Europe felt a moment of respite on Monday, as the tension sparked by the announcement of a new comprehensive peace framework for resolving the conflict appeared – temporarily – to have been contained. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its countermove: an extensive attack of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Cycle of Negotiation and Warfare
The sequence of conflicting incidents captured the grim essence of the recent timeframe. By day, diplomatic battles are conducted: optimistic declarations are released from various governments. Immense energy is devoted on managing specific proposals. By night, the Kremlin forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, military action persists as the main instrument for achieving "peace".
Nocturnal Warfare
As Russia's attack progressed into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's defenselessness was revealed. Ukraine is capable of detecting projectile deployments from across the border, a capability enabled by current data. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been dispatched to engage hostile cruise missiles flew past – modern combat jets supplied to Ukraine by Western partners.
Moments later, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: multiple launches deployed against a Russian ballistic missile. This was a modern interception technology at work, probably delivered by partner states. Every deployment shakes the surroundings, shaking the windows. The moment of terror quickly gives way to sober acceptance: perhaps the hostile projectile won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from catastrophe and further power outages.
Ongoing Risks
Soon after, a automatic firearm engaged a drone somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – most likely allied-provided weaponry. Regrettably, the bullets missed the hostile drone – it maintained course toward its destination.
With pauses, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv greeted the morning news: seven people killed, damage and heating outages in many homes as a result of the evening attack. As always, everyone still maintained normal activities – enduring hostilities. But those full day illustrated Ukraine's essential dependence on international aid – a dependence that neighboring countries are demonstrably unable to fill in the near term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The comprehensive proposal from American leadership sparked intense emotion, debate and deep concern – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after earlier high-level meetings and bilateral conferences.
Every new initiative from US leadership follows the consistent cycle: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They contain the crisis but never actually secure success. This cycle will, no doubt, continue.
Strategic Calculations
It is easy to blame specific actors of persistently promoting Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. American leadership works based on a assumption well known to 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 force Russia to relinquish the territory that it presently holds in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The issue is that while recognising this factual reality, American administration does nothing to deter Moscow, through diplomacy or military means, from thinking that the situation will not change more in its benefit in the months ahead.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Moscow is confident that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its partners are nearing depletion. Their motivation to sign a deal that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is virtually nonexistent. There may be many attempts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia's leader remains completely certain in the conclusion.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing civilians and areas but averting a total frontline collapse until circumstances change in its benefit.
Current Realities
Realistically, there are no actual prerequisites for a armistice. Now, personal considerations are becoming relevant: leadership ambitions to broker a ceasefire and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and Kyiv's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any proposal Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their priority does not move to internal issues. And although their objective will now be considerably more difficult after latest incidents, it remains very improbable that this will change their overall approach.
These opposing factors are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a mere seven days to terminate the 28 points of the current initiative. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by US administration, opposition by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with calming attempts of diplomats, and finally, recent disclosures, all served their function.
While new initiatives based on previous concepts are imminent, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist political attacks from Washington that are rooted in Kremlin requirements 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 break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to counter nocturnal attacks will, for the coming months, mainly require continued Western support.
