Erik TorenbergGeneral Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

🗺️ WHERE WILL THE DMZ BE? Ukraine-Russia endgame explained 🇺🇦🇷🇺

2 Apr 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

2:07

In a brief dialogue, Speaker A asks how the Ukraine‑Russia conflict might be resolved. Speaker B argues that the decisive issue will be the placement of a demilitarized zone (DMZ) rather than a military reconquest of Crimea or Donbas. He claims Ukraine lacks the capability to retake those territories and that the United States and Europe will not supply the necessary force. Consequently, any settlement will likely involve a negotiated DMZ line, possibly a compromise between Russia’s desired buffer (60‑70 miles) and Ukrainian expectations. Speaker B also suggests that Putin will justify the war domestically by portraying it as protecting disputed territories and keeping NATO out, drawing a parallel to Finland’s 1940 resistance. He further posits that large‑scale foreign investment in rare‑earth mineral deposits near the prospective DMZ could act as a deterrent, making further Russian aggression costly. Finally, he notes that former President Trump is leveraging this economic stake, warning Putin that any renewed attack harming American interests would trigger conflict.

Chapters

How do you think Ukraine and Russia is going to resolve?
There's one big issue. The only issue that I can see is where is the DMZ going to be? Because it was never the argument of the Obama administration when he invaded the Donbas and Crimea, or the Trump administration who inherited that, or the Biden administration prior to February of 2022, that we were going to give them the military wherewithal to take back Crimea and Donbas. Nobody said that. That only came up after the latest invasion, but there's no way in the world that Ukraine has the ability to take back those 2 areas. And there's no way in the world the United States and Europe are going to give them the necessary wherewithal to do that. So I think what we're looking at is that Putin is going to say to the people when they ask him, why did he get a million Russians killed and wounded in a stupid invasion? He's going to say, I reified or I institutionalized disputed territories that we occupied in Crimea. And I kept them out of NATO, but Ukraine is the best armed and experienced army now in all of NATO except for the United States. And kind of like Finland in 1940, it stopped the Russians from absorbing the country. So then the only issue that I see is where will the DMZ be? Will it be as we want it to be prior to February 24th where he started and he's going to say, I want to 60 or 70 miles where I am now. And wherever that is, they might split the difference. They'll have to have a DMZ. But the more you think about it, if he has a sizable US investment and other countries invest in the same rare earth minerals and they are there very close to the DMZ where the minerals are, it's going to be very hard for Putin to invade again when we have all these international corporations there. That's what Trump is trying to do. He's trying to welcome all this investment. So he tells Putin, if you invade again and you kill an American— he said that before to Putin about the Wagner Group— then we're going to have conflict.