Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the diplomatic emergency sparked by the announcement of a new 28-point plan for resolving the conflict appeared – momentarily – to have been defused. A Washington representative spoke of "substantial progress" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its response: an extensive attack of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Rhythm of Diplomacy and Destruction
The succession of conflicting incidents captured the grim essence of the current period. By day, negotiation efforts are fought: positive announcements are released from different nations. Significant resources is expended on restraining specific proposals. By night, Russian leadership clearly shows the world that, for them, war remains the primary tool for achieving "peace".
Nighttime Reality
As military strikes developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's vulnerability was exposed. Ukraine is able to track projectile deployments from across the border, a ability enabled by timely intelligence. From vantage locations, military aircraft that had been scrambled to intercept incoming cruise missiles roared overhead – advanced fighter aircraft provided to Ukraine by Western partners.
Shortly after, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons activated: multiple launches fired to intercept a incoming threat. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, most likely delivered by Western nations. Every firing jolts you unexpectedly, rattling buildings. The moment of terror quickly gives way to resigned acknowledgment: maybe the approaching threat won't hit its mark this time, protecting urban areas from catastrophe and additional electricity failures.
Ongoing Risks
Following this, a heavy machine gun fired at a unmanned aircraft close by, part of a rapid response unit – most likely imported technology. Sadly, the bullets missed the hostile drone – it maintained course toward its target.
With pauses, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv awoke to the early updates: several casualties, devastation and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the nocturnal offensive. As always, everyone still continued their routines – living the war. But those 24 hours encapsulated Ukraine's critical military reliance on Western support – a dependence that neighboring countries are demonstrably unable to substitute in the short term.
Ineffective Peace Efforts
The detailed framework from US administration generated strong feelings, debate and deep concern – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's most significant graft case in years. Yet, we have experienced comparable situations, after earlier high-level meetings and international summits.
Every new proposal from US leadership unfolds according to the same pattern: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with allied governments, succeeds in resisting. They stabilise the situation but never actually achieve victory. This pattern will, no doubt, continue.
Political Considerations
It is convenient to criticize certain parties of persistently promoting Moscow's conditions. But that does not seem to be the complete picture. US administration works based on a principle well known to international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have failed to defend militarily. The White House assumes that it is unfeasible to force Russia to surrender the territory that it presently holds in Ukraine's south or east.
The issue is that while accepting these circumstances, American administration does minimal to discourage Russia, through words or deeds, from believing that the current condition will not shift further in its favour in the coming year.
Opposing Positions
Therefore, Russian leadership is confident that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its partners are approaching exhaustion. Their reason to agree to terms that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is close to zero. There may be many attempts to stop fighting, but they will persist as long as Russia's government remains completely certain in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukrainian leadership believes that Ukraine can still endure, progressively conceding lives and land but averting a complete military breakdown until circumstances change in its advantage.
Existing Situation
Factually, there are no genuine requirements for a ceasefire. Now, personal considerations are entering the equation: leadership ambitions to broker a ceasefire and secure international recognition, and the government's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to estrange crucial supporters, and on the other, to unite the population around the flag against any plan Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their attention does not switch to internal issues. And although their task will now be considerably more difficult after current events, it remains highly unlikely that this will alter their fundamental strategy.
These two forces are influencing discussions.
Assessment and Future
It took a mere seven days to kill the 28 points of the current initiative. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by US administration, pushback by Ukraine and the remaining European nations, along with pacifying measures of representatives, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.
While new plans based on previous concepts are approaching, Kyiv, London and other allied nations should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to counter negotiation assaults from Washington that are based on Russian demands and show certain reluctance to alter the situation, if they stand together and enhance their military capacity at a significantly accelerated rate. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to break them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to counter nocturnal attacks will, for the coming months, largely rely on sustained allied backing.
