Europe experienced widespread relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency caused by the presentation of a new comprehensive peace framework for ending the war appeared – momentarily – to have been contained. A senior US official spoke of "notable headway" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its response: a renewed assault of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Negotiation and Warfare
The chain of opposing developments captured the grim essence of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are waged: positive announcements are issued from multiple capitals. Considerable effort is allocated on managing specific proposals. By night, Russian leadership forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "resolution".
Nocturnal Warfare
As military strikes progressed into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's defenselessness was exposed. Ukraine is equipped to monitor projectile deployments from enemy soil, a capacity enabled by timely intelligence. From witness perspectives, Ukrainian air force fighter jets that had been deployed to intercept incoming cruise missiles streaked across the sky – advanced fighter aircraft provided to Ukraine by European allies.
Shortly after, Kyiv's missile defense thundered: several firings fired to intercept a incoming threat. This was a advanced protection mechanism at work, presumably supplied through allied countries. Every deployment jolts you unexpectedly, rattling buildings. The brief panic quickly transforms into resigned acknowledgment: perhaps the incoming missile won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from catastrophe and further power outages.
Persistent Threats
Soon after, a large-caliber weapon fired at a unmanned aircraft somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – most likely imported technology. Sadly, the shots failed to hit the opposing UAV – it pressed on overhead toward its destination.
Intermittently, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv faced the early updates: seven people killed, destruction and heating outages in many homes as a result of the nocturnal offensive. As always, everyone still continued their routines – enduring hostilities. But those full day encapsulated Ukraine's essential dependence on Western support – a reliance that European nations are evidently unprepared to substitute in the near term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The comprehensive proposal from US administration generated strong feelings, controversy and deep concern – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's major integrity crisis in years. Yet, we have witnessed similar scenarios, after previous diplomatic encounters and international summits.
Every new approach from Washington follows the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They manage the tension but never actually achieve victory. This pattern will, undoubtedly, endure.
Strategic Calculations
It is easy to blame particular leaders of consistently pushing Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. Washington works based on a assumption well known to experienced diplomats: you cannot secure via talks what you have been unable to protect through force. The American government assumes that it is unfeasible to force Russia to abandon the territory that it presently holds in Ukraine's south or east.
The issue is that while acknowledging this situation, US leadership does little to prevent Kremlin actions, through diplomacy or military means, from thinking that the status quo will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Divergent Views
Therefore, Moscow is confident that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its allies are approaching exhaustion. Their motivation to agree to terms that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is close to zero. There may be many attempts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia's leadership remains highly assured in the result.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing lives and land but averting a complete military breakdown until circumstances change in its favour.
Existing Situation
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a truce. Now, subjective factors are coming into play: personal goals to negotiate peace and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and the government's twin challenges – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to unite the population around the flag against any initiative Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their attention does not switch to domestic problems. And although their task will now be much harder after latest incidents, it remains very improbable that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are driving the talks.
Summary and Prospects
It took a just a single week to eliminate the 28 points of the current initiative. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with pacifying measures of negotiators, and finally, recent disclosures, all did their job.
While new proposals based on previous concepts are approaching, 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 based on Russian demands and show certain reluctance to alter the situation, if they maintain solidarity and enhance their military capacity at a much faster pace. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to repel nightly air assaults will, for the coming months, primarily depend on ongoing international assistance.
