Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the presentation of a new comprehensive peace framework for achieving ceasefire appeared – momentarily – to have been stabilised. A senior US official spoke of "notable headway" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its response: another massive barrage of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Negotiation and Warfare
The sequence of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the current period. By day, political struggles are fought: positive announcements are issued from various governments. Significant resources is allocated on restraining specific proposals. By night, Moscow brutally reminds the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "resolution".
Nighttime Reality
As military strikes developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's vulnerability was exposed. Ukraine is capable of detecting projectile deployments from Russian territory, a capacity afforded by timely intelligence. From vantage locations, military aircraft that had been scrambled to engage hostile cruise missiles roared overhead – sophisticated military planes delivered to Ukraine by European allies.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's air-defence systems engaged: defensive missiles deployed against a incoming threat. This was a advanced protection mechanism at work, most likely delivered by Western nations. Every firing jolts you unexpectedly, causing tremors. The instant of fear quickly transforms into grim resignation: perhaps the incoming missile won't strike its target this time, sparing the city from devastation and additional electricity failures.
Continuous Dangers
Soon after, a heavy machine gun opened up on a aerial vehicle somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – almost certainly imported technology. Regrettably, the projectiles didn't strike the opposing UAV – it maintained course toward its destination.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv faced the early updates: several casualties, damage and infrastructure problems in many homes as a result of the evening attack. As typically, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those 24 hours illustrated Ukraine's vital need on international aid – a need that European nations are demonstrably unable to replace in the short term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The comprehensive proposal from American leadership generated strong feelings, controversy and serious worry – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new proposal from Washington unfolds according to the consistent cycle: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They manage the tension but never actually secure success. This cycle will, undoubtedly, persist.
Political Considerations
It is easy to blame certain parties of repeatedly advocating Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. American leadership works based on a principle familiar among international relations experts: you cannot achieve through diplomacy what you have lost on the battlefield. The American government assumes that it is impossible to pressure the Kremlin to surrender the territory that it currently occupies in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The challenge is that while accepting these circumstances, US leadership does minimal to deter Moscow, through diplomacy or military means, from believing that the situation will not shift further in its advantage in the coming year.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, Russian leadership is confident that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its supporters are coming close to fatigue. Their incentive to sign a deal that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is virtually nonexistent. There may be multiple initiatives to stop fighting, but they will persist as long as Russia's leadership remains supremely confident in the result.
On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still endure, progressively conceding civilians and areas but averting a total frontline collapse until conditions improve in its favour.
Current Realities
Objectively, there are no real preconditions for a truce. Now, individual motivations are coming into play: political desires to negotiate peace and secure international recognition, and the government's twin challenges – 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 attention 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 change their overall approach.
These opposing factors are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
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, opposition by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.
While new proposals based on old ideas are imminent, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should reach an essential realization: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to counter negotiation assaults from Washington that are based on Russian demands and reflect certain reluctance to modify developments, if they maintain solidarity and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither political nor armed coercion will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to counter nocturnal attacks will, for the predictable period, largely rely on continued Western support.
