about his opposition to Kyiv’s path to membership will be an interesting space to watch.
Waiting in the wings are the real hard questions about what Ukraine’s eventual membership will mean for some of the foundational policies of the union. From the single market and already complex decision-making among twenty-seven member states to the myriad systems of agriculture subsidies and regional funds, the entry of a country of the size and economic structure of Ukraine would have wide-ranging impacts. The real challenge will be in sustaining the political will in Ukraine and around Europe to continue the necessary technocratic reforms and keep up the pressure on the likes of Hungary and others to move Ukraine closer to joining the bloc. At the same time, European leaders should not forget the opportunity Ukrainian membership could provide to a union plagued by a lack of economic dynamism, innovation, and technology leadership. On all of these fronts and more, the battle-tested potential member on its Eastern flank could provide a much-needed shot in arm for the EU.
—Jörn Fleck
14. What more sanctions could the US and its allies use against Russia?
Russia’s economy is struggling. Nearly four years of war expenses combined with Western sanctions have put Moscow’s economy on a wartime footing. Inflation and interest rates remain high at 8.8 percent and 18 percent, respectively. The government continues to draw down its National Welfare Fund to cover its fiscal deficit. Energy exports, especially oil, remain a lifeline for Russia even though they are declining. Last month, Russia brought in $9.8 billion from oil and gas exports, a 27 percent decrease from a year ago, further restricting Moscow’s budget. Putin, quite literally, cannot afford to lose his remaining oil revenue. This predicament creates the perfect target for sanctions—Russian oil.
Sanctioning Russia’s oil, similar to the approach the United States took against Iran, will immediately disrupt Moscow’s oil revenue. And with the dwindling safety net of the National Welfare Fund, Putin will have no choice but to negotiate with Western partners and meet Ukraine’s demands to end the war. In exchange for the peace deal and security guarantees, the United States and Group of Seven (G7) partners can offer to lift sanctions and other restrictive measures that would allow the return of Russian oil to the market and save Russia’s economy from ruin.
—Kimberly Donovan is the director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. She is a former senior Treasury official and National Security Council director.
15. How many Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia, and what are the prospects for their return?
The Russian Federation’s forcible transfer of Ukrainian children began as early as 2014, but escalated into a coordinated, systematic state policy following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. As of now, the Ukrainian government has verified the identities of 19,456 children deported to Russia or Russian-occupied territories. Independent researchers estimate the number may exceed 35,000 children. Senior members of the US Congress have cited figures as high as 200,000 children. Russia’s mass deportation of Ukrainian children is among the most well-documented atrocity crimes of modern warfare. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their roles in these crimes. Evidence of the Russian state’s role in these crimes also includes fast-tracked legislation that facilitates the illegal adoption and naturalization of Ukrainian children, as well as documentation of forced relocation, militarized training, and ideological indoctrination that punishes children for expressing Ukrainian language, faith, or identity.
To date, only 1,366 children have been returned to Ukraine, according to Ukrainian organizations. Russia’s refusal to facilitate their repatriation—along with efforts to conceal their identities and locations—violates multiple international laws, with international actors most frequently naming the UN Genocide Convention and Convention on the Rights of the Child. Human rights experts warn that failing to secure Ukrainian children’s unconditional release sets a dangerous precedent for the global rights of children in conflict. The United States has many tools to secure their return, including targeted sanctions against individuals responsible and a refusal to formally acknowledge Russian occupation, which could complicate their repatriation. Moreover, framing this crisis as a humanitarian concern misses its strategic significance. The forced transfer of children is a core obstacle to any credible postwar security arrangement for Ukraine. Given Washington’s significant power and leverage, demonstrating it can influence Moscow’s behavior regarding vulnerable children is central to building a credible deterrence posture and securing lasting peace.
—Kristina Hook is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University. She previously served as a policy advisor at the US Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.
16. What are the prospects for accountability under international law for Putin and other Russian leaders?
There has already been tremendous work on seeking accountability for Russian leaders, soldiers, and other suspects accused of war crimes. As of March, more than five hundred indictments for war crimes were reportedly submitted to Ukrainian courts, with 141 sentences delivered. In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating and has issued six publicly confirmed arrest warrants for Russian leaders including Putin, complemented by the work of other domestic jurisdictions through civil and criminal cases. In June, the Council of Europe (COE) finalized the statute for the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (STCoA), opening up another mechanism for accountability.
