Russia Matters, 11/8/24

1. Donald Trump’s promise to end the war in Ukraine by his inauguration now puts the president elect in a position of having to choose between competing proposals from advisers united by a common thread—a sharp break from President Joe Biden’s approach of letting Kyiv dictate when peace talks should begin while arming Kyiv “as long as it takes,” according to WSJ. Instead, these proposals uniformly recommend freezing the war in place and forcing Ukraine to suspend its quest to join NATO for at least 20 years, this newspaper reported. One of these proposals is attributed to Mike Pompeo and is likely to push for a settlement that doesn’t appear to give a major win to Moscow, according to WSJ. In contrast, Richard Grenell’s proposal gives priority to Trump’s desire to end the war as swiftly as possible, even if it means forcing Kyiv into significant concessions. Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump had bashed Biden’s handling of Ukraine, complaining that Kyiv “fleeced the U.S. by obtaining weapons worth billions of dollars free of charge,” and describing Zelenskyy as the “greatest salesman,” according to WSJ. Trump has also touted that he had a plan to resolve the conflict quickly, but noted “I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them.”
   1. The only way to achieve a swift end to Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion would be to force his country into a defeat, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had a phone conversation with Trump after the latter’s victory. The phone call included two surprises: Elon Musk was also on the line, and Zelenskyy was somewhat reassured by what he heard from Trump, two sources with knowledge of the call told Axios.
   2. After a significant wait, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump on his victory in the U.S. presidential election, stating he’s ready to hold discussions with the president elect on stabilizing U.S.-Russian relations, including the issues of Ukraine and strategic stability. “It seems to me, it deserves attention what was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis,” Putin said in his first comments on Trump’s re-election, which he made in the course of the third hour of his remarks at the Valdai conference on Nov. 7. In earlier comments, Trump said he is planning to speak to Putin.  
   3. Russian stock investors expressed cautious optimism over Trump’s victory. The Moscow Exchange Index rose by 3.6% Nov. 6 on news of Trump’s victory, with Russian energy giants Gazprom and Novatek among the best performers, both rising nearly 5% shortly after opening, according to Istories and FT. Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa Securities jumped 18.3%, its biggest daily rise in over two years, according to FT.[1] “All the talk this morning is about how to trade Russia and whether sanctions will be thrown off,” one portfolio manager told FT the morning after the Nov. 5 elections.
2. At a summit this week, European Union leaders debated whether they can keep the Ukrainian war effort going if Trump decides to shut off support from the U.S., according to Bloomberg. While some EU leaders argued that the European Commission should be coming up with proposals on how the bloc will respond if U.S. aid is shut off, others were skeptical, according to this news agency. “Some EU leaders say that in such a case, the EU should take on full financial responsibility for Ukraine. I see this as impossible, and Slovakia will not agree to it,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said. In spite of this disagreement, Zelenskyy, who attended the two-day summit in Budapest, urged European leaders to supply Kyiv with more weapons rather than pushing for negotiations with Moscow, according to Meduza. 
3. “I have previously stated that we have reached red lines. The West’s calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a nation with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, reveal the reckless adventurism of certain Western politicians,” Putin told the annual conference of Russia’s Valdai Club. “Such blind faith in their own impunity and exceptionalism could lead to a global catastrophe,” he warned. When asked by a Pakistani general to share his vision for maintaining strategic stability after New START expires, Putin claimed that Russia “never refused to continue the dialogue in the field of strategic stability,” but the U.S. cannot hope for a dialogue in that field with Russia while seeking to inflict a strategic defeat upon it.” He then added, “Let’s see how the new future [U.S.] administration will formulate its proposals, if there are any at all.”
4. This week multiplereportsemerged that North Korean troops had engaged their Ukrainian counterparts, fighting on the Kremlin’s side in Russia’s Kursk region, likely starting on Nov. 4. Russian and North Korean leaders continued to refuse to explicitly acknowledge the presence of a DPRK contingent in western Russia, in spite of these reports, accompanied by photos of purportedly wounded North Korean soldiers (who are reportedly paid $2,000 per month for participating in combat in Russia). However, the very fact that Vladimir Putin found time for a reportedly unscheduled meeting with North Korea’s visiting foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, while Russia’s Senate unanimously voted to ratify a mutual defense treaty with the DPRK, reaffirms how important the Hermit Kingdom’s support has become for the Kremlin in its aggression against Ukraine.
5. In the past month (Sept. 30–Oct. 31, 2024), Russian forces have gained 206 square miles of Ukrainian territory, and in the first week of November, an additional 75 square miles, while Ukrainian forces have re-gained zero square miles, according to RM staff’s Nov. 8 estimate based on data provided for that period by the Institute for the Study of War.