What are the options for peace in Ukraine?

Published

8 months ago

March 18, 2025

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s have both said any ceasefire between their two countries must lead to a lasting peace.

Ukraine has not long marked three years of war, in which hundreds of thousands have died or been injured on both sides, according to the respective authorities.

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The Kremlin’s annexation of more Ukrainian territory during its invasion – which it still calls a “special military operation” -and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s determination to uphold its sovereignty has left many analysts doubtful the war will ever end.

But since his return to the White House, Donald Trump has demanded the two sides “make a deal”, withdrawing vital US support to Kyiv until it agreed to come to the negotiating table.

Mr Zelenskyy has now agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, with Mr Trump due to iron out Russia’s demands in a phone call with Mr Putin on Tuesday.

But beyond that – what would a Ukraine without fighting look like? Here we go through some of the options.

Ongoing ceasefire

Beyond the initial 30-day agreement, providing neither side violates it, the ceasefire could continue indefinitely.

“A ceasefire can go on to be an enduring thing,” Dr David Blagden, associate professor in international security and strategy at the University of Exeter, tells Sky News.

He gives the example of North and South Korea, whereby a demilitarised zone (DMZ) has effectively served as a border between the two countries since the Korean War ended in 1953.

“Even if it doesn’t ever lead to a more satisfactory settlement, it might still be better for both parties than endless conflict,” he says.

But any kind of DMZ would require both Ukraine and Russia to pull their troops away from the frontline, which is unlikely, adds Dr Huseyn Aliyev, senior lecturer in East European studies at the University of Glasgow.

Parts of Ukraine become ‘New Russia’

The alternative would be for both Ukraine and Russia to offer concessions to formally end the war.

Top of Vladimir Putin’s “list of demands” for “long-term peace”, and his justification for invading Ukraine in the first place, is Crimea – and four other regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia – becoming part of a ‘New Russia’, as they were before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

While Luhansk is almost completely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds significant parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, making them more difficult for Kyiv to let go of.

“We know neither Crimea nor the Donbas regions [Donetsk and Luhansk] would be returned [to Ukraine] as part of a truce,” Dr Aliyev says. “So it would involve ceding control over those parts.

“But Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are more complicated – especially Kherson – as Kherson city was so painfully liberated by Ukraine in 2022.”

Although many doubt Russia would stop there in terms of territory, Dr Blagden adds: “There would be Russian rationale for being content with what they already have. It’s been hugely costly for them – and destroyed a lot of their expensively modernised military. It’s also filtered through into Russian civilian life, to an extent, via the sanctions and casualties, despite the Kremlin’s efforts to insulate Russia’s upper and middle classes from the worst of the war.

“Likewise, for Ukraine – galling and unfair though it may be – there’s likely now more recognition that retaking lost ground will be desperately hard, especially without assured supplies of US weaponry and intelligence. So, they could have reason to live with some sort of ceasefire too.”

Power plants and infrastructure split

Mr Trump has said his team has already proposed “dividing up certain assets” between the two countries – namely “land and power plants” – and will discuss the details with Mr Putin in a phone call on Tuesday.

He did not give any specifics, but these are likely to include the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which has been occupied by Russia since March 2022, and is one of the largest in the world.

Other key infrastructure that could come under Moscow’s control includes the Nova Kakhovka dam, blown up in 2023 and not yet rebuilt, and other river crossings.

Zelenskyy replaced

A truce would also likely include a new leader for Ukraine. Mr Zelenskyy has already told Sky News he is open to stepping down if it means Ukraine can join NATO.

One of Mr Putin’s demands is that Ukraine is never allowed NATO membership – but replacing Mr Zelenskyy could still serve to appease him – and Donald Trump, who has called him a “dictator” and accused him of “gambling with World War Three”.

“It would be easier for Zelenskyy to call an election and have somebody replace him,” Dr Aliyev says. “But there’s a problem of who that would be – as there’s not much left of the Ukrainian opposition.”

Contenders include Ukrainian ambassador to the UK Valerii Zaluzhnyi – or one of the generals currently in charge of the military, he adds.

But the Kremlin would prefer a pro-Russian regime in Kyiv, according to Dr Blagden.

“Short of being able to conquer the whole country, a government that’s more favourable towards Russian interests would obviously be their preference,” he says.

“Similar to the one they’ve worked hard to install in Georgia, they might hope for the return of Ukraine’s more pro-Russian politicians and sentiment from before 2014. But of course, Ukrainian opinion is now galvanised against anyone seen as a puppet of Moscow.”

