The Parallel Realities of the War in Ukraine

While the US is keen to continue its diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Ukraine, both Kyiv and Moscow prepare for another winter of war, expected to be more exhausting than the previous ones.

Europe has to be involved in the diplomatic process but should avoid wishful thinking about Russia’s willingness to achieve peace. Its priorities should be elsewhere: in the short term, helping Ukraine survive the winter and make the cost of war increasingly painful for the Russians and, in the long term, making Ukraine’s integration into Europe irreversible.

One of Finland’s leading diplomats during the Cold War era, Max Jakobson, wrote a book about his country’s fight for independence titled The Diplomacy of the Winter War. The Finns know all too well that, after the Soviet Union attacked in late 1939, their survival as an independent state was determined on the battlefield. However, in parallel with the military fight, there was an ongoing diplomatic process before, during, and after the war, including attempts to receive support from western powers, exchange signals with Moscow about possible terms of peace, and prepare for post-war survival.

Unresolved conflicts serve Russia’s interests

Russia’s war against Ukraine has its own diplomatic track, which at times appears detached from realities on the battlefield. The US has recently reactivated its attempts to negotiate peace, possibly motivated by domestic politics, as the increasingly unpopular president seeks positive attention ahead of midterm elections. As one of the US negotiators, Jared Kushner, told the YES conference that has just concluded in Kyiv, the US places strong emphasis on the economic benefits both sides could derive from making peace. This approach shows utter ignorance of Russia’s strategic thinking, where economic gains do not take priority over the pursuit of geopolitical goals and major economic costs are an acceptable sacrifice for maintaining great-power status. (Moreover, the win-win solution proposed by the US to Russia and Ukraine is undermined by the approach of the same US administration to some of its allies, which increasingly resembles Russian methods of pressure and blackmail.)

Some high-level European participants at the same conference expressed an equally unfounded confidence that President Putin would eventually want not only to negotiate but also to conclude a peace agreement with Ukraine. This expectation ignores the fact that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has used unresolved conflicts — sometimes escalated to war (as in Georgia in 2008), at other times kept frozen for years (as in Moldova’s Transnistrian region ever since 1992) — as a method to maintain control over neighbouring countries. Ending such conflicts would reduce Russia’s influence in these countries. Russia has yet to learn a different way to pursue its interests vis-à-vis neighbouring countries through cooperation rather than coercion and manipulation. Perhaps a defeat in Ukraine could bring about such a steep learning curve in Moscow.

Europe needs Realistic Goals

In the meantime, neither Ukrainians nor Russians expect the war to be over before spring 2027. By that time, Russia expects to conquer the whole territory of Donbas, while Ukraine expects to prove that it is impossible and unbearably costly for Russia to achieve this goal. For Ukraine to prevail, it needs decisive support from Europe in the form of financing the war effort, helping Ukrainian people survive the winter, and tightening sanctions against Russia. Ukraine also needs to keep the US involved and willing to continue its limited but (so far) indispensable support. The diplomatic process, however detached from the realities of war, helps to secure the latter.

One factor behind Russia’s hope that it can win is its assumption that Europe will eventually get tired, chicken out, and not really want Ukraine as a full-fledged member of the EU. Europeans must prove otherwise through actions, not just words. Europe should not bow to Russia’s blackmail aimed at blocking the use of its frozen assets in support of Ukraine or at deterring a European military presence in Ukraine post-war. It is also essential to move ahead with Ukraine’s EU accession process in a realistic manner: not promising full membership tomorrow or next year but advancing negotiations in parallel with Ukraine’s domestic reforms. Europe’s role in the diplomacy of war should focus on laying out a sustainable future for Ukraine as part of Europe and backing Ukraine in whatever format negotiations may take, rather than making overtures towards Moscow in the vain hope of bringing the Russians to negotiate in earnest.

Views expressed in ICDS publications are those of the author(s).