Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency triggered by the announcement of a new 28-article proposal for achieving ceasefire appeared – temporarily – to have been defused. A American diplomat spoke of "notable headway" after diplomatic discussions in Geneva. On Monday night, Russian leadership made its retaliation: an extensive attack of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Diplomacy and Destruction
The succession of opposing developments captured the grim essence of the recent timeframe. By day, negotiation efforts are conducted: optimistic declarations are issued from different nations. Considerable effort is expended on containing particular approaches. By night, Moscow brutally reminds the world that, for them, military action persists as the primary tool for achieving "resolution".
After-Dark Attacks
As military strikes unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's defenselessness was laid bare. Ukraine is equipped to monitor projectile deployments from Russian territory, a capacity afforded by current data. From witness perspectives, military aircraft that had been deployed to intercept incoming aerial threats roared overhead – modern combat jets provided to Ukraine by European allies.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons activated: multiple launches fired to intercept a hostile projectile. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, most likely provided by allied countries. Every deployment jolts you unexpectedly, shaking the windows. The instant of fear quickly becomes sober acceptance: perhaps the approaching threat won't strike its target this time, protecting urban areas from devastation and additional electricity failures.
Continuous Dangers
Not long after, a automatic firearm fired at a drone in the vicinity, part of a defensive team – almost certainly imported technology. Unfortunately, the projectiles didn't strike the enemy aircraft – it maintained course toward its target.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the morning news: multiple fatalities, damage and heating outages in many homes as a result of the evening attack. As always, everyone still went about their day – experiencing conflict. But those full day demonstrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on external assistance – a dependence that neighboring countries are clearly incapable to fill in the short term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The 28-point plan from US administration generated strong feelings, debate and profound anxiety – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after previous diplomatic encounters and bilateral conferences.
Every new initiative from US leadership adheres to the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, manages to fend off. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This cycle will, certainly, endure.
Strategic Calculations
It is easy to blame specific actors of persistently promoting Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the whole story. US administration operates on a premise familiar among international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have failed to defend militarily. The US administration presumes that it is impossible to force Russia to relinquish the land that it currently occupies in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The challenge is that while acknowledging this situation, American administration does minimal to discourage Russia, through words or deeds, from believing that the situation will not evolve additionally in its advantage in the months ahead.
Divergent Views
Therefore, the Kremlin is convinced that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its allies are nearing depletion. Their incentive to accept conditions that does not give them the maximum possible gain is almost completely absent. There may be many attempts to achieve ceasefire, but they will carry on as long as Russia's leadership remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still endure, gradually sacrificing people and territory but preventing a complete military breakdown until circumstances change in its advantage.
Existing Situation
Factually, there are no genuine requirements for a truce. Now, personal considerations are entering the equation: political desires to negotiate peace and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and Ukrainian leadership's twin challenges – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to mobilize citizens around the flag against any plan Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their focus does not move to homefront challenges. And although their objective will now be much harder after latest incidents, it remains quite doubtful that this will change their overall approach.
These two forces are driving the talks.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a just a single week to eliminate the proposed articles of the latest plan. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by Washington, opposition by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, latest revelations, all did their job.
While new plans based on old ideas are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other Western governments 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 reflect particular unwillingness to alter the situation, if they remain united and improve their protective measures at a much faster pace. If they do, neither political nor armed coercion will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capacity to defend against evening bombardments will, for the predictable period, mainly require sustained allied backing.