‘Minor concessions’ for Ukraine

Although Russia’s demands would mean a series of heavy blows for Ukraine, there could be some “minor concessions”, security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke says.

US national security adviser Mike Waltz has said Ukraine would get “security guarantees” if it agrees to cede territory – but has not specified what they would be.

Other possible concessions include the return of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who were abducted and forcibly resettled in Russia – and prisoners of war on both sides.

In principle, if a truce was agreed, the International Criminal Court could also begin an investigation into whether war crimes were committed on either side.

“In these situations where there’s a fundamental disagreement and you can’t see the way forward, you often concentrate on some of the minor details,” Professor Clarke says.

Starmer’s ‘coalition of the willing’

Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have spearheaded the idea of a so-called “coalition of the willing” to uphold a potential truce or ceasefire.

Sir Keir’s team says “more than 30” countries are interested in contributing to the peacekeeping force – but the US has been notably absent from leaders’ meetings so far. Vladimir Putin has also said he would not accept NATO forces in Ukraine, posing a major obstacle to the plans.

The prime minister has not specified how the coalition would work but said that military chiefs would meet to discuss the “operational phase” on Thursday.

Lower risk option

According to the experts, the coalition could take two potential forms.

Neither would involve guarding the entire frontline. That’s because, at 640 miles long, it would require more than 100,000 troops at a time – and 300,000 with rotations.

By contrast, the first option would be stationing troops away from the line of control, largely in western Ukraine – or at key infrastructural sites or transport hubs to ensure they continue running smoothly.

This would be a similar operation to the British one in Estonia – where 900 troops are stationed to deter Russian aggression. The Ukrainian one would involve up to 30,000 personnel and be focused primarily on monitoring, logistics, and training, the experts say.

“The challenge for any peacekeeping force is balancing effectiveness and escalatory risk,” Dr Blagden adds.

“Calling it a ‘peacekeeping’ force might create the impression of neutrality. But of course, it wouldn’t be neutral – they’re there to defend one of two sides. It would be better understood as a garrison whose job would be to ensure that Russia can’t attack Ukraine without attacking NATO troops, and therefore risking a wider war with nuclear-armed powers,” he says.

“A larger combat force closer to the frontline would create more deterrence but with more escalatory risk – whereas a smaller force further from the frontline – perhaps merely fulfilling training and support tasks – would carry much less escalatory risk but therefore also be much less of a deterrent”.

Ordinarily, that deterrent would be hugely bolstered by the US, which under NATO’s Article 5 could send in powerful air forces to attack ones on the ground – as it has in places like Iraq.

But Donald Trump’s tense relations with Ukraine and suggestions the US could leave NATO have thrown its Article 5 obligations into major doubt.

‘Rapid reaction force’ closer to frontline

Alternatively, coalition troops could be sent closer to the frontline, Professor Clarke says.

They would be split into brigades manning four or five strategic bases like the cities of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv or Kyiv.

Describing them as a “rapid reaction force at high readiness”, Professor Clarke adds: “To be able to go to any trouble spot and snuff it out they’d need a lot of transport – particularly air cover to get there quickly enough.”

They too would likely need to be backed up by a US security guarantee, he says, but under the Trump administration, this is by no means certain.

Neutral peacekeeping force

Alternatively, a peacekeeping force could be led by the United Nations, which would recruit personnel from neutral countries in exchange for incentives, as it does elsewhere.

With the second-largest military in NATO, Turkey could be involved, Dr Aliyev says.

But with Vladimir Putin’s rejection of potential NATO forces, he may be more likely to accept ones from the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations, Professor Clarke adds.

“Putin has hinted at troops from the Global South as monitors – because he thinks they are on his side,” he says. India in particular could be a viable option, he says.

“India has got big forces and wants to play a bigger strategic role in the world. Russia wouldn’t want to fire on Indian forces because of the political implications for their relationship – so they might be most acceptable to both Russia and the West.”

While a neutral option might be the most practical – it may not be hugely successful, Dr Aliyev cautions.

“Similar missions in Lebanon and sub-Saharan Africa have been relatively low in effectiveness,” he says.”A UN force might be the most feasible for Russia – but a coalition of the willing would last longer.”

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Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump’s plan – they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin

Published

6 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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Ukraine and Europe cannot reject Trump's plan - they will play for time and hope he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin

“Terrible”, “weird”, “peculiar” and “baffling” – some of the adjectives being levelled by observers at the Donald Trump administration’s peace plan for Ukraine.

