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The possibility of a ceasefire in Ukraine with a standstill of positions is being raised again. Beyond the hope that the prospect of an end to the fighting always arouses, one must still be cautious. Such a possibility is not necessarily synonymous with long-term peace, but often with complications and new violence. The negotiations, clearly propelled by a White House seeking diplomatic success before the midterm elections, could advance rapidly if the Russian side shows interest. Indeed, let us recall that Ukraine has long declared itself ready for a ceasefire prior to peace talks, whereas Moscow refused the principle of stopping the fighting before obtaining satisfaction of its demands.
The next two months, before the new American Congress takes office, could prove particularly difficult for Ukraine: two weeks after the midterm elections, Donald Trump will fly to Asia where he will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen. He has said he is open to a trilateral meeting proposed by the Kremlin between him, Putin and Xi Jinping. Then, on December 20, the administration will host the G20 summit in Miami, which, according to several diplomatic sources, will be the moment when Trump hopes for an agreement on Ukraine. He has already expressed his desire to see Putin participate in the meeting, even though the latter has not yet confirmed his attendance.
A ceasefire in Ukraine should not lull us into illusions.
Stéphane Audrand
Let us suppose that Vladimir Putin agrees to this scenario: a cessation of hostilities and a “freeze” of the current positions of the two camps. Diplomatic rumors surrounding the current negotiations also speak of the possibility of a demilitarized zone and the commitment of Europeans to provide “security guarantees.” There is also talk of a moratorium on Ukraine’s entry into NATO and of Europeans paying reconstruction costs, which seem to be aimed at paying for a war they did not initiate and for damages they did not cause. And, of course, as in 1991 the USSR, the Russia of 2026 would again be exempt from accountability for its aggressions or crimes, and everything could “go on as if nothing had happened.”
Donald Trump is certainly prepared to go very far in terms of concessions to Ukraine and Europe, provided he can claim to have stopped the war without risking the life of a single American soldier or spending a single dollar. He will also attempt to grab Ukraine’s mineral and agricultural resources.
Where does Russia stop?
A ceasefire is only what it is: the stopping of hostilities based on the positions held by the two sides at the moment of its conclusion. A notion that was reasonably clear in the 20th century, when front lines were the norm and one roughly knew where a camp’s positions ended and where the other began. Even if, already, things were more complicated in urban settings, as we have seen from Beirut to Sarajevo.
In 2026, in Ukraine, the problem is that there is no longer a “front line,” but a diffuse, interwoven and contested contact zone where the belligerents’ positions coexist. This grey zone extends 10 to 50 kilometers depending on the sector. First problem therefore: “where is the ceasefire line”? It is very likely that Moscow would consider the most advanced Russian soldier, even isolated and with no other means than what he carries, to define “Russian control,” even if it is not actually effective.
Ceasefires are very often violated. From Lebanon to Donbass via Nagorno-Karabakh, it is unfortunately common when the warring parties stop fighting not by choice but by constraint. Artillery fire and patrol attacks become the norm, which the different monitoring forces can only deplore, when they are not themselves victims. Violating the ceasefire will be all the easier for the Russian aggressor, in the era of drones, since no one can have a transparent, real-time view of the situation in this tangle, despite advances in sensors and software. And any movement of troops will be used as a pretext to accuse “violations.” Recall that this situation already existed in Donbass in 2015: Russia, though massively present, presented itself then as a third party, claiming that the matter was between “separatists and Ukrainians.” And Moscow prevented OSCE observers from attributing ceasefire violations, unofficially blamed largely on Russia and its allies.
