Inside the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire agreement
A conversation with Thomas Graham, the ultimate Russia expert
Thomas Graham is my Russia guru. While we have many terrific Russian experts at CFR, Tom brings a unique clear-eyed perspective from working with six presidents on Russian affairs and negotiating nearly every major arms control agreement with Moscow. He's also a great guy!
In 2023, Tom was part of a group of former senior U.S. national security officials who held secret talks with prominent Russians believed to be close to the Kremlin to try and groundwork for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Tom's book, Getting Russia Right, is a must-read for anyone seeking a clear-eyed approach to U.S.-Russia relations.
I sat down with Tom yesterday to try and understand the ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine announced this week by the White House. Below is a slimmed-down version of our conversation.
EL: So the White House announced a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine and it looks like there are more questions than answers. How do you view it?
TG: My sense is they've agreed at a very superficial level, to have a cessation of hostilities on the Black Sea and also a cessation of attacks against any energy infrastructure. But if you read the text carefully, implementation depends on a lot of technical details being worked out. That's certainly true of the energy infrastructure, where there is no agreement between the Ukrainians and the Russians as to what counts as energy infrastructure, and there is no agreement on any sort of monitoring mechanism, no commission, to my knowledge, has been set up to adjudicate possible violations of a ceasefire against energy infrastructure.
The agreement on the Black Sea looks fine on the surface, but the Russian text released by the Kremlin clearly indicates that implementation is dependent upon the United States removing sanctions of one sort or another on the agricultural side that would allow the agricultural bank to actually use the Swiss system that would allow insurance companies to provide adequate insurance to any ships coming out of the Black Sea.
So there is some sort of general agreement that these would be good things to do, as they always say, the devil is in the detail. How is this going to be implemented? What agreement is there or needs to be between the Russians and the Ukrainians so that they can actually put in place a ceasefire, with each side having clear expectations of what its obligations are, what the obligations of the other side are? There is no ceasefire in place against anything at this point, because there's no agreement between the Russians and the Ukrainians and the Americans as to what is off limits, what the obligations are. Those are all subject to technical review.
EL: Who benefits more, if this agreement were implemented?
TG: It's a difficult balance to draw. Certainly given the pounding that the Russians have subjected Ukrainian infrastructure, energy infrastructure over the past six months, Ukraine stands to benefit. But we're moving into spring. So there is less of a demand on the energy resources for heating.
When it comes to the Black Sea, we're in an interesting sort of situation. Ukraine still exports grain out of the Black Sea, but they've been doing that for at least a couple of years, even after the grain deal fell apart a couple of years ago. The agreement says that there'll be more Russian export of fertilizer and other sort of agricultural products out of the Black Sea. But it turns out that the Russians are already exporting fertilizer and other agricultural products out of the Black Sea. And I think if you look at the actual figures, exporting more fertilizer now than they did a couple of years ago.
So it really looks to me that this is an effort by the Russian government to get the United States to begin the process of using sanctions. Once you set that precedent, now be other sort of agreements that will come down the road that the Russians will be more than happy to implement on the condition that the United States removes some sanctions.
EL: So Putin isn't making any concessions?
TG: No, I don't think so. Part of what Putin is doing, is agreeing to things that President Trump can point to as success, but not make any real concessions at this point. The idea is to continue to make progress on the battlefield and undermine Ukraine, militarily, politically and diplomatically and so forth.
So the strategy is, to agree to a partial ceasefire but there are certain conditions that have to be met before we can actually have a permanent ceasefire.
From the very beginning, The Kremlin has made it clear that its preferred scenario is we agree on, we resolve the "root causes of this conflict," then we have a permanent ceasefire. The Trump administration wants to reverse that: They want to have a ceasefire and then move towards a resolution of what the Russians call the root causes. What the Kremlin has done effectively at this point is agree in principle to some of the things that Trump has advanced at this point, but then put in place requirements that would have to be met before they end the fighting.
EL: Has the administration overestimated how easy it would be to negotiate this ceasefire?
TG: I think so. I think it's also clear that there is not full comprehension, what the state of play is already. There have been partial ceasefires in the Black Sea before. So this is not entirely new. What is new in this is Russia using an agreement to put requirements on the United States to take certain actions that they hadn't considered before, specifically lifting of sanctions, which is beneficial to Russia and creates a precedent for further lifting of sanctions.