The 28-point proposal was cooked up between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and Kremlin official Kirill Dmitriev without European and Ukrainian involvement.

It effectively dresses up Russian demands as a peace proposal. Demands first made by Russia at the high watermark of its invasion in 2022, before defeats forced it to retreat from much of Ukraine.

Ukraine war latest: Kyiv receives US peace plan

Its proposals are non-starters for Ukrainians.

It would hand over the rest of Donbas, territory they have spent almost four years and lost tens of thousands of men defending.

Analysts estimate at the current rate of advance, it would take Russia four more years to take the land it is proposing simply to give them instead.

It proposes more than halving the size of the Ukrainian military and depriving them of some of their most effective long-range weapons.

And it would bar any foreign forces acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine after any peace deal is done.

The plan comes at an excruciating time for the Ukrainians.

They are being pounded with devastating drone attacks, killing dozens in the last few nights alone.

They are on the verge of losing a key stronghold city, Pokrovsk.

And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is embroiled in the gravest political crisis since the war began, with key officials facing damaging corruption allegations.

The suspicion is Mr Witkoff and Mr Dmitriev conspired together to choose this moment to put even more pressure on the Ukrainian president.

Perversely, though, it may help him.

There has been universal condemnation and outrage in Kyiv at the Witkoff-Dmitriev plan. Rivals have little choice but to rally around the wartime Ukrainian leader as he faces such unreasonable demands.

The genesis of this plan is unclear.

Was it born from Donald Trump’s overinflated belief in his peacemaking abilities? His overrated Gaza ceasefire plan attracted lavish praise from world leaders, but now seems mired in deepening difficulty.

The fear is Mr Trump’s team are finding ways to allow him to walk away from this conflict altogether, blaming Ukrainian intransigence for the failure of his diplomacy.

Mr Trump has already ended financial support for Ukraine, acting as an arms dealer instead, selling weapons to Europe to pass on to the invaded democracy.

If he were to take away military intelligence support too, Ukraine would be blind to the kind of attacks that in recent days have killed scores of civilians.

Europe and Ukraine cannot reject the plan entirely and risk alienating Mr Trump.

They will play for time and hope against all the evidence he can still be persuaded to desert the Kremlin and put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war, rather than force Ukraine to surrender instead.

World

South Africa is making history with its first G20 summit, but the continued exclusion of its oldest communities is a symbolic threat

Published

6 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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South Africa is making history with its first G20 summit, but the continued exclusion of its oldest communities is a symbolic threat

This is the first time the G20 summit is being hosted on African soil.

Heads of state from 15 countries across Europe, Asia and South America are expected to convene in South Africa’s economic capital, Johannesburg, under the banner of “solidarity, equality and sustainability.”

The summit is facing challenges from the Oval Office as US President Donald Trump boycotts the event, where the G20 leadership is meant to be handed over to him by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The US has also warned South Africa against issuing a joint declaration at the end of the summit. The challenges to South Africa’s G20 debut are also domestic.

Nationwide civic disobedience has been planned by women’s rights charities, nationalist groups and trade unions – all using this moment to draw the government’s attention to critical issues it has failed to address around femicide, immigration and high unemployment.

But a key symbolic threat to the credibility of an African G20 summit themed around inclusivity is the continued exclusion and marginalisation of its oldest communities.

“There is a disingenuous thread that runs right through many of these gatherings, and the G20 is no different”, Khoisan Chief Zenzile tells us in front of the First Nations Heritage Centre in Cape Town, “from any of them”.

“I am very concerned that the many marginalised sections of society – youth, indigenous people, are not inside the front and centre of this agenda,” he added.

As we speak, the sounds of construction echo around us. We are standing in a curated indigenous garden as South Africa’s Amazon headquarters is being built nearby.

After years of being sidelined by the government in a deal that centres around construction on sacred Khoisan land, Chief Zenzile said he negotiated directly with the developers to build the heritage centre and sanctuary as a trade-off while retaining permanent ownership of the land.

“There are many people who like to fetishise indigenous people who want to relegate us to an anthropoid state, as if that is the only place we can, as if we don’t have the tools to navigate the modern world,” he says when I ask about modern buildings towering over the sacred land.

“That is the most ridiculous notion – that the entire world must progress and we must be relegated to a state over which we have no agency.”

An hour and a half from Cape Town’s centre, Khoi-San communities have seized 2,000 hectares of land that they say historically belongs to them.