That said, logistical hurdles have prevented all but a few Russian perpetrators from standing trial. Most notably, Russian perpetrators have not traveled to countries that are able and willing to arrest and either prosecute or extradite them. Of the 141 sentences in Ukrainian courts, all but nineteen were in absentia, meaning the suspects were not physically present and are not currently imprisoned. Further complicating matters, sitting heads of state and top leaders are granted personal immunities in domestic and non-international courts, meaning they cannot be held accountable at those venues until after they leave office. Because the COE has indicated that the STCoA is limited by these immunities, the ICC is the only currently available venue to criminally prosecute senior Russian leaders during their tenure. Resource shortages across mechanisms and US sanctions on ICC personnel also hinder accountability prospects.
There is always the possibility that peace talks will include provisions related to accountability, and human rights groups have called for Trump to demand justice. However, it is also possible that amnesty for certain leaders will be on the table; notably, Switzerland and Austria have both said they would grant Putin immunity from arrest should he travel to either country for peace negotiations. While amnesties would be a setback for justice efforts, they would not wholesale preclude any accountability. Depending on the details, alternative fora may still be able to prosecute suspects (especially, for leaders, after they have left office), and any future international crimes would generally not be covered. Finally, while holding Putin and his senior leaders accountable should be a main priority, complementary processes can address suspects not covered by amnesties, such as lower-level perpetrators, aiders and abettors, and other complicit parties.
—Celeste Kmiotek is a staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.
17. How is China viewing these efforts?
China’s position vis-à-vis the war remains the same: It does not want Russia to lose and is willing to endure sizable—but not unlimited—costs to achieve that end. While sensitive to potential risks arising from a highly unpredictable negotiating process, Beijing largely sees these talks as an opportunity to drive wedges between the United States, NATO, Taiwan, and other Indo-Pacific actors.
Beijing has not only rhetorically supported Moscow but also provided the Russian defense industrial base with significant, possibly decisive, material assistance. Beijing supplied crucial trench-digging equipment to Russia ahead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in 2022 and continues to provision other critical dual-use items, such as batteries and fiber optic cables for first-person view drones. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has even reportedly told European officials that “China cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine.”
Still, the Chinese Communist Party is quietly but perceptibly preparing for a post-Putin Russia—and hedging against major convulsions in Russian domestic politics in an uncertain post-war period—by institutionalizing ties with the Russian political elite.
—Joseph Webster is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and editor of the independent China-Russia Report.
18. How are the Baltic countries viewing these talks?
For the Baltic states, the Trump-Putin Alaska summit and the subsequent White House meetings involving Trump, Zelenskyy, and European leaders highlighted both the opportunities and potential setbacks of diplomacy. The Baltic states’ official support for Trump’s diplomatic efforts is rooted in a deep conviction that diplomacy without real pressure on Russia leads nowhere. From the Baltic viewpoint, real strength against Moscow is still lacking on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States should leverage its power to compel Putin to agree to an unconditional cease-fire, just as Ukraine did months ago. To achieve a just and lasting peace, US security guarantees for Ukraine, together with those from European nations, are crucial. Hesitation on this matter signals weakness, encourages further aggression, and risks a dangerous reshaping of Europe’s security order. Equally critical is for Europe to finally fully deploy its own leverage: accelerating arms deliveries to Ukraine, opening EU accession talks this September with a 2030 membership target, adopting the EU’s nineteenth sanctions package, and using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
The Baltic states are clear-eyed about Putin’s approach: negotiations, for him, are not about compromise but about manipulation. His KGB-trained strategy relies on twisting reality—making mere participation in summits seem like a major concession, then using that supposed gesture to justify demands for land swaps or political concessions Ukraine cannot possibly accept. The main goal is not peace but time: to prolong the diplomatic process, secure territorial gains on the battlefield, and blame Kyiv for the deadlock. From the Baltic perspective, this is a familiar pattern Russia has used before, turning diplomacy into a cover for escalation. Therefore, the Baltics insist that diplomacy will only work when Putin faces a choice between retreat and unbearable costs, not when he is given another stage to legitimize aggression.
