Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the presentation of a new 28-article proposal for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been stabilised. A American diplomat spoke of "substantial progress" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its countermove: a renewed assault of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Peace Talks and Military Action
The succession of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the recent timeframe. By day, diplomatic battles are fought: hopeful statements are delivered from multiple capitals. Significant resources is expended on containing particular approaches. By night, Moscow forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, war remains the key method for achieving "resolution".
After-Dark Attacks
As military strikes progressed into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's vulnerability was revealed. Ukraine is equipped to monitor projectile deployments from Russian territory, a capability enabled by timely intelligence. From witness perspectives, defense planes that had been scrambled to engage hostile cruise missiles flew past – sophisticated military planes provided to Ukraine by Western partners.
Moments later, Kyiv's air-defence systems activated: multiple launches targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a advanced protection mechanism at work, presumably delivered by partner states. Every deployment creates sudden vibrations, rattling buildings. The brief panic quickly gives way to resigned acknowledgment: perhaps the approaching threat won't strike its target this time, sparing the city from devastation and another blackout.
Continuous Dangers
Not long after, a heavy machine gun engaged a drone close by, part of a rapid response unit – probably Western-made equipment. Sadly, the shots failed to hit the enemy aircraft – it pressed on overhead toward its objective.
Intermittently, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the morning news: several casualties, destruction and heating outages in many homes as a result of the nocturnal offensive. As always, everyone still maintained normal activities – experiencing conflict. But those entire period illustrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on external assistance – a need that regional partners are clearly incapable to replace in the immediate future.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The comprehensive proposal from Washington generated strong feelings, discussion and deep concern – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's major integrity crisis in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new approach from Washington follows the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, succeeds in resisting. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This cycle will, undoubtedly, endure.
Tactical Assessments
It is tempting to accuse particular leaders of repeatedly advocating Moscow's conditions. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. US administration functions according to a assumption familiar among experienced diplomats: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have been unable to protect through force. The US administration believes that it is unfeasible to pressure the Kremlin to surrender the land that it already controls in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The issue is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does minimal to prevent Kremlin actions, through diplomacy or military means, from thinking that the status quo will not change more in its favour in the near future.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, Russian leadership is convinced that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its supporters are nearing depletion. Their reason to agree to terms that does not give them the maximum possible gain is close to zero. There may be numerous efforts to stop fighting, but they will continue as long as Russia's leader remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still endure, progressively conceding civilians and areas but preventing a total frontline collapse until conditions improve in its favour.
Existing Situation
Factually, there are no real preconditions for a truce. Now, personal considerations are becoming relevant: personal goals to broker a ceasefire and secure international recognition, and Ukrainian leadership's twin challenges – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to unite the population around the country's interests against any proposal Kyiv finds unsuitable, so that their attention does not move to internal issues. And although their mission will now be considerably more difficult after recent developments, it remains highly unlikely that this will change their overall approach.
These opposing factors are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a mere seven days to kill the proposed articles of the latest plan. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by Washington, opposition by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with calming attempts of diplomats, and finally, recent disclosures, all did their job.
While new proposals based on established approaches are approaching, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off diplomatic offensives from Washington that are rooted in Kremlin requirements and reflect certain reluctance to modify developments, if they maintain solidarity and strengthen their defence capabilities at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to defeat them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to defend against evening bombardments will, for the coming months, largely rely on sustained allied backing.
