Ukraine: What should a ceasefire look like to work?

LondonSome peace treaties make peace possible; others, more war. What will happen in Ukraine if it ends up signing one in the coming months? Another, in fact, because the first two that refer to the current situation were signed between September 2014 and February 2015. The history of the conflict doesn't offer much optimism. At least for now. "The Minsk II agreement was intended to end Russia's limited invasion of Ukraine in 2015, but instead laid the groundwork for the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022", says Natalia Bugayova, a researcher attached to the Institute for the Study of War, one think tank based in Washington. From that perspective, the two pacts signed in the Belarusian capital were a failure.

It was not by chance that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer assured last Thursday, before meeting with the military chiefs of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, that "if there is an agreement, and I hope there is, because I want to see peace, this peace must be sustainable, which means that security guarantees are needed. Last time, without these guarantees, Putin simply breached the pact."

Among the many promises made by the US president during last year's White House race, the then-Republican candidate said, more or less, that "in 24 hours" would end with "a war ridiculous thing that should never have started." But global geopolitics has not fit well with what was, at best, nothing more than a campaign slogan and, at worst, a common trademark joke. The thirty-day total truce that Trump asked Putin, and that, please, yes had accepted the Ukrainians before the phone call between the two presidents that same week, hasn't yielded the expected results. Or, at least, the results Trump and his communications team believed they could achieve. And yet, this past Friday, from the Oval Office, the Republican remained confident: "The land distribution is being negotiated as we speak, and I believe there will soon be a complete, and fair, ceasefire."

"Every time I hear President Trump speak, the most striking thing is the lack of any language specific to international law. Everything achieved since 1945 has ceased to exist," he told ARA. Maria Varaki, Co-director of the research group at the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

The international law specialist denounces the US president's use of "business-like" language in an attempt to resolve an "extremely complex conflict that began with Russian aggression in Ukraine." In this regard, it is worth remembering that Trump has used the phrase "take ownership"(taking ownership), speaking both in the context of Ukraine's rare earths and its nuclear power plants as well as the Gaza Strip.

Another very relevant variable introduced by Trump in this process is "the normalization and the presentation of the annexation of a territory by force as a normal fact," says Varaki. recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, the result of the 1967 occupation. All of this has consequences. "From now on, the prohibition of accession by force seems to be something that can be discussed [in a peace process], whereas it shouldn't be able to be discussed, right? After 1945, states could not acquire territory through the use of force. It's a violation of international law and is prohibited."

This issue is, in Varaki's view, one of the most problematic from the perspective of international law when it comes to negotiating a possible peace. In the case of Ukraine, not only the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014, but also the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed in 2014, are at stake. four provinces of Donbas, which Moscow adopted in September 2022, holding referendums not recognized as legitimate by the vast majority of the international community. In total, between 20 and 25% of Ukraine's territory is in Russian hands.

Overcoming confusion

On the other hand, Trump's commercial language is inconsistent with the formalities required for a cessation of hostilities, according to diplomatic standards. Kristian Herbolzheimer, director of the Catalan International Institute for Peace (ICIP), explains that "a ceasefire requires certain fundamental conditions: there must be a signed document that clarifies when it comes into effect, how long it will last, what acts are permitted and prohibited during this period, and what the mechanisms are for verifying compliance." Sonia Sánchez reports From Barcelona. Nothing resembling a complete truce emerged from Trump and Putin's call.

On the contrary. "There is great confusion about Trump's initiative, a lack of understanding of what he's talking about," Varaki asserts. And, for the moment, there is no involvement from the United Nations, which clearly distinguishes between concepts such as humanitarian pause, truce, cessation of hostilities, armistice, and, finally, peace treaty. "It's Trump who runs the show with language that is clearly not comparable or understandable to all sides," the professor says. To think that everything could be resolved in 24 hours or in a phone call is "absurd," she concludes.

Suffice it to remember that the ceasefire of the Korean War (1950-53) was negotiated over two years, during which the fighting continued fiercely. In the end (July 1953), an armistice was signed, but not a peace treaty, so, technically, North and South Korea remain at war.

The first thing that should be done in the case of Ukraine, therefore, is to achieve a partial truce, then a full one that would open the door to a ceasefire, an armistice, and finally, if possible, a peace treaty. Supposedly, Trump's 30 days were supposed to facilitate the opening of negotiations in that direction. As always in these processes, one of the big problems is trusting the other side. Neither Zelensky nor the Europeans trust Putin at all. Do they not trust Putin either?

Step by step and many years ahead

He Professor and jurist Mark Weller, from the University of Cambridge, with extensive experience in international negotiations – Kosovo, South Sudan, and Darfur, for example – has been working with other specialists in law and international relations since the beginning of the war to establish a peace agreement in Ukraine. Between 2022 and February 2025, he and his team have produced countless literature of what could be a pact that would end hostilities. The latest proposal comes in light of the initiative launched by President Trump. He basically advocates "taking it step by step, deferring the most contentious aspects," perhaps for many years.

The first point, he states, would be the "withdrawal of combatant forces within a 7.5-kilometer stretch" of the line of contact. A contingent of 7,500 troops of a mutually acceptable strength should be deployed within the resulting zone, which would initially rule out Keir Starmer's so-called Coalition of the Willing.

Subsequently, a series of points are established that, for now, seem impossible to achieve. Among other factors, this is because they refer to the consideration already raised by Professor Varaki regarding the annexation of territory by force. "This recognition remains impossible given the position of international law," Weller also points out. An agreement that would recognize the Crimean peninsula and the four provinces annexed in September 2022 within Russia "should not be acceptable to the Trump White House," says the jurist.

In this context, the only possible solution would be to "postpone the question of the territory's status," at least until a definitive solution, which could be reached "in the context of a broader pan-European security conference a good number of years down the road." At this point, it is impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Varaki concludes, who, like Weller, advocates taking things step by step and "starting with the smallest issues and leaving the territorial aspects for last."

Ultimately, accepting battlefield gains within international law would open the door to sanctifying the law of the mightiest and opening Pandora's Box. It would also, for example, bless a hypothetical annexation of Greenland or the Panama Canal by the United States; of Taiwan by China; of Cyprus by Turkey; and, of course, of the Ukrainian territory conquered during the war, and even legitimize the possible occupation of the former Soviet republics, including the Baltic states. Despite Trump's optimism, peace in Ukraine still seems a long way off.