—Justina Budginaite-Froehly, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She previously worked at the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Lithuania in the Defense Policy Planning Department.
19. What should Congress do to help get Ukraine the security assistance it needs?
Last year, Congress took big, bold action and passed a substantial supplemental package that provided the Biden administration with sixty billion dollars’ worth of security assistance to help Ukraine get the weapons it needed to defend itself. Much of that money remains unused for many reasons, including both the Biden and Trump administrations’ hesitance to deplete US stockpiles and the existing backlog of the US defense industrial base. Congress should use its influence—as it has been doing on a bipartisan basis—to urge the administration to provide Ukraine with the tools it needs to win this war while still protecting American stockpiles.
But Congress also has a lot more tools in its belt that do not require additional US funds to ensure Ukraine gets the weapons it needs. For example, many senior members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have longstanding relationships with European leaders. Europe has certainly stepped up in the wake of Russia’s illegal invasion by implementing crushing sanctions against Russia, sending critical weapons systems to Ukraine, pledging to significantly increasing military spending to create a strong and united Europe, and standing firmly with Ukraine. But Europe still lacks production capabilities and personnel to meet some of those goals in the short term. Many European countries do, however, have Patriot batteries that could be shared with Ukraine today. In addition, Europe is sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in immobilized Russian assets. It’s time to give that money to Ukraine to buy the weapons they need to defend their people and start rebuilding their country.
Europe sending Patriots and Russian assets would not only be an effective way to help Ukraine get the security assistance it needs. They would also serve as a powerful message of deterrence to Putin—and a reminder to the world that Europe is a force to be reckoned with in its own right.
—Leslie Shedd is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, the founder of Rising Communications, and former communications director and senior advisor for the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
20. What are the prospects for new elections in Ukraine?
After the protests against the government’s attempt to remove the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in late July, elections in Ukraine are a question of “when” rather than “if.” The size, speed, and sheer intensity of the protests were a sign of public frustration with the perceived unaccountability of elected officials. Everyone understands the need for unity during wartime and the martial law prohibitions on holding elections in Ukraine. However, elections are the best outlet for public anger, lest protests spill over into violence, vigilantism, and division.
Ukraine’s last elections were held in 2020, meaning this is already the longest period in Ukraine’s democratic history without elections. After three-and-a-half years, the Russian invasion shows no real signs of ending. What if the war lasts another three-and-a-half years? That would mark nine years without elections in Ukraine. What if the war lasts five or ten years more? Ruling out elections entirely is a formula for fomenting internal revolution. That would inevitably lead to a loss of international support for Ukraine and give Russia a chance to achieve what it cannot achieve on the battlefield.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States adapted to make use of mail-in ballots. Similarly, through digitalization, Ukraine can adapt to hold elections during wartime. Refugees abroad already can vote at embassies, and with some adaptions to the Diia application, which most Ukrainians use, it’s not a stretch to allow for online voting. The change to a party list system for parliamentary and local elections beginning in 2020 has largely eliminated the issue of geographic districts, which previously would have been a bigger complication. Some will argue that digital voting will allow fraud, but the fact is, whatever fraud done digitally will still be far less than the fraud by paper ballot that sparked the Orange Revolution and was a hallmark of elections in Ukraine’s east and south for decades. The inspiring ingenuity of Ukrainians who adapt on the battlefield each day to resist the Russian advance can surely be applied to the sphere of elections. It’s only a question of political will.
—Brian Mefford
Further reading
Fri, Aug 15, 2025
Experts react: Trump and Putin just left Alaska without a deal. Here’s what that means for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
New Atlanticist By
The US and Russian presidents met in Anchorage for nearly three hours, but the talks did not bring a halt to Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine.
Mon, Aug 18, 2025
Was Trump’s summit with Zelenskyy and European leaders a turning point for Russia’s war in Ukraine?
Fast Thinking By
Our experts share their perspectives on what the White House summit means for efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine and provide security assurances for Kyiv.
Wed, Aug 27, 2025
When it comes to securing Ukraine, the US cannot stay on the sidelines
New Atlanticist By Ian Brzezinski
Ensuring Ukraine’s security after a peace agreement will require a deterrent force with substantial presence in the country, including forces from the United States.
Image: A service member of the 44th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops near a front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 20, 2025. REUTERS/Maksym Kishka/File Photo
