Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency sparked by the announcement of a new 28-point plan for achieving ceasefire appeared – briefly – to have been defused. A Washington representative spoke of "substantial progress" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its response: another massive barrage of aerial bombardment on Kyiv.
The Pattern of Negotiation and Warfare
The succession of opposing developments captured the grim essence of the recent timeframe. By day, political struggles are fought: hopeful statements are issued from various governments. Considerable effort is devoted on restraining certain initiatives. By night, Russian leadership clearly shows the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "peace".
Nighttime Reality
As the offensive progressed into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's vulnerability was laid bare. Ukraine is capable of detecting rocket firings from across the border, a capacity provided through timely intelligence. From vantage locations, Ukrainian air force fighter jets that had been deployed to intercept incoming cruise missiles streaked across the sky – modern combat jets delivered to Ukraine by European allies.
Moments later, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: multiple launches targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a modern interception technology at work, presumably provided by Western nations. Every launch jolts you unexpectedly, shaking the windows. The brief panic quickly becomes grim resignation: perhaps the approaching threat won't hit its mark this time, sparing the city from ruin and additional electricity failures.
Ongoing Risks
Soon after, a heavy machine gun engaged a aerial vehicle somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – probably imported technology. Sadly, the bullets missed the hostile drone – it maintained course toward its destination.
Intermittently, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv greeted the early updates: seven people killed, destruction and heating outages in many homes as a result of the evening attack. As always, everyone still maintained normal activities – enduring hostilities. But those 24 hours encapsulated Ukraine's critical military reliance on international aid – a need that regional partners are demonstrably unable to fill in the near term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The detailed framework from American leadership provoked deep reactions, discussion and serious worry – and temporarily diverted attention from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after prior negotiation attempts and bilateral conferences.
Every new initiative from Washington adheres to the identical sequence: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with other European capitals, effectively counters. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This pattern will, undoubtedly, continue.
Tactical Assessments
It is tempting to accuse specific actors of persistently promoting Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the whole story. American leadership operates on a premise familiar among experienced diplomats: you cannot win at the negotiating table what you have lost on the battlefield. The White House assumes that it is unfeasible to pressure the Kremlin to surrender the land that it presently holds in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The challenge is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does little to prevent Kremlin actions, through words or deeds, from believing that the status quo will not evolve additionally in its favour in the coming year.
Divergent Views
Therefore, the Kremlin is confident that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its supporters are nearing depletion. Their incentive to accept conditions that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is almost completely absent. There may be many attempts to stop fighting, but they will continue as long as Russia's government remains highly assured in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still hold out, gradually sacrificing people and territory but averting a complete military breakdown until circumstances change in its advantage.
Current Realities
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a ceasefire. Now, subjective factors are entering the equation: political desires to mediate resolution and obtain worldwide acknowledgment, and Ukrainian leadership's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the country's interests against any initiative Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not shift toward homefront challenges. And although their task will now be significantly challenging after current events, it remains quite doubtful that this will change their overall approach.
These opposing factors are influencing discussions.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a only one week to eliminate the proposed articles of the current initiative. Aggressive and erratic handling of the matter by Washington, pushback by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with pacifying measures of negotiators, and finally, recent disclosures, all did their job.
While new proposals based on old ideas are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should reach an essential realization: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to counter political attacks from Washington that are founded on Moscow's terms and show particular unwillingness to modify developments, if they stand together and improve their protective measures at a much faster pace. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to repel nightly air assaults will, for the predictable period, mainly require sustained allied backing.
