Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the announcement of a new comprehensive peace framework for ending the war appeared – momentarily – to have been stabilised. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after diplomatic discussions in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its response: a renewed assault of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Peace Talks and Military Action
The chain of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the recent timeframe. By day, negotiation efforts are fought: optimistic declarations are released from different nations. Immense energy is devoted on containing certain initiatives. By night, the Kremlin forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, military action persists as the key method for achieving "settlement".
Nocturnal Warfare
As Russia's attack developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's defenselessness was laid bare. Ukraine is able to track projectile deployments from Russian territory, a capability provided through current data. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been scrambled to intercept incoming cruise missiles roared overhead – modern combat jets supplied to Ukraine by Western partners.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's missile defense thundered: multiple launches targeted at a incoming threat. This was a advanced protection mechanism at work, most likely provided by partner states. Every firing jolts you unexpectedly, rattling buildings. The moment of terror quickly transforms into resigned acknowledgment: perhaps the approaching threat won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from catastrophe and further power outages.
Continuous Dangers
Soon after, a heavy machine gun fired at a unmanned aircraft close by, part of a defensive team – almost certainly imported technology. Unfortunately, the bullets missed the hostile drone – it pressed on overhead toward its objective.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the daybreak reports: several casualties, devastation and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the night's assault. As customarily, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those full day demonstrated Ukraine's vital need on external assistance – a need that European nations are clearly incapable to replace in the immediate future.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The detailed framework from Washington sparked intense emotion, debate and serious worry – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new initiative from American administration adheres to the same pattern: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, effectively counters. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This cycle will, no doubt, persist.
Political Considerations
It is easy to blame particular leaders of consistently pushing Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. US administration operates on a assumption understood by international relations experts: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have lost on the battlefield. The US administration presumes that it is impossible to force Russia to surrender the territory that it already controls in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The challenge is that while acknowledging this situation, US leadership does minimal to discourage Russia, through diplomacy or military means, from believing that the current condition will not change more in its advantage in the near future.
Divergent Views
Therefore, Moscow is certain that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its partners are nearing depletion. Their motivation to sign a deal that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is close to zero. There may be multiple initiatives to stop fighting, but they will persist as long as Russia's leader remains highly assured in the result.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing people and territory but avoiding a total frontline collapse until situations evolve in its benefit.
Current Realities
Objectively, there are no real preconditions for a ceasefire. Now, individual motivations are becoming relevant: political desires to negotiate peace and achieve global acclaim, and the government's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to mobilize citizens around the country's interests against any plan Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not switch to homefront challenges. And although their task will now be considerably more difficult after current events, it remains quite doubtful that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a just a single week to kill the proposed articles of the most recent proposal. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the other European countries, along with pacifying measures of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all achieved their purpose.
While new plans based on established approaches are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should reach an essential realization: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off political attacks from Washington that are founded on Moscow's terms 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 political nor armed coercion will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capacity to repel nightly air assaults will, for the predictable period, largely rely on ongoing international assistance.
