4 ways the war in Ukraine could play out after Trump's return to power
Chris Unger & Tetiana Dzhafarova | Getty Images
- Trump's return to power comes as Ukraine struggles to stop Russia's advance.
- Trump says he'll move quickly to end the war, but Russia may be disinclined to negotiate now.
- Here are four scenarios for how the war could play out.
With the Russia-Ukraine war nearing its fourth year, attention is turning to President-elect Donald Trump and how his return to power may affect the conflict.
Trump looms as a distressing question mark for Ukraine, which has leaned into personal diplomacy to make its case in the weeks since his election. As a candidate, Trump called the war "a loser" and vowed to end it in 24 hours without saying how he would do so.
The US has provided the bulk of international security assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, committing more than $60 billion so far. Drastic cuts or zeroing of this could enable Russia to achieve the decisive breakthrough it has so far been denied.
As both Kyiv and Moscow scramble to place their respective sides in the best possible position ahead of any changes Trump's administration may bring, Business Insider has taken a look at four ways the war could play out.
A cease-fire deal and frozen lines
The possibility of a temporary halt to the fighting has received renewed attention with Trump's reelection.
Trump, who has pledged to bring the war to a swift end when he returns to office, took to Truth Social on December 8 to call for an immediate cease-fire and the start of negotiations.
"Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness," he said, adding: "It can turn into something much bigger, and far worse. I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act."
In November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has long rejected the idea of ceding land to end the war, suggested such a deal could be achieved if unoccupied parts of Ukraine came "under the NATO umbrella."
"If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control," Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine could then "get back the other part of its territory diplomatically."
John Lough, an associate fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Programme, told Business Insider that Ukraine was seemingly moving away from its "maximal position" of getting back all its occupied territory but that it would want "credible security guarantees from the West."
However, with Western nations reluctant to provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin with binding commitments to Ukraine, the most likely outcome was the war being "frozen" roughly where it is now, he continued, adding that a "settlement is just too ambitious at this stage."
Many analysts say any peace deal is likely to be fragile. Russia seized Crimea in 2014 by force before launching a broader invasion in 2022. Putin, furthermore, has repeatedly called Ukraine's independence fictional, and many observers worry a pause of a few years will allow Russia to train more troops and stockpile more weapons ahead of another offensive.
Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told BI that any peace deal brokered by Trump would likely involve some form of territorial concession.
"It's hard to imagine that it would be stable," Cancian said. "It's easy to imagine another war in a couple of years."
Long-term war
Another possibility is that Russia refuses to compromise and the fighting continues. War experts with the Institute for the Study of War think tank, for example, have repeatedly argued that Russian leaders believe they are winning on the battlefield and are not likely to seriously pursue negotiations while that continues.
In such a scenario, Ukraine would require significant levels of continued Western aid, which could be a hard sell for Kyiv. Both Trump and the vice president-elect, JD Vance, have been openly skeptical of US support for Ukraine under the Biden administration.
It would also put further strain on Ukraine's manpower as well as its economy, which is already facing "intensifying" headwinds, as the International Monetary Fund said in a September update.
While Russia, too, is facing its own economic issues β the Russian central bank raised its key interest rate to 21% in October in an effort to combat high inflation β some analysts have said Moscow could go for years before it has to confront its overspending.
"For Ukraine, the long war is nothing short of disastrous," James Nixey, the director of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Programme, wrote in February. "The country cannot recruit anything like the numbers Russia can press into service. It also places greater value on human life than its opponent, meaning it inevitably suffers more from a protracted war of attrition."
However, a long war is likely to strain Russia's military resources. Moscow is losing armored vehicles at what may be an unsustainable pace, and it may need another round of mobilization to continue replacing its troop losses.
Russian victory
Putin wanted a swift military victory when his forces launched the full-scale invasion.
Almost three years later, that goal has been well and truly quashed, but Moscow could still claim victory β which would likely mean occupying more of Ukraine and toppling Zelenskyy in favor of a deferential head-of-state.
For Kyiv, a worst-case scenario would see its forces' frontlines collapse due to a lack of resources or a shift in international support, Cancian said.
In such an instance, Ukraine would likely be forced into ceding large chunks of territory, with "everything east of" the Dnipro potentially coming under Russian control through either annexation or effective oversight, he added.
Russian forces have been advancing in eastern Ukraine in recent months, straining Ukrainian defenses and compounding Kyiv's much-reported manpower shortage.
While Russia itself continues to suffer high casualties, it has been able to draw on vastly superior numbers while also adding extra recruits from North Korea to support its offensives.
Moscow has also appeared intent on avoiding distractions and keeping its focus on events in Ukraine, putting up little support to help its ally Bashar Assad as his regime collapsed in Syria β despite Russia's important military bases in the country.
In addition, Kyiv is now facing serious uncertainty in the form of Trump's imminent return, with some fearing he could cut aid to the country.
In a recent interview with Time Magazine, the president-elect said he wanted to "reach an agreement" rather than abandon Ukraine, but he added that he strongly disagreed with Biden's decision in November to allow the use of US-supplied long-range weapons to strike Russia, which Kyiv had long coveted.
"I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia," Trump said. "Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse."
Ukrainian victory and Russian retreat
Ukrainians had harbored hope of winning the war after some notable early successes, such as the liberation of Kharkiv in 2022, Ukrainian journalist Svitlana Morenets said.
And while Putin's grip on power seems strong, the conflict has exposed some of the largest fissures since he came to power, such as the armed rebellion by Wagner mercenaries and protests over mobilization.
Russia's government is "authoritarian and it has control over the media, but it's still sensitive to public opinion," Cancian said, adding that it had likely avoided another round of mobilization as it did not want to "stir up domestic opposition," despite needing the manpower.
Washington has also pointed to North Korea's involvement in the war as a sign of the Kremlin's "desperation" and "weakness."
But with Trump's goal of achieving a quick end to the fighting, Russia's continued gains in the east, and Kyiv facing dwindling resources and drooping morale, an outright Ukrainian victory seems off the cards for now.
Seth Jones, the president of the Defense and Security Department at CSIS, previously told BI that as long as Putin is in charge, it would be highly improbable that Russia's forces would retreat entirely. A Russian defeat, however, may threaten Putin's hold on power.
