{"id":3988,"date":"2026-03-08T19:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=3988"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:43:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:43:05","slug":"veteran-diplomat-explains-why-putting-peace-deal-before-ceasefire-wouldnt-end-russia-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/veteran-diplomat-explains-why-putting-peace-deal-before-ceasefire-wouldnt-end-russia-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran diplomat explains why putting peace deal before ceasefire wouldn\u2019t end Russia-Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

If you\u2019re confused about the aims, conduct and outcome of the summit meeting<\/a> between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, you\u2019re probably not alone.<\/em><\/p>\n

As summits go, the meeting broke with many conventions of diplomacy: It was last-minute<\/a>, it appeared to ignore longstanding protocol<\/a> and accounts of what happened were conflicting in the days after<\/a> the early termination of the event<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Conversation U.S.\u2019s politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed Donald Heflin, a veteran diplomat<\/a> now teaching at Tufts University\u2019s Fletcher School, to help untangle what happened and what could happen next.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a hastily planned summit. Trump said they\u2019d accomplish things that they didn\u2019t seem to accomplish. Where do things stand now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t surprise me or any experienced diplomat that there wasn\u2019t a concrete result from the summit. <\/p>\n

First, the two parties, Russia and Ukraine, weren\u2019t asking to come to the peace table<\/a>. Neither one of them is ready yet, apparently. Second, the process was flawed. It wasn\u2019t prepared well enough in advance<\/a>, at the secretary of state and foreign minister level. It wasn\u2019t prepared at the staff level. <\/p>\n

What was a bit of a surprise was the last couple days before the summit, the White House started sending out what I thought were kind of realistic signals<\/a>. They said, \u201cHopefully we\u2019ll get a ceasefire and then a second set of talks a few weeks in the future, and that\u2019ll be the real set of talks.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\"Two<\/div>\n

<\/a>

\n UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, here embracing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London on Aug. 14, 2025, is one of many European leaders voicing strong support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.<\/span>
\n Jordan Pettitt\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, that\u2019s kind of reasonable. That could have happened. That was not a terrible plan. The problem was it didn\u2019t happen<\/a>. And we don\u2019t know exactly why it didn\u2019t happen. <\/p>\n

Reading between the lines, there were a couple problems. The first is the Russians, again, just weren\u2019t ready to do this, and they said, \u201cNo ceasefire<\/a>. We want to go straight to permanent peace talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine doesn\u2019t want that<\/a>, and neither do its European allies. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you do a ceasefire, what normally happens is you leave the warring parties in possession of whatever land their military holds right now. That\u2019s just part of the deal. You don\u2019t go into a 60- or 90-day ceasefire and say everybody\u2019s got to pull back to where they were four years ago. <\/p>\n

But if you go to a permanent peace plan, which Putin wants, you\u2019ve got to decide that people are going to pull back, right? So that\u2019s problem number one. <\/p>\n

Problem number two is it\u2019s clear that Putin is insisting on keeping<\/a> some of the territory that his troops seized in 2014 and 2022. That\u2019s just a non-starter for the Ukrainians. <\/p>\n

Is Putin doing that because that really is his bottom line demand, or did he want to blow up these peace talks, and that was a good way to blow them up? It could be either or both. <\/p>\n

Russia has made it clear that it wants to keep parts of Ukraine, based on history and ethnic makeup<\/a>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The problem is, the world community has made it clear for decades and decades and decades, you don\u2019t get what you want by invading<\/a> the country next door. <\/p>\n

Remember in Gulf War I<\/a>, when Saddam Hussein invaded and swallowed Kuwait and made it the 19th province of Iraq? The U.S. and Europe went in there and kicked him out<\/a>. Then there are also examples where the U.S. and Europe have told countries, \u201cDon\u2019t do this. You do this, it\u2019s going to be bad for you.\u201d <\/p>\n

So if Russia learns that it can invade Ukraine and seize territory and be allowed to keep it, what\u2019s to keep them from doing it to some other country? What\u2019s to keep some other country from doing it?<\/p>\n

You mean the whole world is watching.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Yes. And the other thing the world is watching is the U.S. gave security guarantees to Ukraine in 1994<\/a> when they gave up the nuclear weapons they held, as did Europe. The U.S. has, both diplomatically and in terms of arms, supported Ukraine during this war. If the U.S. lets them down, what kind of message does that send about how reliable a partner the U.S. is? <\/p>\n

The U.S. has this whole other thing going on the other side of the world where the country is confronting China<\/a> on various levels. What if the U.S. sends a signal to the Taiwanese, \u201cHey, you better make the best deal you can with China, because we\u2019re not going to back your play.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\"Police<\/div>\n

<\/a>

\n Ukrainian police officers evacuate a resident from a residential building in Bilozerske following an airstrike by Russian invading forces on Aug. 17, 2025.<\/span>
\n Pierre Crom\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At least six European leaders are coming to Washington<\/a> along with Zelenskyy. What does that tell you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They\u2019re presenting a united front to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say, \u201cLook, we can\u2019t have this. Europe\u2019s composed of a bunch of countries. If we get in the situation where one country invades the other and gets to keep the land they took, we can\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump had talked to all of them before the summit, and they probably came away with a strong impression<\/a> that the U.S. was going for a ceasefire. And then, that didn\u2019t happen. <\/p>\n

Instead, Trump took Putin\u2019s position of going straight to peace talks, no ceasefire.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think they liked it. I think they\u2019re coming in to say to him, \u201cNo, we have to go to ceasefire first. Then talks and, PS, taking territory and keeping it is terrible precedent. What\u2019s to keep Russia from just storming into the three Baltic states \u2013 Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania \u2013 next? The maps of Europe that were drawn 100 years ago have held. If we\u2019re going to let Russia erase a bunch of the borders on the map and incorporate parts, it could really be chaotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where do you see things going<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Until and unless you hear there\u2019s a ceasefire, nothing\u2019s really happened and the parties are continuing to fight and kill.<\/p>\n

What I would look for after the Monday meetings is, does Trump stick to his guns post-Alaska and say, \u201cNo, we\u2019re gonna have a big, comprehensive peace agreement, and land for peace is on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or does he kind of swing back towards the European point of view and say, \u201cI really think the first thing we got to have is a ceasefire\u201d? <\/p>\n

Even critics of Trump need to acknowledge that he\u2019s never been a warmonger. He doesn\u2019t like war<\/a>. He thinks it\u2019s too chaotic. He can\u2019t control it. No telling what will happen at the other end of war. I think he sincerely wants for the shooting and the killing to stop above all else. <\/p>\n

The way you do that is a ceasefire. You have two parties say, \u201cLook, we still hate each other. We still have this really important issue of who controls these territories, but we both agree it\u2019s in our best interest to stop the fighting for 60, 90 days while we work on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t hear that coming out of the White House into the Monday meetings, this isn\u2019t going anywhere. <\/p>\n

There are thousands of Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia<\/a> \u2013 essentially kidnapped. Does that enter into any of these negotiations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It should. It was a terror tactic. <\/p>\n

This could be a place where you can make progress. If Putin said, well, \u201cWe still don\u2019t want to give you any land, but, yeah, these kids here, you can have them back,\u201d it\u2019s the kind of thing you throw on the table to show that you\u2019re not a bad guy and you are kind of serious about these talks. <\/p>\n

Whether they\u2019ll do that or not, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s really a tragic story.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

This article written by Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University<\/strong> and is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University If you\u2019re confused about the aims, conduct and outcome of the summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, you\u2019re probably […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":3982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"inline_featured_image":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}