Europe felt a moment of respite on Monday, as the crisis sparked by the presentation of a new 28-point plan for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been defused. A American diplomat spoke of "significant advancement" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its countermove: another massive barrage of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Negotiation and Warfare
The sequence of conflicting incidents captured the bleak nature of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are waged: optimistic declarations are released from multiple capitals. Considerable effort is expended on restraining particular approaches. By night, Moscow clearly shows the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "settlement".
Nocturnal Warfare
As military strikes developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's vulnerability was laid bare. Ukraine is equipped to monitor projectile deployments from Russian territory, a ability afforded by timely intelligence. From observation points, Ukrainian air force fighter jets that had been dispatched to engage hostile guided weapons flew past – sophisticated military planes delivered to Ukraine by NATO members.
Moments later, Kyiv's missile defense engaged: multiple launches targeted at a incoming threat. This was a modern interception technology at work, most likely delivered by Western nations. Every launch creates sudden vibrations, rattling buildings. The instant of fear quickly becomes grim resignation: possibly the approaching threat won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from catastrophe and further power outages.
Persistent Threats
Soon after, a large-caliber weapon opened up on a aerial vehicle close by, part of a mobile-fire group – probably imported technology. Sadly, the projectiles didn't strike the enemy aircraft – it pressed on overhead toward its target.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the early updates: seven people killed, damage and heating outages in many homes as a result of the night's assault. As always, everyone still maintained normal activities – enduring hostilities. But those entire period demonstrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on external assistance – a reliance that European nations are demonstrably unable to fill in the short term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The 28-point plan from American leadership sparked intense emotion, controversy and deep concern – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's most significant graft case in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new approach from American administration unfolds according to the consistent cycle: a diplomatic cavalry charge against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They stabilise the situation but never actually secure success. This trend will, no doubt, endure.
Strategic Calculations
It is tempting to accuse particular leaders of consistently pushing Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. American leadership operates on a principle familiar among international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have failed to defend militarily. The White House assumes that it is unfeasible to force Russia to abandon the land that it presently holds in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The challenge is that while accepting these circumstances, US leadership does minimal to discourage Russia, through words or deeds, from assuming that the status quo will not change more in its advantage in the coming year.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is convinced that time is on his side – that Ukraine and its supporters are nearing depletion. Their reason to sign a deal that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is close to zero. There may be numerous efforts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia's leadership remains completely certain in the outcome.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still endure, progressively conceding lives and land but avoiding a total frontline collapse until situations evolve in its benefit.
Present Conditions
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a armistice. Now, individual motivations are becoming relevant: leadership ambitions to broker a ceasefire and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and Kyiv's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to unite the population around the flag against any initiative Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their focus does not shift toward internal issues. And although their task will now be significantly challenging after recent developments, it remains quite doubtful that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are driving the talks.
Assessment and Future
It took a mere seven days to eliminate the proposed articles of the latest plan. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by American leadership, pushback by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with soothing efforts of diplomats, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.
While new proposals based on established approaches are approaching, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist diplomatic offensives from Washington that are rooted in Kremlin requirements and demonstrate specific hesitation to alter the situation, if they maintain solidarity 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 capacity to repel nightly air assaults will, for the coming months, mainly require continued Western support.
