The ‘Shell Bay format’ is an unlikely phrase for history to digest.
Named after a 150-acre golf course and luxury residential complex owned by Steve Witkoff, it appeared Thursday as the moniker for the next phase of the Trump administration’s effort to end the biggest conflict in Europe since the 1940s.
Witkoff’s fellow peace-envoy and property magnate, Jared Kushner, used the term in a ponderous X post on Thursday, in which he suggested a wide-ranging peace deal was needed in Europe. “For more than 30 years, Europe and Russia have struggled to establish a sustainable security framework,” he wrote .
President Trump bolstered the idea after meeting Moscow’s envoy Kiril Dmitriev at the White House, suggesting Thursday. “I can’t tell you what I discussed. But I’m just telling you, it’s going to be a big agreement,” he said. “It’s going to involve more than Ukraine, and I could even say it might involve all of Europe.”
Three European officials contacted by CNN Friday morning did not know what Kushner or Trump were referring to. Kushner’s post extolled five key goals: “permanent security consultations, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, and an enduring framework for long-term European security and stability.” It said NATO would be key, even if the above seems to suggest a smaller role for the alliance the United States is the irreplaceable, founding member of.
Kushner’s ambitious word-salad did not mention Russia’s invasion of two of its neighbours and two wars with Chechnya in that same post-Soviet period. Moreover, it seemed to suggest any deal would complement NATO, rather than undermine its reason for being.
Top NATO and European officials have been meeting in Brussels in the past 72 hours to discuss economic and security concerns around Ukraine, ahead of US-led talks between Russia and Ukraine next week in Abu-Dhabi. There, the US will try and re-ignite discussions on resolving the conflict . Moscow has sent Vladimir Medinsky to lead its delegation, a diplomat fond of historical lectures, whose appointment has led many to think the Kremlin seeks to turn the clock back to May 2025, when the last such talks were held. In truth, months of discussions in Miami, Abu Dhabi, Alaska, Istanbul and Geneva have proven only one thing: Moscow wants its war goals satisfied before it’ll end the war.
But the “Shell Bay format” - not a ‘company’, ‘game’, but a bay - emerges at a time when Trump, crestfallen and wounded after the mid-terms, will soon face greater obstacles in his domestic agenda, and perhaps seek to forge his legacy in foreign policy, where he is less restrained.
Iran is a less likely candidate for defiant action, given how Trump and many top Republicans blame the war for this week’s electoral drubbing. A form of peace in Ukraine is perhaps a sweeter alternative, and maybe Trump sees, through his ongoing rapprochement and sympathy with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a way he can truly reshape the world, enrich a choice few Americans, and get the US out of bolstering cumbersome European security.
It is telling Trump met only with Russian envoy Dmitriev, despite both Kyiv and Moscow dispatching delegations to the White House to meet with the First Lady Thursday. The English-speaking, slick investor has been pushing a variety of possible business deals as the accompaniment to improving Russian-US relations, and Democrat investigators have questioned whether Trump’s inner circle may benefit from these.
The sudden return of Ukraine to Trump’s agenda has quickened pulses in European capitals. One European official told me: “we will inevitably see Trump focus on Ukraine now the mid-terms have spoken.” Most are clear-eyed about how any deal cannot simply be imposed on Ukraine - or Europe – without their consent. “Ukraine’s need for European partners (during and post-war) is greater than being forced into accepting a Russian settlement, even if Trump tries to push that”, the official said.
The risk is to morale and the mood-music of Trump’s last 18 effective months in office. The winter ahead for Ukraine – beset already in Kyiv by water, cellphone and power cuts – may be prey to further unexplained limits on US intelligence and technical assistance, as we have seen over earlier months. Europe may face heightened sabotage and grey-zone provocations from Moscow.
The risk is not that non-American NATO and Ukraine suddenly fold or accept limits to their defence . If history is any guide, 18 months is truly a short period of time, in terms of Russian diplomatic schedules, to enact any sort of deal.
What this period of possible US-Russian rapprochement threatens could be more dangerous: that Putin may interpret a US refusal to come to Europe or Ukraine’s aid , as another reason to escalate and ruthlessly pursue the battlefield result from his war of choice that five years of invasion and two years of Trump have failed to bring him.
Kushner and Trump’s talk of a deal may signify nothing. But it opens a brief window of heightened opportunity to an increasingly strained Kremlin. And that may tempt Russia’s leadership to take yet more foolhardy risks.
