WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration resumes sending weapons to Ukraine and continues urging a ceasefire with Russia, international actors have voiced warnings against a deal that could leave Ukraine vulnerable, jeopardize nearby countries, and threaten American interests.
President Donald Trump has vowed to end the war, but a United States-brokered deal would need to balance Ukraine's independence and European security, experts have said.
Russia has a lot to lose if a ceasefire favors Ukraine, while the U.S. faces its own global risks if Russian President Vladimir Putin comes out victorious.
Ukraine signed an agreement on June 25 to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which would prosecute political and military leaders for crimes of aggression involving armed force – in other words, launching a war.
In a webinar titled “The Trial of the Century,” some international officials called the move a “victory” in its “current shape and form.”
“Although it cannot try Vladimir Putin right now, we believe that it can damage his reputation, damage Russians, the view of Russia in the world, and their capacity to conduct business as usual with other countries,” said Inna Liniova, director of the Institute of Human Rights of the Ukrainian Bar Association.
The world is waiting for a peace deal, but will peace ever come?
A ‘bad’ deal
“Should a bad peace in Ukraine prevail, Russia’s endeavors in the South Caucasus will succeed, and this will produce irreversible harm to American strategic interests,” said Nerses Kopalyan, assistant professor-in-residence of political science at the University of Nevada.
The professor, along with a journalist and a policy researcher, raised concerns to the House about the “cost of a bad deal in Ukraine” in a hearing before the U.S. Helsinki Commission in late June.
What would a bad deal between Russia and Ukraine look like? Experts said any deal that favors Russia jeopardizes democracy in other countries.
Three smaller European countries – Moldova, Belarus, and Armenia – would be impacted most immediately should Russia win the three-year-long war, witnesses at the hearing said. This would threaten regional security, with broader implications for U.S. relations.
Moldova, which shares a border with Ukraine, joined the European Union in 2022 as a democratic government. A deal that favors Russia could threaten the new democracy and lead to instability and corruption in the Black Sea.
“Its government is a trusted partner for U.S. and European efforts to stem the flow of illicit trade and human trafficking,” said Michael Cecire, a policy researcher with the RAND Corporation.
He pointed out that Chinese aggression would accompany Russia’s in the region.
“Ukraine is the front line, but the entire region is under threat,” Cecire said. “Our grandparents knew well that the security of the United States was inseparable from that of Europe.”
Belarus, which shares a border with both Russia and Ukraine, could host Russian weapons and troops, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said.
Belarusian journalist Hanna Liubakova testified that her country had “been transformed into a Russian military outpost” since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A “bad deal” would threaten Belarus’ independence.
“Russia is turning Belarus into a strategic launchpad for future escalation against NATO. Putin's ambitions stretch far beyond Ukraine,” Liubakova said. “A free Belarus means a safer Europe and a safer Ukraine. U.S. leverage is essential.”
Armenia, which does not border Ukraine or Russia, is a strategic partner to the U.S., Kopalyan said. The country possesses mines and rare earth minerals, and it also collaborates with the U.S. in the field of artificial intelligence.
“This matters to American families,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said at the hearing.
He added that a victory for Putin would not stay confined to Eastern Europe. “It will embolden America's enemies everywhere,” Wilson said. “But a Ukrainian victory will reinforce the message that aggression does not pay, and America stands for its values and interests alike.”
A ‘good’ deal
What would a good deal between Russia and Ukraine look like?
University of Nevada professor Kopalyan said at the hearing that Russian peace is “basically a form of frozen conflict that allows Russia to manage the conflict.” A good deal would have some form of equity without coercion.
Is that possible? The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation isn’t sure.
“I don't think any ceasefire is particularly good because I don't think Russia will abide by any ceasefire for any period of time. Putin has made clear what his objectives are,” Bob McConnell, co-founder of the foundation, a nonprofit that supports Ukraine’s partnership with the U.S., told The Fulcrum.
Russia wants Ukraine’s territory, while Ukraine wants Russia out. No deal can accomplish this. McConnell said, “I don't think any ceasefire, indeed, I don’t think any peace agreement should ever be considered by Ukraine or the West if Ukraine is not given back.”
Vladyslav Havrylov, a fellow with Georgetown University’s Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, lives in Kyiv as he studies the forcible transfer, deportation, and reeducation of Ukrainian children. He told The Fulcrum he hopes a ceasefire deal will favor children and prisoners of war.
He also said he hopes “that the USA society could help to stop this.”
Trump announced Wednesday that the U.S. would resume sending some weapons to Ukraine after the Pentagon paused some shipments the week before.
“I think it’s a good decision, and we are grateful to the Trump administration for making a positive decision to transfer weapons to Ukraine, especially those intended for defense.”
Ashley N. Soriano is a graduate student at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in the Politics, Policy and Foreign Affairs specialization.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.