Europe experienced widespread relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the announcement of a new comprehensive peace framework for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been stabilised. A senior US official spoke of "substantial progress" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its countermove: an extensive attack of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Peace Talks and Military Action
The succession of opposing developments captured the harsh reality of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are fought: optimistic declarations are delivered from various governments. Significant resources is allocated on managing certain initiatives. By night, Moscow forcefully demonstrates the world that, for them, war remains the main instrument for achieving "settlement".
Nighttime Reality
As the offensive developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's defenselessness was exposed. Ukraine is able to track projectile deployments from across the border, a capability afforded by timely intelligence. From witness perspectives, defense planes that had been dispatched to intercept incoming aerial threats streaked across the sky – modern combat jets delivered to Ukraine by Western partners.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: defensive missiles targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a modern interception technology at work, most likely delivered by Western nations. Every deployment shakes the surroundings, rattling buildings. The moment of terror quickly gives way to resigned acknowledgment: perhaps the approaching threat won't hit its mark this time, preventing destruction from catastrophe and another blackout.
Persistent Threats
Not long after, a large-caliber weapon opened up on a unmanned aircraft somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – almost certainly imported technology. Sadly, the bullets missed the enemy aircraft – it maintained course toward its objective.
With pauses, this carried on until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the early updates: seven people killed, devastation and heating outages in many homes as a result of the night's assault. As typically, everyone still maintained normal activities – experiencing conflict. But those 24 hours illustrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on external assistance – a reliance that neighboring countries are demonstrably unable to replace in the immediate future.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The 28-point plan from American leadership generated strong feelings, controversy and profound anxiety – and briefly redirected concern from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after earlier high-level meetings and bilateral conferences.
Every new proposal from Washington adheres to the identical sequence: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, effectively counters. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This pattern will, no doubt, continue.
Strategic Calculations
It is tempting to accuse particular leaders of persistently promoting Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the complete picture. US administration operates on a principle understood by international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have lost on the battlefield. The White House presumes that it is impossible to compel Moscow to surrender the areas that it currently occupies in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The problem is that while accepting these circumstances, American administration does nothing to prevent Kremlin actions, through words or deeds, from assuming that the situation will not evolve additionally in its advantage in the coming year.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Moscow is certain that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its allies are nearing depletion. Their motivation to accept conditions that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is close to zero. There may be numerous efforts to stop fighting, but they will persist as long as Russia's leader remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still endure, progressively conceding lives and land but avoiding a total frontline collapse until conditions improve in its favour.
Present Conditions
Factually, there are no real preconditions for a armistice. Now, individual motivations are coming into play: political desires to mediate resolution and achieve global acclaim, and Kyiv's double obstacles – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to unite the population around the flag against any proposal Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their attention does not shift toward homefront challenges. And although their mission will now be significantly challenging after latest incidents, it remains highly unlikely that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are guiding negotiations.
Assessment and Future
It took a mere seven days to terminate the 28 points of the current initiative. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with calming attempts of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.
While new initiatives based on previous concepts are approaching, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should arrive at a critical understanding: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist political attacks from Washington that are founded on Moscow's terms and show specific hesitation to modify developments, if they remain united and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither political nor armed coercion will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to defend against evening bombardments will, for the coming months, primarily depend on ongoing international assistance.
