All parties involved in the Ukraine conflict are now manoeuvring for position in advance of the peace talks proposed by the incoming Donald Trump administration. What we do not know — and will not, until talks actually take place — is which of these positions are intended firmly to be held, which are initial bargaining counters, and which are intended to block the possibility of talks succeeding.
Both British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, have said this week that they see no point in engaging in talks at this stage. In Lammy’s words, “Putin is not a man that you can negotiate with when he is causing such mayhem on European soil.” UK Defence Secretary John Healey also suggested this week that British troops could be stationed in Ukraine in a training role. Russia has made clear that these soldiers would be targeted as a result — which would provoke a drastic new spiral of escalation and potentially wreck peace talks. Of course, such troops could be regarded as a bargaining counter, to strengthen Ukraine’s hand in talks and to be withdrawn as part of an eventual agreement.
There are two problems here, however. The first is that these are not counters on a board with which Lammy is playing, but the lives of British soldiers — too many of whom have already died over the past generation in badly-planned wars with no connection to the UK’s national interests. The second is that the West has developed a disastrous tendency to turn proposals which should be matters for negotiation and bargaining — such as the empty and duplicitous idea of future Nato membership for Ukraine — into immutable issues of morality and prestige.
Western troops in Ukraine, whether in a training role or as peacekeepers as part of an agreement, are just as unacceptable to Moscow as Ukrainian Nato membership itself. If their presence is insisted on during peace talks, those discussions will collapse. The same is true of certain Kremlin demands — notably that Ukraine withdraw from territory it still holds in the four oblasts that Russia claims to have annexed. On other issues, such as “denazification” and limits on the Ukrainian armed forces, Russian interlocutors have told me that they think Vladimir Putin would be willing to compromise.
These are issues that can only be clarified in negotiations. And from a Western perspective, the only reason to delay talks — as suggested by Lammy and Kallas — would be if we were reasonably confident that Ukraine will be in a stronger position six months or a year from now than it is today.
Obviously, no such confidence can exist. On the contrary, in the months to come Ukraine seems certain to lose still more territory, and there is a real danger that its outnumbered and outgunned army will collapse entirely. And, whatever Brussels claims, given the budget crises now affecting the major European powers there can be no certainty that Western aid will continue at anything like its existing level.
Of course, not everything is going Russia’s way. The Moscow establishment is seriously worried about a massive surge in inflation in the coming year, while military advances on the ground remain extremely slow and involve heavy casualties. Most Russians appear to want an early compromise peace, so long as it doesn’t involve surrendering vital national interests.
Speaking during his annual press conference yesterday, Putin stated his readiness for an early meeting with Trump. This prospect, however, is fraught with dangers. The first is that the US President-elect will agree to too much at once without discussing secondary issues, leaving Russia no reason to compromise on these secondary issues; another is that if Putin does not immediately agree to all his proposals, Trump will storm off in a rage.
Putin also said yesterday that he will negotiate with Volodymyr Zelensky, but that any agreement will have to be ratified by the Ukrainian parliament. Since, however, the Ukrainian parliament will struggle to agree to any compromise, this is a strong argument for all the critical issues that are within Washington’s purview — NATO membership, Western weapons and security guarantees for Kyiv, mutual US-Russian force limitations in Europe — first being discussed on a bilateral basis between the Trump and Putin administrations. Only then can we know how viable peace really is.
Anatol Lieven is a former war correspondent and Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington DC.
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