interview
Since Trump's victory, there has been increased speculation about a possible end to the war in Ukraine. NATO expert Babst criticizes this as unrealistic. She calls for an attitude towards Zelensky's peace plan to be developed first.
tagesschau.de: There is increasing discussion about negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine. Are the conditions for such talks with Russia even present?
Stefanie Babst: Let me make a general point about this. The Ukrainian “chessboard” has become much more complex in the last three years, including in terms of the number of players. We now have a globalized conflict in the middle of Europe due to the involvement of China, Iran and North Korea.
Whoever talks about negotiations must keep this strategic situation in mind. In Beijing and Tehran, virtually around the world, our reaction to this is being closely monitored.
As far as Russia is concerned, I don't see any willingness to talk. Russia continues to receive so much military and economic support from its “alliance partners” that it can continue to wage its war of annihilation for quite some time. Putin remains steadfast in his goal of destroying Ukraine and destabilizing NATO and the EU.
Perhaps his willingness to negotiate will change if Trump approaches him after January 20th. But we don't yet know what Trump's first move will be. I assume that the Trump camp and the Putin camp will first have to deal with each other over a longer period of time.
Putin will certainly not declare his willingness to sit down at the table with Trump on January 20th because, in his view, it is not necessary. He will be the one who continues to make demands – not only regarding Ukraine's neutrality, its demilitarization and the annexed territories, but also regarding the lifting of economic sanctions.

To person
Dr. Stefanie Babst is a political consultant and journalist. From 2006 to 2020 she was Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO's Public Diplomacy Division, making her the highest-ranking German in the Alliance's General Secretariat at the time.
What options remain for Trump
tagesschau.de: Trump, in his own way, gives the impression that he can achieve exactly that quickly. Leaving aside the usual boasts, what options does he have to persuade Putin to negotiate?
Babst: Trump will want to emphasize his global power, especially his military power. Perhaps he will think out loud, as Putin does, about modernizing the US nuclear arsenal. That would also be an indirect message to Beijing. In order to act from a position of strength, he could also continue to equip Ukraine with larger weapons packages. At least that's what he could threaten the Kremlin with.
Trump could also try to appeal to Putin's vanity. At some point, Putin would like to be in the global spotlight again with the American president, on an equal footing. Biden refused Putin a bilateral meeting for three years.
At the moment such a meeting would take place, Putin would have achieved an important victory and would have broken out of his Western isolation. Of course he could market this very well domestically. But we are still a long way from that.
“There is no consensus on Zelensky's peace plan”
tagesschau.de: If an agreement is reached, the NATO states as guarantor powers will face special requirements. Do you have the impression that this insight has already reached NATO and is being accepted there?
Babst: In my opinion, the 32 NATO states are divided into several groups. There are the staunch supporters of Ukraine who see Russia as a direct threat to their own security and want to see it defeated militarily in Ukraine. These are the Baltic and Scandinavian states and also Poland.
Then there is the group of friends of Russia – Hungary, Slovakia, and soon perhaps Romania. And then there is the group of southern states, Spain and Portugal, but also smaller states like Belgium, which simply want to wait out the strategic confrontation with Russia.
And finally there is the German-French tandem, which has been out of control for a long time and is busy with itself: Germany is lost in the election campaign and Macron is completely ailing domestically. Overall, NATO is politically very heterogeneous.
There has therefore been no long-term Russia strategy for three years, no concrete idea about the “end state” of Ukraine and no consensus on how to deal with Zelensky's victory plan and whether, for example, accession talks should be started with Ukraine. In my opinion, the latter would be a clear signal and the right step.
“We're talking about several hundred thousand soldiers”
tagesschau.de: Does this disagreement also result in a lack of clarity regarding further possible steps to end the hostilities – for example, sending soldiers to Ukraine as guarantors of peace?
Babst: A ceasefire, a buffer zone, the deployment of soldiers – these are all currently thought games that have little to do with reality. But if we play through it anyway, we're talking about a border that is 1,900 kilometers long. We are talking about an approximately 900 kilometer long section of the front that is heavily contested, a military wasteland and heavily mined.
And we're talking about a Russian Federation that, at least today, has around 650,000 combat troops deployed against Ukraine. These would have to be effectively deterred if a ceasefire was to be secured, unless they retreated far into the Russian hinterland.
So how large would a robustly equipped Western troop contingent have to be that could both act as a deterrent and monitor a ceasefire? We were then probably talking about several hundred thousand soldiers.
Added to this would be the necessary logistics, equipment, leadership skills, etc. Overall, this would be a gigantic, highly complex operation whose participants would also have to rotate.
In addition, the existing commitments to NATO regarding troops and capabilities of the members continue to apply. I don't see how the Europeans could do that. Theoretically, this could only be conceivable, if at all, with very broad international participation, perhaps with a UN mandate.
What is currently being debated in Germany completely ignores reality. The Bundeswehr is not even able to fully fulfill its NATO obligations or bring a brigade to Lithuania without it taking five or four years.
We do not have extensive military capabilities, we only have limited deployable and deployable troops and the current number of personnel in the Bundeswehr is far too small.
“Zelensky's victory plan was never seriously discussed”
tagesschau.de: Shouldn't we also define what it means that Putin is not allowed to win, as the Chancellor repeatedly demands and how one views Zelensky's peace plan?
Babst: Mr. Scholz doesn't want to “let Putin win,” but his government has done precious little to put Ukraine in a position to triumph over the aggressor and push him back militarily.
The current federal government has neither developed its own “victory strategy” for Ukraine nor a robust containment strategy against Moscow. It has shown no discernible strategic approach at all, other than not provoking Moscow.
Unfortunately, it is fitting that the political parties in Germany have never seriously discussed Zelensky's victory plan. But that should be our starting point – not the question of whether German soldiers could take part as part of a possible “peace mission”.
If we don't want to decide on the minds of the Ukrainians, then we would first have to ask ourselves: What can we specifically do to support Ukraine's plan, which elements of it are conceivable and which are not? But we don't even talk about that in Germany.
Incidentally, there is nothing in Zelensky's victory plan about a “peace mission.” So why are we discussing this? By the way: The Baltic and Scandinavian states officially support the victory plan. Only our government is having this ghost debate.
“There is no alternative to joining NATO”
tagesschau.de: Is it related to the fact that the NATO states want to continue to avoid a debate about the admission of Ukraine?
Babst: Over the last three years, the German government has done everything it can to ensure that Ukraine doesn't come even one centimeter closer to the start of accession talks. The start of accession negotiations would be a central strategic signal that we could send to Moscow.
There is no serious alternative to NATO membership for Ukraine; unless we want to reward Russia for its barbarism and place a new Iron Curtain across the middle of Europe. If we always avoid Ukraine's request to join the country – and we have been doing that for 16 years now – because we think that would provoke Russia, we will continue to go around in circles.
Security guarantees for Ukraine would only be effective if the affected nations placed Ukraine under a nuclear and conventional protective umbrella. Then if Moscow attacked Lviv or Kharkiv, it would have to expect a massive response.
The French or the British could do that, but they too are shying away from it. So what security guarantees are we talking about? The guarantee of assistance in Article Five of the NATO Treaty is a red line for Russia. As long as Ukraine is outside the NATO fence, Putin will continue to try to destroy it.
The interview was conducted by Eckart Aretz, tagesschau.de