- October 22, 2025
- 6:54 pm
- Middle East, Ukraine
Donald Trump is proud of the “truce” between Israel and Hamas — and is already trying to apply the same scenario to Russia’s war against Ukraine. But, as noted by Ukrainian analyst (ukr) Maria Zolkina on October 21, 2025, “peace Trump-style” is not diplomacy, but an imitation of peace.
“The main thing for Trump is to declare silence, not to achieve its observance,” writes Zolkina on October 21, 2025.
Her analysis shows: the agreement that brought Israel a temporary lull is doomed to fail in the Ukrainian context.
Based on materials by Maria Zolkina, head of the “Regional Security and Conflict Studies” department at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation
When “silence” becomes an “end in itself”
According to Maria Zolkina, the new agreement in Gaza became a textbook for understanding how Donald Trump sees the end of wars. The main thing for him is not the elaboration of details, but the very fact of signing a “peace” document.
“The American administration in such logic is not obliged to analyze the balance of power or the real interests of the parties. The main thing is to get formal consent to a ceasefire, even if imposed by force or pressure,” writes Zolkina.
This is exactly how it was in the case of Israel and Hamas, she says.
Both sides, for different reasons, were ready to suspend hostilities: Israel for temporary stabilization, Hamas for restoring its positions.
“Before Trump’s ‘peacemaking’, attempts to see something in common between the war of Israel and Hamas and the Russian-Ukrainian war were, by and large, meaningless. However, the recent ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip directly and classically reflects Trump’s vision — how such agreements can look, what they should be based on, and how they should be organized,” writes Zolkina.
When “silence” becomes an end in itself
According to Maria Zolkina, the main thing in Trump’s approach is to achieve the parties’ principled agreement to end the war or hostilities, without delving into the reasons and interests.
“This is not preceded and should not be preceded, from the point of view of the American administration, by any analysis of mutual interests and balance of power. Therefore, for Trump, it is not essential whether the parties agree to a ceasefire because it is in their interest, or because Trump will force these parties, or one of them, to cease fire — thanks to the use of influence tools that America has under his leadership,” notes Zolkina.
In the case of Israel and Hamas, she adds, the coercion was “relatively mild,” and the key to the parties’ agreement was their own interest, albeit for different reasons, to end the active phase of the war.
Formal peace without guarantees
“After the ceasefire, or rather — after the consent of both parties to cease fire, the conversation about some details begins. But it is very important that these details — about how the silence regime will be maintained, whether there will be sanctions for its violation, whether there will be restoration and what the relations between the warring parties will be based on — all this can be part of the roadmap, but not necessarily. This is secondary,” explains Zolkina.
According to her, in the Trump approach, the emphasis is placed on proclaiming the silence regime, not on its observance.
“The mechanisms will have vague formulations, without any clear algorithms. Donald Trump is not interested in whether the ceasefire regime will be sustainable.”
Politics instead of law
“It is clear that when you are focused on the very proclamation of a ceasefire, and the guarantees of observing this silence regime are not a central element of your plan, the model of fixing such an agreement between the parties will also be as political as possible, not legal.
That is, a sufficiently principled political declaration, political agreement, or plan on paper, but without the status of an international treaty, without a legally binding element,” writes Zolkina.
This is what happened in Gaza. Israel and Hamas did not sign a peace international treaty between themselves.
“An agreement was signed between them, called ‘Implementation Steps for the Realization of President Donald Trump’s Peace Plan for the Comprehensive End of the War in Gaza’. These steps received internal political legitimacy in Israel thanks to the vote of government members in support of such an agreement.”
The pompous ceremony with the participation of leaders from the USA, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt, according to Zolkina, was only “the signing of a Declaration in support of this agreement to end the war.”
Ukraine does not fit into the scheme
According to the author, Trump is trying to apply the same scheme to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Agreement, no matter where — Donbass, Zaporizhzhia, after all, should this interfere with the great and beautiful agreement to end the war?” — Zolkina ironically notes.
To achieve such agreement from the parties, she continues, “flirting with Russia continues (it needs to be persuaded, not forced, according to the Americans) and new, albeit softer, pressure on Ukraine.”
This logic, the analyst emphasizes, does not perceive calls to define guarantees or at least assurances of security, because “this is secondary.”
But this is where the scheme collapses:
“In the case of Ukraine and Russia, Trump’s scheme falls apart already at the first point — there is no principled agreement from Russia to end the war. And this has already become clear to Trump himself.”
Why “peace Trump-style” is doomed
“Russia needs Ukraine’s political capitulation — in matters of territory status, control over Donbass, restrictions on the size and armament of the army, not to mention defense alliances or the Russian language,” notes Zolkina.
She considers such a price for Russia’s ephemeral agreement to a supposed silence regime “too high and unjustified for Ukraine.”
“Israel, by the way, agreed — without legal obligations, I remind you — to almost everything it had long and persistently resisted: the withdrawal of troops from Gaza, the release of prisoners and detainees, the management of Gaza by Palestinians. Russia is not even close to making concessions. And why should it: the USA is not trying to pressure it, even as conditionally softly as it was with Israel,” she emphasizes.
Who is Maria Zolkina
Maria Zolkina is a Ukrainian political scientist and analyst, head of the “Regional Security and Conflict Studies” department at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.
She deals with issues of national security, European integration, international relations, and Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Since 2022, she has been a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics, where she studies changes in Eastern Europe’s security systems after the Russian invasion.
She regularly appears on BBC, DW, “Novoye Vremya”, “Ukrainska Pravda”, and other international platforms.
Conclusion
According to Zolkina, “peace Trump-style” can work where both sides are ready to make concessions, but in the case of Ukraine, it turns into a trap.
“Inspired by his victory in the Gaza Strip negotiations, Trump blindly tries to apply the same approach to Russia and Ukraine. But the similarity of wars ends there — as do the prospects for the American president to achieve such a loud victory if the strategy is not adapted to the context and players.”
Original by Maria Zolkina on FB here (ukr)
