Brussels Sprouts19 Dec 2025

Ukraine Negotiations: Prospects and Pitfalls of Peace

This week Brussels Sprouts breaks down the latest negotiations on Ukraine. American officials told reporters that they had resolved or closed gaps around 90 percent of their differences with Ukraine on a draft agreement to end the war. Territory and security guarantees remain the key sticking points. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said it would be impossible for Ukraine to give up territory that Russia has not taken on the battlefield, while Russia has not dropped its demands to control the territories it illegally annexed. On the security guarantees front, the United States and Europe sound optimistic that progress is being made. The latest plan seems to envision an 800,000-strong peacetime Ukrainian military, U.S.-provided intelligence and monitoring to track any attempts to breach the peace agreement, and a European-led multinational force that would be stationed in Ukraine but away from the front lines to bolster confidence. However, it is highly unlikely that Russia will agree to this plan or any plan that leaves Ukraine with a strong and capable military. In the meantime, the European Union continues to wrangle over whether it will use the frozen assets to finance a €210 billion loan to keep Ukraine financially solvent. To help us assess where negotiations stand and where they might go, Brussels Sprouts welcomes Jana Kobzova and Jennifer Kavanagh to the podcast. Jennifer Kavanagh is a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities.

Jana Kobzova is a senior fellow and codirector of the European Security Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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