Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency triggered by the introduction of a new comprehensive peace framework for resolving the conflict appeared – momentarily – to have been defused. A Washington representative 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 Diplomacy and Destruction
The sequence of conflicting incidents captured the harsh reality of the outgoing year. By day, diplomatic battles are conducted: optimistic declarations are delivered from multiple capitals. Considerable effort is expended on restraining specific proposals. By night, the Kremlin forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, military action persists as the key method for achieving "settlement".
After-Dark Attacks
As Russia's attack developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's defenselessness was revealed. Ukraine is able to track rocket firings from across the border, a capability provided through timely intelligence. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been scrambled to engage hostile cruise missiles flew past – sophisticated military planes supplied to Ukraine by Western partners.
Shortly after, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: several firings targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, probably provided by partner states. Every launch creates sudden vibrations, causing tremors. The instant of fear quickly transforms into grim resignation: perhaps the incoming missile won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from devastation and additional electricity failures.
Continuous Dangers
Following this, a automatic firearm opened up on a drone somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – probably imported technology. Unfortunately, the shots failed to hit the opposing UAV – it maintained course toward its objective.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv faced the daybreak reports: multiple fatalities, destruction and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the evening attack. As always, everyone still went about their day – living the war. But those 24 hours demonstrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on Western support – a reliance that regional partners are demonstrably unable to fill in the immediate future.
Failed Diplomacy
The detailed framework from US administration provoked deep reactions, controversy and deep concern – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's most significant graft case in years. Yet, we have witnessed similar scenarios, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new approach from American administration adheres to the same pattern: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, manages to fend off. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This cycle will, certainly, continue.
Political Considerations
It is convenient to criticize specific actors of repeatedly advocating Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. American leadership operates on a principle understood by international relations experts: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have failed to defend militarily. The US administration believes that it is impossible to compel Moscow to relinquish the areas that it already controls in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The problem is that while accepting these circumstances, American administration does little to deter Moscow, through diplomacy or military means, from thinking that the status quo will not change more in its favour in the near future.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, Moscow is convinced that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its partners are nearing depletion. Their motivation to accept conditions that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is virtually nonexistent. There may be numerous efforts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia's leader remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still persist, progressively conceding people and territory but avoiding a complete military breakdown until conditions improve in its advantage.
Existing Situation
Factually, there are no genuine requirements for a ceasefire. Now, subjective factors are entering the equation: leadership ambitions to negotiate peace and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and the government's twin challenges – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any proposal Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their attention does not switch to internal issues. And although their task will now be significantly challenging after latest incidents, it remains quite doubtful that this will alter their fundamental strategy.
These opposing factors are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a mere seven days to kill the proposed articles of the most recent proposal. Assertive and inconsistent approach of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the other European countries, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, recent disclosures, all did their job.
While new proposals based on old ideas are imminent, Kyiv, London and other European capitals should reach an essential realization: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist negotiation assaults from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate particular unwillingness to modify developments, if they stand together and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to defend against evening bombardments will, for the coming months, primarily depend on ongoing international assistance.
