Europe felt a moment of respite on Monday, as the tension triggered by the presentation of a new 28-article proposal for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been contained. A Washington representative spoke of "significant advancement" after Ukraine-US talks in Geneva. On Monday night, Russian leadership made its response: a renewed assault of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Cycle of Peace Talks and Military Action
The chain of conflicting incidents captured the grim essence of the current period. By day, political struggles are waged: positive announcements are released from multiple capitals. Immense energy is devoted on restraining particular approaches. By night, the Kremlin brutally reminds the world that, for them, military action persists as the main instrument for achieving "settlement".
Nighttime Reality
As military strikes unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the present situation of Ukraine's defenselessness was exposed. Ukraine is able to track projectile deployments from enemy soil, a capacity enabled by up-to-date information. From vantage locations, defense planes that had been deployed to counter approaching cruise missiles roared overhead – modern combat jets supplied to Ukraine by European allies.
Moments later, Kyiv's missile defense activated: several firings fired to intercept a hostile projectile. This was a modern interception technology at work, most likely provided by Western nations. Every firing creates sudden vibrations, shaking the windows. The instant of fear quickly transforms into grim resignation: maybe the hostile projectile won't hit its mark this time, protecting urban areas from devastation and another blackout.
Continuous Dangers
Not long after, a large-caliber weapon engaged a drone somewhere nearby, part of a mobile-fire group – almost certainly Western-made equipment. Sadly, the shots failed to hit the opposing UAV – it continued its flight toward its destination.
Intermittently, this carried on until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the early updates: several casualties, destruction and infrastructure problems in many homes as a result of the night's assault. As customarily, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those entire period illustrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on Western support – a dependence that European nations are evidently unprepared to replace in the near term.
Unsuccessful Negotiations
The detailed framework from American leadership sparked intense emotion, discussion and profound anxiety – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's major integrity crisis in years. Yet, we have witnessed similar scenarios, after earlier high-level meetings and international summits.
Every new approach from Washington adheres to the same pattern: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, succeeds in resisting. They manage the tension but never actually win the battle. This trend will, undoubtedly, endure.
Tactical Assessments
It is tempting to accuse specific actors of persistently promoting Kremlin's demands. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. US administration works based on a premise well known to international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have been unable to protect through force. The US administration presumes that it is unfeasible to force Russia to surrender the land that it currently occupies in Ukraine's occupied territories.
The issue is that while accepting these circumstances, US leadership does minimal to prevent Kremlin actions, through words or deeds, from thinking that the status quo will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, the Kremlin is certain that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its allies are approaching exhaustion. Their motivation to agree to terms that does not give them the largest achievable advantage is almost completely absent. There may be multiple initiatives to stop fighting, but they will persist as long as Russia's government remains completely certain in the result.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still persist, slowly losing civilians and areas but preventing a complete military breakdown until situations evolve in its benefit.
Current Realities
Factually, there are no genuine requirements for a armistice. Now, individual motivations are entering the equation: political desires to broker a ceasefire and achieve global acclaim, and Kyiv's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any initiative Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their focus does not move to homefront challenges. And although their task will now be considerably more difficult after recent developments, it remains highly unlikely that this will change their overall approach.
These two forces are influencing discussions.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a only one week to terminate the suggested clauses of the latest plan. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by US administration, resistance by Ukraine and the other European countries, along with calming attempts of diplomats, and finally, recent disclosures, all achieved their purpose.
While new proposals based on established approaches are imminent, Kyiv, London and other European capitals should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist political attacks from Washington that are based on Russian demands and show specific hesitation to alter the situation, if they remain united and improve their protective measures at a considerably quicker tempo. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to defend against evening bombardments will, for the predictable period, largely rely on continued Western support.