There's no peace agreement at this point. And when you look at what has been done so far, look it's good that the sides are talking and they're talking about a ceasefire, but if you read carefully what has been agreed to, and look at the facts on the ground. Very little has changed over the past couple of weeks.
EL: What is Putin's ultimate goal?
TG: Over the long run, his goal is the subjugation of Ukraine. And that is - that doesn't mean occupation by Russia - What he wants, I think, at a minimum, is that whatever part of Ukraine remains nominally independent at the end of this conflict has a status that is much like Belarus today, not true independence, dependent on Russia within the Russian sphere of influence, where Moscow has significant influence over domestic politics in Ukraine, but most importantly, complete control over Ukraine's geopolitical orientation.
I think everybody agrees that even the Ukrainians agree that they're not going to be able to liberate the territory that the Russians have seized through military means. The issue is whether Ukraine would recognize Russia's annexation in that territory, so de jure recognition of Russian control, or merely de facto recognition of Russian control. What Kyiv is prepared to do, I think, as part of a negotiation, is to agree to de facto control - the Russians are there, we can't dislodge them militarily, but we are not going to formally recognize this as part of Russia.
EL: What leverage does President Trump have over Putin?
TG: The question is, what the administration is prepared to do? Right? The things that Trump has mentioned so far, tariffs, for example, are meaningless because the level of trade between the United States and Russia is minuscule, about $2 billion. We have sanctioned the Russians up the kazoo at this point, and there are all sorts of ways for Russia in evading sanctions. So I think those things are largely meaningless as leverage over the Russians at this point.
The leverage that the United States has comes in two ways. One is unity in the West, which then means the continuation of support for Ukraine, militarily and financial that allows them to continue this conflict. But second, it comes by exploiting the desire on the part of the Kremlin to have a broad relationship with the United States. Russia thinks of itself as a great power, but it's not sufficient that the Russians think of themselves as a great power. They want to be respected as a great power, and the one country that can validate them as a great power happens to be the United States. And so engaging in a broad relationship with the United States is actually psychologically quite important to Putin at this point so the administration could talk about that. They could begin to set up working groups to deal with Russia on the broad range of issues that ought to be on the bilateral agenda, strategic stability, the Middle East, energy security, the Arctic and so forth, as a way of creating carrots that could then be transformed into sticks in negotiation over Ukraine, - we're prepared to continue negotiating with you or talking to you about this broad range of issues, which is important to you, it is important to us. But a condition of that is you're making certain concessions on Ukraine so that we can move towards a durable peace in Ukraine.
EL: How do you think it plays out?
TG: I think the Russians will continue to drag this out as long as they possibly can. They will pay careful attention to sort of what they think President Trump's state of mind is because they do want to keep him on board.
I don't think the President has an idea of what victory looks like, but as long as he can claim success and can argue in his own mind that he's responsible for that success, then I think the process continues. If he reaches a point where it's no longer possible to do that, I think the most likely scenario is that President Trump decides to move on to other issues that he wants to focus on, and the Russia, Ukraine conflict continues to simmer along, much as it has over the past over the past year or so.
EL: What is the best possible outcome here?
TG: I think a good settlement, from the standpoint of the United States, is the preservation of an independent sovereign Ukraine on a substantial amount of the territory of Ukraine within the 1991 borders, a Ukraine that is slowly integrating into the Euro-Atlantic community. That means EU accession talks accelerate, and a Ukraine that has some sort of reasonable security guarantees, which almost certainly will be outside of NATO, but nevertheless significant. That is how I would define success is probably a better word, and that's what the United States should be aiming for in these negotiations with Russia. Russia still comes away with this from some benefits, not the total subjugation of Ukraine so significantly less than what Putin's maximal goal is in Ukraine.
HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: Tomorrow I am holding my first Substack Live! I am thrilled to be doing this with Sasha Ingber author of the HIMINT Substack. We will talk about how China is swooping into exploit the US retreat and government cuts
Hope you will tune in TOMORROW at 12:30p. Don’t forget to download the Substack app subscribe to Cosmopolitics so you get a notification when we start. You can also add it to your calendar here.