75,000 km² of no man’s land
The logical next step after a durable ceasefire is a demilitarized zone, or DMZ in English. This is a neutralized zone where no one enters, in order to limit “incidents.” We know that it can work if it is airtight, with no civilian corridor and with a very limited number of crossing points. In Korea, this has been the case since 1953. Not peace, not quite war, but a frozen situation along the 38th parallel, to the point that it seems there have “always” been two Koreas. The DMZ in Korea comprises about 4 kilometers of heavily mined land, enclosed by barbed wire and monitored by sensors, from the eyes of sentinels to satellites, through radars and acoustic sensors. And behind the DMZ, the two Koreas keep armies on a war footing, well equipped with artillery to crush any crossing attempt. Over 250 kilometers, this still amounts to more than 1,000 square kilometers of “sacrificed” terrain. In the drone era, the logic would require a deeper DMZ between Ukraine and Russia. How deep? Ideally 50 kilometers, to prevent crossing by most FPV drones and to be beyond the reach of most conventional artillery. So one would need to sacrifice between 4 and 50 kilometers along the 1,500-kilometer contact line. Up to 75,000 square kilometers of territory that Russia had three times recognized as Ukrainian. Perhaps for a century. This DMZ scenario is all the less favorable as it would require each side to give up part of its current positions. This could force Ukraine to concede more ground and abandon its fortified positions in Donbass. It is, indeed, probably one of the limits that could cause an agreement to fail: if Vladimir Putin demands that the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration be returned to him before the truce, Ukraine could refuse any ceasefire.
Donald Trump is certainly prepared to go very far in terms of concessions to Ukraine and Europe.
Stéphane Audrand
But if a ceasefire is declared, how will Russia respect Ukraine and its territorial integrity in the future? The question of security guarantees inevitably arises once the DMZ barriers are installed. There must be someone to guarantee, if not peace, at least the absence of conflict.
In Korea, since 1953, the two “sponsors” of the war no longer want to fight, but monitor the situation. China is present on one side of the border and the United States is deployed in large numbers in South Korea to avert the disaster of the early war in 1950, when North Korea almost managed unification by force. But in Ukraine, there will not be two “sponsors” who do not want to fight. There will be Russia, the aggressor who has all the time, and Ukraine which hopes for guarantees that the United States does not want to give. It is understandable, therefore, that the Ukrainians are cautious. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, by which the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States “reaffirmed their commitment […] to respect Ukraine’s existing borders,” in exchange for Ukraine giving up its Soviet nuclear weapons left on its soil, left a bitter taste.
A coalition with a blurred mandate
Guaranteeing a country’s security is, in reality, very simple: one must be prepared to fight for it in case of an attack. The principle is easy to understand, but its implementation is more complex. Since 1949, Europeans have often doubted the sincerity of the American pledge, yet explicitly inscribed in the North Atlantic Treaty and embodied by American forces in Europe. Regarding Ukraine, it seems that, in the American mind, it will be the “coalition of volunteers” that will enter Ukrainian territory to… “guarantee” something. But what, and with what mandate? We do not know exactly. Yet one can sense the White House’s reservations, which will specify that an attack by Russia on European forces in Ukraine would not justify invoking Article 5 of NATO by the European countries involved. With Russia paralyzing any mandate at the Security Council, we would dodge the “blue helmets,” which would be at best ineffective and at worst a disaster. And we would never have any resolution under Chapter VII favorable to Ukraine.
Moreover, a European force in Ukraine: as of the latest news, Russia did not want it, sometimes alluding to the presence of Chinese or Pakistani personnel. If it is possible that some emerging nations might be tempted to establish a foothold there, it is unlikely that Beijing would suddenly waltz into this hornet’s nest.
Russia wants the end of NATO, the withdrawal of the United States to the pre-1989 border, the abandonment of any real sovereignty and of any alliance by the former Warsaw Pact members.
Stéphane Audrand
Let us suppose, however, that Russia agrees to the entry of Europeans into Ukraine. This is what the Coalition of Volunteers, led by France and the United Kingdom, is purportedly prepared to do on an operational level. And the United States, behind the scenes, provides its aid, notably for the future monitoring of the ceasefire, and could continue from its bases in Germany. But Ukraine is a large country. Even if it maintains a Ukrainian army on a war footing for the long term, which will be costly, it would require at least the equivalent of 4 or 5 European brigades permanently on site. Recall that France currently has six brigades. It is hard to imagine France committing more than one. So at least one German, one British, one Scandinavian, and two others to be found on the continent would be needed. This could prove difficult. These brigades would mainly be tasked with ensuring a “presence,” under the cover of anti-air batteries and fighters that would have to be deployed under a separate command. And of course all these means would be lacking from NATO’s existing framework. For a long time to come, because this scenario could last as long as the situation in Korea, as noted.
