President Trump’s peace negotiator, as Russia and Ukraine signal that they will talk to each other, is planning to unveil Washington’s proposal for an armistice at next week’s Munich Security Conference.

Under the motto “Peace Through Dialogue,” the conference at Munich has become a key platform for security talks and initiatives. Mr. Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, is to use the conference to outline a peace proposal to an expected audience of 350 security decision-makers from 70 countries.

General Kellogg is expected to share details of the prospective peace plan with key allies without making a public announcement, Bloomberg News reported.

The three-day parley starts February 14. The conference comes one week before the anniversary of Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Nearly three years of war have seen the worst fighting in Europe since World War II, an estimated total of 1 million killed and wounded.

“I want this to end because I don’t want young people on either side to be killed,” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday. “Constructive talks on Ukraine are underway. We are speaking with both Russian and Ukrainian leadership.”

With Mr. Trump throwing his weight behind a drive to get a settlement by late spring, the presidents of Russia and Ukraine now say they will talk to each other to win an armistice.

“We will be speaking with Putin. Don’t we make too many compromises? Even the conversation with Putin is already a compromise,” Mr. Zelensky said Tuesday in an interview on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” “Nobody knows how this conversation will start and how it will end. Nobody knows, but we believe that President Trump wants to succeed in this situation.”

Asked about the Ukrainian president’s comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian journalists yesterday: “Mr. Zelensky has big problems de jure in terms of his legitimacy, but even so, the Russian side remains open to negotiations.” He added of talks with the new administration in Washington “There are indeed contacts between individual departments, and they have intensified recently.”

Both leaders have sought to butter up Mr.Trump, recognizing that he is probably the only world leader in a position to midwife a deal. Two weeks ago, Mr. Putin told a reporter of Mr. Trump: “I cannot but agree with him that if he had been president, if his victory had not been stolen from him in 2020, then maybe there would not have been the Ukraine crisis that broke out.”

The key to a lasting, Korea-style of armistice would be some variant of the American security guarantees that have allowed Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan to survive and thrive in dangerous neighborhoods. Mr. Trump has already said that he does not want American boots on the ground or Ukraine joining NATO.

America could, though, provide air and intelligence support while the Europeans — Britain, France, Germany and Poland — provide the boots on the Ukrainian side of a Demilitarized Zone.

“Surely the US and Trump understand here that only a settlement that leaves Ukraine with security will ensure Ukraine is sustainable long term, and with it that European security is similarly ensured,” London-based financial analyst Timothy Ash wrote yesterday. “The population and investors must be assured that Russia will not attack or invade again.”

Reflecting a transactional view of the world, Mr. Trump told reporters Monday at the White House that Ukraine could pay for continued American military aid by giving America access to the nation’s estimated $11 trillion of rare earth resources. He said: “We want a guarantee. We’re handing them money, hand over fist.”

“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine, where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things,” Mr. Trump said. “I want to have security of rare earths. We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths.”

According to maps by Soviet-era geologists, Ukraine is home to 20 of the world’s critical minerals and metals, notably lithium, used in electric vehicle batteries, and titanium, used in the aerospace and defense industries. Ukraine also has rare earth elements which are crucial for making the powerful magnets used in wind turbine generators. 

Mr. Trump’s biggest leverage with Russia seems to be the threat of continued high levels of American military aid to Ukraine. He would also like to lower the world price of oil, the primary source of government revenue for Russia.

This year the price of benchmark Brent crude is expected to average $74 per barrel, down about 9 percent from last year’s average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries show no sign of flooding the market to lower prices.

Battering Russia’s economy, Ukraine has carried out strikes against 80 oil refineries and depots over the last 16 months, according to a tally released yesterday by the conservative German news site Die Welt. Reporter Alfred Hacksenberger writes: “The aim is to destroy the refineries to such an extent that the Russian economy collapses.”

On the battlefield, Russia’s performance can be described as Pyrrhic. In an offensive over the last six months, Russia soldiers have conquered 1,090 square miles of Ukrainian territory. That is a tiny parcel when compared to the 233,000 square miles of Ukraine.

Mr. Ash writes from London: “Ukraine is a huge country and Russian territorial gains, even though they have accelerated in recent months, are marginal when compared to the enormity of Ukraine.”

For this amount of land, Russia has suffered 300,260 killed or severely wounded. That is 300 men per square mile.