Europe felt a moment of respite on Monday, as the crisis sparked by the presentation of a new 28-article proposal for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been stabilised. A American diplomat spoke of "significant advancement" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its retaliation: another massive barrage of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Peace Talks and Military Action
The chain of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the recent timeframe. By day, negotiation efforts are waged: positive announcements are released from different nations. Considerable effort is devoted on containing specific proposals. By night, Russian leadership brutally reminds the world that, for them, conflict continues to be the primary tool for achieving "peace".
Nocturnal Warfare
As the offensive unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's exposure was revealed. Ukraine is able to track rocket firings from enemy soil, a capacity provided through timely intelligence. From witness perspectives, military aircraft that had been deployed to engage hostile aerial threats flew past – modern combat jets delivered to Ukraine by NATO members.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's missile defense thundered: defensive missiles fired to intercept a incoming threat. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, presumably supplied through allied countries. Every firing creates sudden vibrations, causing tremors. The brief panic quickly transforms into resigned acknowledgment: maybe the hostile projectile won't strike its target this time, sparing the city from ruin and additional electricity failures.
Persistent Threats
Soon after, a heavy machine gun engaged a aerial vehicle in the vicinity, part of a defensive team – probably Western-made equipment. Regrettably, the bullets missed the opposing UAV – it pressed on overhead toward its destination.
Periodically, this carried on until dawn. Kyiv greeted the daybreak reports: seven people killed, destruction and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the evening attack. As customarily, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those full day encapsulated Ukraine's vital need on external assistance – a need that regional partners are demonstrably unable to replace in the near term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The detailed framework from American leadership generated strong feelings, debate and serious worry – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after earlier high-level meetings and international summits.
Every new proposal from US leadership follows the consistent cycle: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This trend will, undoubtedly, continue.
Strategic Calculations
It is tempting to accuse certain parties of consistently pushing Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the complete picture. US administration works based on a principle well known to seasoned negotiators: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have been unable to protect through force. The White House assumes that it is unfeasible to pressure the Kremlin to abandon the territory that it presently holds in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does little to discourage Russia, through diplomacy or military means, from thinking that the status quo will not evolve additionally in its advantage in the coming year.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is confident that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its partners are coming close to fatigue. Their incentive to accept conditions that does not give them the maximum possible gain is virtually nonexistent. There may be many attempts to end hostilities, but they will persist as long as Russia's government remains highly assured in the result.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still hold out, slowly losing people and territory but averting a entire defensive failure until conditions improve in its favour.
Present Conditions
Realistically, there are no real preconditions for a armistice. Now, personal considerations are coming into play: leadership ambitions to broker a ceasefire and secure international recognition, and Ukrainian leadership's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any plan Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their attention does not move to domestic problems. And although their objective will now be considerably more difficult after latest incidents, it remains very improbable that this will change their overall approach.
These opposing factors are guiding negotiations.
Assessment and Future
It took a just a single week to kill the 28 points of the latest plan. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by American leadership, resistance by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, latest revelations, all served their function.
While new plans based on old ideas are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should arrive at a critical understanding: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off political attacks from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate specific hesitation to change the course of events, if they remain united and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to defeat them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to repel nightly air assaults will, for the predictable period, mainly require continued Western support.
