US President Donald Trump’s pre-election promises to end the war in Ukraine in less than 24 hours – and before his inauguration – have proved empty.
Keith Kellog, Mr Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, says the administration’s new goal is to stop the fighting in 100 days.
But details on how this will be achieved remain scant. Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed this is because speaking openly about his plans would undermine his negotiating position. His detractors, however, say this is a cover for a lack of plan.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, have both expressed a willingness to speak with Mr Trump, though both have their own demands if peace is to be achieved.
Below, The Independent looks at the factors at play and why a peace deal could prove elusive.
Two days after Mr Trump’s inauguration, the US president gave the first brief insight into his plans.
“If a deal is not reached, I will have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and other participating countries,” he posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
“We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” he said, adding: “The easy way is always better.”
A week previously, Bloomberg reported that the incoming administration had begun forming its sanctions strategy on Russia, one that included offering targeted relief to Russian oil producers to incentivise negotiations or expanding sanctions to ramp up pressure.
It is no surprise that a notoriously-transactional Mr Trump, who has spoken at length about tariffs, appears focused on leveraging the financial might of the US to end the war.
Whether it will succeed, however, is unclear.
Russia’s economy appears to have soaked up the brunt of Western sanctions over the past nearly three years, though the long-term implications of putting an economy on a war footing could prove dangerous.
But additional pressure from Mr Trump, off the back of a particularly aggressive sanctions package in Joe Biden’s final days in office, could force Mr Putin to think more carefully.
Russia controls a little under 19 per cent of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula and parts of the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukraine controls a slither of the Russian border region of Kursk.
