Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency caused by the announcement of a new 28-point plan for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been stabilised. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, Russian leadership made its countermove: an extensive attack of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Negotiation and Warfare
The succession of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the recent timeframe. By day, diplomatic battles are fought: positive announcements are released from various governments. Considerable effort is allocated on restraining specific proposals. By night, the Kremlin brutally reminds the world that, for them, military action persists as the main instrument for achieving "peace".
Nighttime Reality
As the offensive developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's exposure was exposed. Ukraine is equipped to monitor rocket firings from across the border, a capacity enabled by current data. From vantage locations, military aircraft that had been dispatched to intercept incoming aerial threats flew past – modern combat jets provided to Ukraine by NATO members.
Shortly after, Kyiv's air-defence systems thundered: multiple launches fired to intercept a hostile projectile. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, probably supplied through allied countries. Every firing creates sudden vibrations, shaking the windows. The instant of fear quickly transforms into sober acceptance: perhaps the incoming missile won't cause damage this time, preventing destruction from devastation and another blackout.
Persistent Threats
Not long after, a heavy machine gun opened up on a aerial vehicle somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – almost certainly Western-made equipment. Sadly, the shots failed to hit the hostile drone – it pressed on overhead toward its destination.
Periodically, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the daybreak reports: multiple fatalities, destruction and heating outages in many homes as a result of the evening attack. As typically, everyone still maintained normal activities – experiencing conflict. But those full day demonstrated Ukraine's essential dependence on Western support – a reliance that neighboring countries are demonstrably unable to fill in the short term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The detailed framework from American leadership provoked deep reactions, debate and serious worry – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after earlier high-level meetings and international summits.
Every new initiative from Washington adheres to the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, manages to fend off. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This pattern will, certainly, persist.
Strategic Calculations
It is convenient to criticize specific actors of persistently promoting Moscow's conditions. But that does not seem to be the whole story. US administration works based on a assumption understood by international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have failed to defend militarily. The White House presumes that it is unfeasible to compel Moscow to relinquish the areas that it presently holds in Ukraine's south or east.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does nothing to discourage Russia, through words or deeds, from believing that the status quo will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, Russian leadership is certain that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its partners are coming close to fatigue. Their reason to agree to terms that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is close to zero. There may be multiple initiatives to end hostilities, but they will carry on as long as Russia's leadership remains highly assured in the result.
On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still hold out, progressively conceding people and territory but preventing a entire defensive failure until circumstances change in its benefit.
Existing Situation
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a ceasefire. Now, subjective factors are becoming relevant: leadership ambitions to negotiate peace and secure international recognition, and Kyiv's twin challenges – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to mobilize citizens around the national cause against any initiative Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not move to internal issues. And although their task will now be considerably more difficult after recent developments, it remains very improbable that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are driving the talks.
Assessment and Future
It took a just a single week to eliminate the 28 points of the most recent proposal. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by American leadership, resistance by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, latest revelations, all achieved their purpose.
While new proposals based on old ideas are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off political attacks from Washington that are founded on Moscow's terms and show specific hesitation to change the course of events, if they remain united and improve their protective measures at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither political nor armed coercion will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capacity to repel nightly air assaults will, for the coming months, largely rely on ongoing international assistance.
