Europe experienced widespread relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency triggered by the presentation of a new 28-point plan for achieving ceasefire appeared – briefly – to have been defused. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after diplomatic discussions in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its response: an extensive attack of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Cycle of Peace Talks and Military Action
The chain of conflicting incidents captured the harsh reality of the recent timeframe. By day, diplomatic battles are conducted: hopeful statements are issued from various governments. Considerable effort is allocated on managing particular approaches. By night, Moscow clearly shows the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "peace".
After-Dark Attacks
As military strikes unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the immediate reality of Ukraine's vulnerability was exposed. Ukraine is equipped to monitor missile launches from across the border, a ability afforded by up-to-date information. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been scrambled to engage hostile guided weapons roared overhead – modern combat jets delivered to Ukraine by European allies.
Moments later, Kyiv's missile defense activated: several firings deployed against a Russian ballistic missile. This was a modern interception technology at work, most likely delivered by allied countries. Every firing shakes the surroundings, causing tremors. The instant of fear quickly becomes sober acceptance: perhaps the hostile projectile won't cause damage this time, sparing the city from ruin and another blackout.
Persistent Threats
Soon after, a automatic firearm opened up on a drone somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – almost certainly allied-provided weaponry. Unfortunately, the shots failed to hit the hostile drone – it maintained course toward its target.
With pauses, this carried on 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 typically, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those entire period demonstrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on external assistance – a reliance that European nations are clearly incapable to fill in the short term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The detailed framework from US administration sparked intense emotion, controversy and serious worry – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's most significant graft case in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after earlier high-level meetings and international summits.
Every new initiative from Washington unfolds according to the consistent cycle: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, manages to fend off. They contain the crisis but never actually secure success. This trend will, undoubtedly, continue.
Tactical Assessments
It is convenient to criticize certain parties of repeatedly advocating Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. American leadership functions according to a principle understood by experienced diplomats: you cannot secure via talks what you have lost on the battlefield. The White House presumes that it is unfeasible to pressure the Kremlin to relinquish the land that it currently occupies in Ukraine's south or east.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, American administration does minimal to deter Moscow, through diplomacy or military means, from believing that the current condition will not shift further in its advantage in the coming year.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is confident that time is on his side – that Ukraine and its partners are coming close to fatigue. Their reason to sign a deal that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is close to zero. There may be many attempts to achieve ceasefire, but they will persist as long as Russia's leadership remains supremely confident in the conclusion.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing civilians and areas but averting a complete military breakdown until circumstances change in its favour.
Present Conditions
Objectively, there are no actual prerequisites for a ceasefire. Now, individual motivations are coming into play: political desires to negotiate peace and achieve global acclaim, and the government's twin challenges – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any plan Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their focus does not switch to internal issues. And although their mission will now be much harder after latest incidents, it remains quite doubtful that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a mere seven days to terminate the 28 points of the current initiative. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with calming attempts of representatives, and finally, current information leaks, all served their function.
While new initiatives based on old ideas are imminent, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should arrive at a critical understanding: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to counter political attacks from Washington that are founded on Moscow's terms and reflect particular unwillingness to change the course of events, 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 defend against evening bombardments will, for the foreseeable future, largely rely on ongoing international assistance.
