Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency triggered by the announcement of a new 28-point plan for resolving the conflict appeared – momentarily – to have been defused. A senior US official spoke of "significant advancement" after diplomatic discussions in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its response: an extensive attack of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.
The Cycle of Negotiation and Warfare
The succession of contrasting events captured the harsh reality of the recent timeframe. By day, negotiation efforts are waged: hopeful statements are released from various governments. Considerable effort is allocated on restraining certain initiatives. By night, Russian leadership clearly shows the world that, for them, conflict continues to be the main instrument for achieving "peace".
Nighttime Reality
As Russia's attack developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's vulnerability was exposed. Ukraine is capable of detecting missile launches from across the border, a capability afforded by up-to-date information. From witness perspectives, defense planes that had been dispatched to intercept incoming aerial threats streaked across the sky – sophisticated military planes provided to Ukraine by NATO members.
Moments later, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons engaged: defensive missiles targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, presumably provided by Western nations. Every launch creates sudden vibrations, causing tremors. The brief panic quickly transforms into sober acceptance: possibly the hostile projectile won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from devastation and additional electricity failures.
Continuous Dangers
Soon after, a heavy machine gun engaged a drone in the vicinity, part of a rapid response unit – most likely allied-provided weaponry. Unfortunately, the shots failed to hit the opposing UAV – it continued its flight toward its target.
Periodically, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv faced the morning news: multiple fatalities, damage and heating outages in numerous residences as a result of the evening attack. As customarily, everyone still maintained normal activities – living the war. But those full day demonstrated Ukraine's vital need on Western support – a need that European nations are demonstrably unable to substitute in the short term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The comprehensive proposal from US administration generated strong feelings, controversy and serious worry – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's major integrity crisis in years. Yet, we have witnessed similar scenarios, after prior negotiation attempts and multilateral gatherings.
Every new initiative from Washington follows the same pattern: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This pattern will, no doubt, persist.
Political Considerations
It is easy to blame specific actors of consistently pushing Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. Washington operates on a premise understood by international relations experts: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have lost on the battlefield. The American government presumes that it is unfeasible to compel Moscow to surrender the areas that it presently holds in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, Washington does minimal to discourage Russia, through diplomacy or military means, from assuming that the current condition will not evolve additionally in its favour in the months ahead.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is certain that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its partners are approaching exhaustion. Their incentive to sign a deal that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is almost completely absent. There may be numerous efforts to stop fighting, but they will continue as long as Russia's leadership remains highly assured in the conclusion.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still persist, progressively conceding lives and land but preventing a entire defensive failure until circumstances change in its favour.
Current Realities
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a ceasefire. Now, personal considerations are entering the equation: leadership ambitions to negotiate peace and achieve global acclaim, and the government's double obstacles – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to mobilize citizens around the flag against any initiative Kyiv finds unsuitable, so that their focus does not switch to internal issues. And although their mission will now be significantly challenging after current events, it remains highly unlikely that this will alter their fundamental strategy.
These two forces are influencing discussions.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a just a single week to terminate the suggested clauses of the current initiative. Aggressive and erratic handling 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 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 counter political attacks from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate certain reluctance to alter the situation, if they remain united and improve their protective measures at a considerably quicker tempo. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to defeat them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capacity to defend against evening bombardments will, for the foreseeable future, primarily depend on ongoing international assistance.