Deterrence without waiting
There are measures we could take right away to begin deterring Russia. Measures that would serve our direct interests, place Europeans at the center of negotiations, and force Moscow as well as Washington to take our demands into account. We could, for example, declare that we would protect active Ukrainian nuclear reactors from any bombardment, given the risk that a Russian bombardment, intentional or not, could strike them. In light of the increasing number of drone incursions into European space, we could also declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and shoot down anything flying west of Lviv and heading toward Europe. These would not be escalatory actions that would make us “co-belligerents,” but they would show that we, too, have interests to defend.
As the conclusion, a ceasefire in Ukraine is a fairly intricate scenario, to say the least. It is perhaps “less bad” than continuing the fighting on humanitarian grounds. But we must not delude ourselves. And yet, it will lull us. A portion of European public opinion, and especially the political class, longs only for an end to this war that disturbs them, because it is an existential conflict on European soil that would need to be addressed through our security interests, which the political class no longer knows how to calculate. The European political class is above all a specialist in turning every foreign policy issue into a posture and an electoral issue, with no longer engaging in a calculation of interests. If that were the case, the united front against Russia would have been in place since 2022, or even 2014. Indeed, selfishly, supporting Ukraine is in our interest in the face of a revisionist and expansionist Russia.
A post-war period under tension
In both Russia and Ukraine, a ceasefire will also pose major challenges. Ukraine will have to organize elections, which could provoke massive interference attempts by Russia. The “united front” could hold for a while, but it could crack when the various candidates for Zelensky’s succession declare themselves. The politicization of part of the army is an undeniable fact that will carry significant weight. Ukrainian civil society has shown a strong ability to mobilize to maintain the democratic and European trajectory, which is a source of optimism. Ukraine is likely to be subjected to the same phenomenon of the “Blue Horizon Chamber” as the 1919 National Assembly, which had seen many veterans become parliamentarians. In both countries, and especially in Russia, the return of hundreds of thousands of veterans to their homes will be very difficult and social tensions will be enormous. We already observe in Russia an increase in violent crime and arms trafficking, far more than in Ukraine. We also see new elites emerging in Moscow, “trained on the battlefield,” who will demand their share of power and wealth in the kleptocratic regime. They will likely be more brutal and less trained in the diplomatic-military ballet than their predecessors who lived through the Cold War. The economic difficulties of Russia and the instability of its economy will push Moscow to press for a rapid lifting of sanctions, which will be approved, be sure, by many European industrialists eager to resume Russian gas. A pause may thus tempt the Russian elites, but it will be short enough not to let the overheating of the war economy subside or to demobilize too many soldiers. This pause would allow them to obtain the lifting of certain sanctions, to wait for favorable political turnarounds in Europe, to better prepare their next aggression and to hope to succeed in the next “Kiev strike” within six months to two years, after replenishing their stocks and letting Europeans abandon part of their rearmament, as much for comfort as for shortsightedness.
Violating the ceasefire will be all the easier for the Russian aggressor, in the era of drones, since no one can have a transparent, real-time view of the situation in this tangle.
Stéphane Audrand
To relieve the suffering of the Ukrainian people, we must hope that the fighting ends. But let us beware of false joys. Any halt to fighting is not synonymous with a just and fair peace. History shows that frozen conflicts often solve nothing and are only a prelude to a resumption of violence. The essential is that Ukraine can choose its destiny in full freedom. It is also important for us to realize that talking with Moscow is not enough for the Russian regime to change. The hostility of Russian elites toward European democracies is structural. Their project had been presented with a certain naivety at the end of 2021 within the framework of the double treaty project. Russia wants the end of NATO, the withdrawal of the United States to the pre-1989 border, the abandonment of any real sovereignty and any alliance by the former Warsaw Pact members, who would then be subjected to its influence, interventions and armed threats, and this while reconstituting the USSR by annexing the former Soviet republics. The program has not varied. Any respite will be used to prepare another aggression, while continuing to destabilize our societies. Hoping for peace is legitimate. But being myopic in the face of a bad ceasefire would be dangerous. Peace can only be armed and courageous.