The war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people (including soldiers and civilians on both sides), forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes, reduced many Ukrainian cities to rubble, and to some extent disrupted global food and energy supplies.
Today, let’s take a look at whether it is possible for the war in Ukraine to end through peaceful negotiations. Why? Because Ukraine's foreign minister's new proposal for a peace summit has refocused attention on the possibility of a negotiated end to the war.
Since the beginning of mid-March, Ukraine and Russia have not conducted any peace negotiations. But, at least publicly, both sides have drafted negotiating positions that appear completely unacceptable to the other side. So some U.S. and European officials have concluded that serious discussions about ending the fighting are unlikely in the near future.
On the other hand, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said on December 26 (Monday) that "every war ends diplomatically" and detailed plans to hold a peace summit around February 24 next year. But he told AP that Ukraine would only negotiate with Russia if it first saw the establishment of a war crimes tribunal.
Over there, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov responded that Kiev must accept Moscow’s demands—including giving up four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to annex—otherwise “the issue will be decided by the Russian military.”
Such strong stances suggest that any real peace process remains out of reach, at least not while both sides believe they can gain more militarily.
Ukrainian forces are working to retake the eastern town of Kremina after a string of victories on eastern and southern battlefields and a series of strikes against military targets deep in Russian territory. The difference between
and the Ukrainian army is that in the past two months, the Russian army has repeatedly launched missiles and drones attacks to damage or even destroy Ukraine's energy network. Their idea may be simple: Even if the Russian soldiers struggle on the battlefield, they must bring more suffering to Ukrainians.
Stella Ghervas, a professor of Russian history at the University of Newcastle in the UK, said: "The Ukrainian proposal gives a glimpse into Ukraine's views on how the war with Russia could one day end. But Lavrov's reaction was not optimistic, suggesting that peace talks may still be months away."
Last month, at a summit of G20 leaders, Zelensky proposed a wide-ranging 10 The Dot peace plan calls for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of the east, known as the Donbass, which Russian troops began occupying in 2014. He also demanded: the establishment of an international tribunal to try Russia for war crimes; Moscow's release of all political prisoners and those forcibly deported during the war; Russia's compensation for war losses; and international measures to ensure the safety of Ukraine's nuclear power plants and guarantee its food and energy security.
Analysts noted: This is a much stricter set of demands than what Ukrainian negotiators originally proposed during talks in Istanbul a month after the Russian invasion. At that time, they proposed that Ukraine obtain "neutral status" in exchange for security guarantees from Western countries.
However, after the Bucha incident was subsequently exposed, and as the Russian army's destruction of Ukrainian cities and economy deepened, the atrocities committed by the Russian army doubled. In August this year, Zelensky's senior adviser Podoljak said that the framework proposed in Istanbul was no longer feasible. "The emotional backdrop in Ukraine has changed very, very significantly. We have seen too many live broadcasts of war crimes," he told BBC reporters.
Over the weekend, the Russian president said he was ready to negotiate "acceptable outcomes" but did not specify what those might be, while making clear he had no intention of ending the attack.Western officials regard Mr. Putin's periodic offers for talks as empty gestures.
This month, Putin stressed that there were "no limits" to Russia's military spending, while his defense minister ordered another expansion of the armed forces, adding more than 300,000 members to a target size of 1.5 million.
In this regard, Marnie Howlett, lecturer in Russian and Eastern European politics at Oxford University, said: "This shows that there is not necessarily a push for peace through negotiations, or even some form of negotiation, but still a push for whatever outcome is being sought militarily."
