As the people of Ukraine enter the fifth bitter winter of Russia’s war of terror, there is still no doubting their bravery or their resilience, nor the determination of president Volodymyr Zelensky to resist the aggression and protect his nation.
There is, however, some question about whether what Russia has been unable to achieve on the battlefields it will instead be able to win at the negotiating table.
Distressingly, the signs of such an ultimate tragedy overcoming Ukraine, and the wider European family of nations, are growing. It would be the ultimate betrayal of a free people.
The peace talks being led by President Trump’s personal envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are, once again, going badly. In Abu Dhabi and Dublin, they have ended up in the same place they always do – mistaking what should be an urgent attempt to close down a vicious war of aggression for leisurely mediation about disputed territory between two parties with equal claims.
That might be the right way to sort out a title deed in Manhattan – but it’s not appropriate to the existential conflict that Trump’s men have wandered into.
Indeed, in practice, Russia and Ukraine aren’t even treated in the same manner. Mr Witkoff once again lavishes praise on the butcher of Bucha – the Ukrainian town where Russian forces were accused of committing atrocities against civilians in 2022 – as a great “humanitarian”, and President Putin returns the compliment. They are frequent guests of the Russian Federation, but have only once set foot in Ukraine, just two months ago, maybe because President Trump thinks Mr Zelensky started the war.
In any case, the Russians have always outsmarted and outplayed the Witkoff-Kushner double act, and continue to do so now.
So, far from concentrating on achieving a ceasefire as a precursor to a wider peace agreement, these two amateur diplomats, chosen purely for their closeness to Mr Trump – one a real estate associate, the other his son-in-law – have yet again been drawn into the Kremlin’s agenda like babes in the wood being charmed by a friendly but deadly bear.
With no great interest in settling a war he believes he is on the brink of winning one way or another, Vladimir Putin has revived old talking points questioning Ukraine’s right to exist, and a proposal for a “European security framework”. This innocuous-sounding idea involves Nato forces withdrawing from eastern and central Europe – in other words, in effect, restoring the status quo before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Instead of dealing with the European Union, Nato or the “coalition of the willing”, Moscow proposes a series of non-aggression pacts with individual European nations, fracturing European allies and leaving them ripe for Russian occupation on the usual pretexts.
To ensure whatever spurious security guarantees offered to the rump of Ukraine that is left over, President Putin demands there be no foreign troops or peacekeepers on Ukrainian territory, and that any there would be legitimate targets and a casus belli for a future invasion and annexation. Moscow has long stalled on allowing the Europeans to take part in these peace negotiations, but is being prevailed upon to relent.
Unfortunately, the Europeans may not be able to make the most of such an opportunity to influence the future. The gibe that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov levelled at them has too much truth in it for comfort: “The Europeans squabble like spiders in a jar. If someone takes the initiative to establish contact with the Russian side, such people are facing ostracism.”
There remains no single figure, or even team of representatives, that can speak authoritatively for “Europe”, ie including the states outside the EU, such as Britain and Norway. The coalition of the willing will become a coalition of the unwilling if Marine Le Pen becomes president of France next May. Even now, there is no agreed “European” diplomatic plan or policy on a peace deal. This prospect is another incentive for the Kremlin to let the talks drag on.
Meanwhile, in Kyiv, in the frontline towns and villages of the Donbas and across Ukraine, the Russians will continue to destroy power infrastructure and water supplies and bomb apartment blocks. They intend to freeze and starve Ukraine into surrender. The attrition will be still worse if vital Starshield and Starlink systems are denied to Kyiv, as President Zelensky says is happening at present.
Russia can only win this war if the West lets it do so, but that does seem to be precisely what is happening.
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