Knoflokskraal is a state where they exercise full agency – filling in the infrastructural gaps around water and electricity supply that the provincial government will not offer to residents it categorises as “squatters”.

“We are – exactly today – here for five years now,” Dawid De Wee, president of the Khoi Aboriginal Party, tells us as he gives us a tour of the settlement. “There are more or less around 4,000 of us.

“The calling from our ancestral graves sent us down here, so we had an urge to get our own identity and get back to our roots, and that was the driving motive behind everything we are here now to take back our ancestral grounds.”

Dawid says they have plans to expand to reclaim more swathes of land stolen from them by European settlers in the 1600s across the Cape Colony.

Land reform is a contentious issue in post-Apartheid South Africa, with a white minority still owning a majority of the land.

Indigenous land is even further down the agenda of reparations, and South Africa’s oldest communities continue to suffer from historic dispossession and marginalisation.

For many Khoi-San leaders, G20 represents the ongoing exclusion from a modern South African state.

They have not been invited to officially participate in events where “solidarity, equality and sustainability,” are being discussed without reference to their age-old knowledge.

Instead, we meet Khoi-San Queen Eloise at a gathering of tribal leaders from around the world on the most southwestern tip of Africa in Cape Point called the World Tribal Alliance.

“In order for us to heal, Mother Nature and Mother Earth is calling us, calling our kinship, to come together – especially as indigenous people because with indigenous people we are still connected to our lands, to our intellectual property we are connected to who we are,” Queen Eloise tells us.

“G20 is a politically-based gathering – they are coming together to determine the future of people politically.

“The difference is that we will seek what Mother Earth wants from us and not what we want to do with technology or all those things politically, but the depth of where we are supposed to go.”

World

Britain rattles its sabre at Russia’s spy ship – but is it a hollow threat?

Published

12 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Britain rattles its sabre at Russia's spy ship - but is it a hollow threat?

A fierce warning from Britain’s defence secretary to Vladimir Putin to turn his spy ship away from UK waters or face the consequences was a very public attempt to deter the threat.

But unless John Healey backs his rhetoric up with a far more urgent push to rearm – and to rebuild wider national resilience – he risks his words ringing as hollow as his military.

The defence secretary on Wednesday repeated government plans to increase defence spending and work with NATO allies to bolster European security.

Instead of focusing purely on the threat, he also stressed how plans to buy weapons and build arms factories will create jobs and economic growth.

In a sign of the government’s priorities, job creation is typically the top line of any Ministry of Defence press release about its latest investment in missiles, drones and warships rather than why the equipment is vital to defend the nation.

I doubt expanding employment opportunities was the motivating factor in the 1930s when the UK converted car factories into Spitfire production lines to prepare for war with Nazi Germany.

Yet communicating to the public what war readiness really means must surely be just as important today.

Mr Healey also chose this moment of national peril to attempt to score political points by criticising the previous Conservative government for hollowing out the armed forces – when the military was left in a similarly underfunded state during the last Labour government.

A report by a group of MPs, released on the same day as Mr Healey rattled his sabre at Russia, underlined the scale of the challenge the UK faces.

It accused the government of lacking a national plan to defend itself from attack.

The Defence Select Committee also warned that Mr Healey, Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet are moving at a “glacial” pace to fix the problem and are failing to launch a “national conversation on defence and security” – something the prime minister had promised last year.

The report backed up the findings of a wargame podcast by Sky News and Tortoise that simulated what might happen if Russia launched waves of missile strikes against the UK.

The series showed how successive defence cuts since the end of the Cold War means the army, navy and air force are woefully equipped to defend the home front.

But credible national defences also require the wider country to be prepared for war.

A set of plans setting out what must happen in the transition from peace to war was quietly shelved at the start of this century, so there no longer exists a rehearsed and resourced system to ensure local authorities, businesses and the wider population know what to do.

Mr Healey revealed that the Russian spy ship had directed a laser light presumably to dazzle pilots of a Royal Air Force reconnaissance aircraft that was tracking it.

“That Russian action is deeply dangerous,” he said.

“So, my message to Russia and to Putin, is this: We see you. We know what you are doing. And if Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.”

He did not spell out what this might mean but it could include attempts to block the Russian vessel’s passage, or even fire warning shots to force it to retreat.

However, any direct engagement could trigger a retaliation from Moscow.

For now, the Russian ship – fitted with spying equipment to monitor critical national infrastructure such as communications cables on the seabed – has moved away from the UK coast. It was at its closest between 5 and 11 November.

The military is still tracking its movements closely in case the ship returns.