Europe experienced widespread relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the announcement of a new 28-article proposal for achieving ceasefire appeared – momentarily – to have been stabilised. A senior US official spoke of "significant advancement" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its countermove: another massive barrage of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Negotiation and Warfare
The succession of opposing developments captured the bleak nature of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are conducted: positive announcements are issued from different nations. Significant resources is devoted on managing specific proposals. By night, Moscow clearly shows the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "settlement".
Nocturnal Warfare
As the offensive developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's vulnerability was revealed. Ukraine is capable of detecting missile launches from across the border, a capability afforded by up-to-date information. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been dispatched to intercept incoming aerial threats flew past – advanced fighter aircraft provided to Ukraine by Western partners.
Shortly after, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: defensive missiles targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a modern interception technology at work, most likely supplied through allied countries. Every deployment creates sudden vibrations, rattling buildings. The brief panic quickly gives way to resigned acknowledgment: maybe the incoming missile won't strike its target this time, preventing destruction from ruin and another blackout.
Continuous Dangers
Not long after, a automatic firearm fired at a drone somewhere nearby, part of a defensive team – most likely allied-provided weaponry. Sadly, the bullets missed the opposing UAV – it continued its flight toward its objective.
With pauses, this continued until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the early updates: several casualties, destruction and utility failures in multiple buildings as a result of the nocturnal offensive. As typically, everyone still went about their day – living the war. But those 24 hours illustrated Ukraine's essential dependence on external assistance – a reliance that neighboring countries are evidently unprepared to replace in the immediate future.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The detailed framework from US administration generated strong feelings, debate and serious worry – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's major integrity crisis in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after previous diplomatic encounters and multilateral gatherings.
Every new initiative from Washington adheres to the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, effectively counters. They contain the crisis but never actually win the battle. This pattern will, no doubt, continue.
Tactical Assessments
It is convenient to criticize particular leaders of persistently promoting Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the complete picture. Washington operates on a premise familiar among international relations experts: you cannot achieve through diplomacy what you have lost on the battlefield. The White House presumes that it is impossible to compel Moscow to relinquish the land that it already controls in Ukraine's south or east.
The challenge is that while acknowledging this situation, American administration does little to deter Moscow, through words or deeds, from believing that the current condition will not change more in its favour in the near future.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is confident that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its partners are approaching exhaustion. Their reason to accept conditions that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is close to zero. There may be numerous efforts to end hostilities, but they will continue as long as Russia's leadership remains completely certain in the result.
On the contrary, Kyiv believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing people and territory but averting a total frontline collapse until situations evolve in its favour.
Existing Situation
Objectively, there are no real preconditions for a ceasefire. Now, individual motivations are coming into play: personal goals to negotiate peace and achieve global acclaim, and Kyiv's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to unite the population around the country's interests against any plan Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not move to domestic problems. And although their task will now be significantly challenging after latest incidents, it remains highly unlikely that this will modify their basic position.
These opposing factors are influencing discussions.
Summary and Prospects
It took a just a single week to eliminate the proposed articles of the current initiative. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by American leadership, pushback by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all served their function.
While new plans 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 resist political attacks from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate certain reluctance to change the course of events, if they maintain solidarity and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to repel nightly air assaults will, for the foreseeable future, primarily depend on continued Western support.
