Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the presentation of a new 28-point plan for resolving the conflict appeared – temporarily – to have been defused. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Russian leadership made its retaliation: a renewed assault of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Peace Talks and Military Action
The succession of conflicting incidents captured the bleak nature of the outgoing year. By day, diplomatic battles are waged: hopeful statements are delivered from various governments. Immense energy is expended on managing specific proposals. By night, Moscow forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, military action persists as the key method for achieving "peace".
Nocturnal Warfare
As military strikes unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's vulnerability was revealed. Ukraine is capable of detecting projectile deployments from enemy soil, a capacity enabled by timely intelligence. From vantage locations, military aircraft that had been deployed to engage hostile aerial threats flew past – advanced fighter aircraft delivered to Ukraine by European allies.
Shortly after, Kyiv's air-defence systems activated: several firings targeted at a incoming threat. This was a advanced protection mechanism at work, probably provided by Western nations. Every launch shakes the surroundings, rattling buildings. The moment of terror quickly becomes grim resignation: maybe the approaching threat won't strike its target this time, preventing destruction from catastrophe and additional electricity failures.
Continuous Dangers
Soon after, a automatic firearm engaged a unmanned aircraft close by, part of a defensive team – probably Western-made equipment. Sadly, the shots failed to hit the enemy aircraft – it maintained course toward its destination.
Periodically, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv faced the daybreak reports: multiple fatalities, devastation and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the night's assault. As typically, everyone still maintained normal activities – living the war. But those full day illustrated Ukraine's vital need on Western support – a reliance that neighboring countries are demonstrably unable to replace in the immediate future.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The detailed framework from US administration sparked intense emotion, discussion and deep concern – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after earlier high-level meetings and multilateral gatherings.
Every new approach from American administration adheres to the same pattern: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, manages to fend off. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This trend will, no doubt, continue.
Strategic Calculations
It is convenient to criticize specific actors of consistently pushing Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the complete picture. American leadership works based on a assumption well known to experienced diplomats: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have failed to defend militarily. The White House presumes that it is unrealistic to compel Moscow to surrender the territory that it already controls in Ukraine's south or east.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does minimal to prevent Kremlin actions, through words or deeds, from believing that the status quo will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, the Kremlin is convinced that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its allies are coming close to fatigue. Their motivation to sign a deal that does not give them the maximum possible gain is close to zero. There may be multiple initiatives to stop fighting, but they will continue as long as Russia's leader remains completely certain in the result.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still hold out, progressively conceding civilians and areas but averting a complete military breakdown until conditions improve in its favour.
Present Conditions
Realistically, there are no actual prerequisites for a ceasefire. Now, individual motivations are entering the equation: political desires to mediate resolution and achieve global acclaim, and Ukrainian leadership's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to unite the population around the national cause against any initiative Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not shift toward domestic problems. And although their mission will now be considerably more difficult after latest incidents, it remains quite doubtful that this will alter their fundamental strategy.
These opposing factors are influencing discussions.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a just a single week to kill the suggested clauses of the most recent proposal. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by Washington, resistance by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with pacifying measures of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.
While new plans based on previous concepts are imminent, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should arrive at a critical understanding: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off negotiation assaults from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate particular unwillingness to change the course of events, if they remain united and strengthen their defence capabilities at a much faster pace. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to defeat them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to counter nocturnal attacks will, for the predictable period, largely rely on sustained allied backing.
