Trump should leverage Arctic for Ukraine peace – analyst

US President-elect Donald Trump would succeed in talks with Russia to end the Ukraine conflict by offering to lift sanctions on the Northern Sea Route and invite Western carriers to utilize Moscow’s project in the Arctic, an opinion piece in Responsible Statecraft magazine has suggested.

Trump's campaign promise to swiftly stop the fighting between Moscow and Kiev “seemed increasingly out of reach,” Lyle J. Goldstein, a research professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the US Naval War College wrote in his article on Friday.

As the Russian military “continues its slow but steady advance,” Putin could have decided “to push for a more complete Russian military victory and defy any near-term Western peace overtures,” he said.

"It is hard to imagine that dispatching more arms to Ukraine and slapping more sanctions on Russia will be successful at achieving peace,” Goldstein stressed.

However, Trump still has a chance “to break from the status quo and entice Russia to end the war” by making the situation in the Arctic - where a struggle for dominance between world powers has been intensifying in recent years – part of the negotiations, he wrote.

According to the analyst, the issue is “guaranteed to capture… Putin’s attention” because Moscow is interested in the effective functioning of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), which runs from the Barents Sea near Russia’s border with Norway to the Bering Strait between Chukotka and Alaska, and “holds the key to unlocking major development in the country’s vast, resource-rich interior and more broadly for Siberia.”

In order to see Russia making concessions, “the US would need to lift sanctions that have been applied against NSR projects… [and] facilitate major European shipping companies like Hapag Lloyd and Maersk to green light the route.” Another step to “sweeten the pot” for Moscow could be “the encouragement and even incentives for Western investment along the NSR” by Washington and Brussels, Goldstein stressed.

"By appending peace proposals with a carrot guaranteed to catch Putin’s attention, negotiations having a substantial Arctic component could gain Trump’s favor and find success,” he insisted.

Trump said on Sunday that he wants to resolve the Ukraine conflict through direct talks with Putin. “We must end that war,” he stressed.

During his end-of-year press conference last week, the Russian leader said that he is “ready to talk [to Trump] anytime; I will be ready to meet with him if he wishes.”

At the same event, Putin reiterated that Moscow is open to negotiating with Kiev without any preconditions, except for those previously agreed upon in Istanbul in 2022. These agreements include a neutral, non-aligned status for Ukraine and certain restrictions on the deployment of foreign weaponry. He also emphasized that any negotiations must take into account the current situation on the ground.