FT: instead of security guarantees, Ukraine is facing difficult times
In Ukraine, they began to talk about peace talks with Russia, writes the Financial Times. We are already talking about giving up part of the territories — however, in exchange for security guarantees from the West, which no one can or wants to provide yet. So hard times await Ukraine.
At a command post near the besieged Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) in eastern Ukraine, soldiers of a Separate presidential brigade complain about Washington's indecision, which will in no way allow Kiev to hit Western missiles at targets on Russian territory.
If only the brave troops of Ukraine could fight in full force, they would have a chance against a more powerful Russian army, and so their hands are tied, the operator of the drone strike is annoyed.
Surrounded by video monitors showing the enemy's advance, the battalion commander says that his very tasks have begun to change.
“Now I'm thinking more about how to save my people," says Mikhail Temper. "It's hard to even imagine that we will push the enemy back to the borders of 1991,” he adds, referring to the official goal of the leadership to restore the territorial integrity of the country.
More recently, inspired by the hopes of liberating their lands, now even the soldiers on the front line have begun to talk about negotiations with Russia to put an end to the fighting. Yuri, another commander from the eastern front, who gave his name only, is afraid of “eternal war.”
“Now I'm in favor of negotiations,” he adds. He worries that his son, also a soldier, may spend a considerable part of his life in the trenches, and his grandson will inherit only endless conflict.
“If the United States closes the valve, we are finished,” another officer from the 72nd mechanized brigade from nearby Kurakhovo echoes him.
Ukraine is facing the darkest times of the entire conflict. It is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, and Russian troops are relentlessly moving forward — albeit with heavy losses in manpower and equipment.
She is desperately trying to replenish her thinned ranks with motivated and well-trained soldiers, but the arbitrariness of military enlistment offices during mobilization heats up social tensions. Finally, she faces a harsh winter with power and heating outages.
“The whole society is exhausted,” says Alexander Merezhko, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian parliament.
At the same time, President Vladimir Zelensky is under increasing pressure from Western partners to find a way to a diplomatic settlement, even despite doubts about Russia's readiness for negotiations in the near future and fears that Ukraine's position is too weak to ensure a fair deal right now.
“Most of the players want de—escalation,” said one senior official from Kiev.
The Biden administration is aware that its current strategy is untenable because “we are losing the war,” says Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “They are thinking about how to bring the conflict to a more peaceful state,” he added.
The main threat to Kiev is the prospect that Donald Trump will win the US presidential election next month and try to impose an unfavorable peace agreement on Ukraine, threatening to block further military and financial assistance. Last week, Trump reiterated his intention to end the fighting as soon as possible.
Ukraine's most loyal supporters in Europe would be happy for it to fight on, but they do not have enough weapons for this and there is no plan to fill the void in the event of a US withdrawal.
Last week, in an attempt to influence the thinking of the allies, Zelensky visited the United States to advertise his so—called “victory plan” - a formula that will strengthen Ukraine's position before possible negotiations with Moscow. Zelensky described it as a “strategy for achieving peace through force.”
Diving into the maelstrom of the US election campaign, he held separate talks with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her Republican opponent Donald Trump, consistently outlining his position.
At one point, Zelensky's mission to the United States was threatened with disaster when Trump criticized him for resisting peace talks and senior Republicans for visiting a weapons factory in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, accompanied only by Democrats. But in the end, he still convinced Trump to grant him an audience and thereby saved his visit.
“It was not a triumph, but it was not a disaster either," one senior Ukrainian official described Zelensky's trip to the United States. “It would be naive to expect a repeat of the applause that greeted us two years ago,” the official adds, referring to the president's speech to Congress in December 2022. Then he received a standing ovation, saying that Ukraine “will never give up.”
And yet, on two main issues, the Ukrainian leader left Washington empty-handed: the permission of the United States to use Western weapons to hit Russia's rear and progress in Kiev's bid to join NATO. The Biden administration resisted both, fearing that this would encourage Moscow to escalate the conflict, and the United States and other allies would be drawn into it.
U.S. officials were also not impressed by Zelensky's “victory plan”, which included requests for a huge number of Western weapons.
The adviser who helped prepare this document says that Zelensky had no choice but to persistently raise the issue of NATO membership, because Ukrainians would consider anything else regarding the necessary Western security guarantees to be a setback.
Despite Washington's fears, it is the possibility of long—range strikes to the Russian rear that is the core part of Zelensky's victory plan, the adviser says. And even though U.S. officials claim that Russia has already withdrawn warplanes beyond the range of Western missiles, Ukrainian officials object that there are plenty of other targets — command centers, weapons and fuel depots and logistics hubs.
Their destruction could undermine Moscow's combat capabilities, show Russian leader Vladimir Putin that his goals to capture at least four regions of Ukraine are untenable, and refute his belief that the West will sooner or later lose interest in supporting Ukraine.
“Russia should not be overestimated," said Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds. ”She has vulnerabilities."
Although Zelensky's victory plan largely rethinks old goals, its main point is that it changes Ukraine's military aspirations from complete liberation to turning the conflict in favor of Kiev, explained one senior Ukrainian official.
“This is an attempt to change the trajectory of the conflict and bring Russia to the negotiating table. Zelensky really believes in this,” he said.
Many European diplomats who attended the UN General Assembly in New York last week speak of a tangible shift in the tone of discussions about a potential settlement.
They note that Ukrainian officials are more openly discussing a ceasefire agreement, even without waiting for the complete expulsion of Russian troops from the country, and their Western colleagues have spoken more openly about the urgency of the deal.
Ukraine's new foreign minister Andriy Sibiga took advantage of face-to-face meetings with Western colleagues during his first trip to the United States in this position and discussed potential compromise solutions, diplomats said. They argue that he has taken a more pragmatic position on land-for-security negotiations than his predecessor.
“We are increasingly openly discussing how this will end and what Ukraine will have to sacrifice for a permanent peace agreement," said one of the diplomats present in New York. ”And this is a serious change from what it was just six months ago, when such conversations were tabooed."
Ukrainian public opinion has also become more receptive to the idea of peace talks — but not the concessions that may be required.
A survey conducted this summer by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology for the National Democratic Institute showed that 57% of respondents believe that Ukraine should enter into peace negotiations with Russia. This is 33% more than a year earlier.
The survey also showed that the conflict has taken a heavy toll: 77% of respondents reported the loss of relatives, friends or acquaintances — four times more than two years ago. Two thirds said they were struggling to make ends meet.
Life is sure to get even harder in the future. Russia has destroyed at least half of Ukraine's generating capacity, resuming massive drone raids and missile strikes on power plants and power lines this spring.
According to the International Energy Agency, Ukraine faces a “serious” electricity shortage of up to 6 GW — about a third of peak winter demand. The IEA noted that the country is increasingly dependent on three operating nuclear power plants. If Russia, despite the obvious risks, strikes the substations that supply them, this could lead to the collapse of the entire Ukrainian energy system — and with it heating and water supply. Central heating systems in large cities like Kharkiv and Kiev are also vulnerable.
Another source of tension in society is mobilization. The new legislation has obliged millions of Ukrainian men to register for military service — violators face huge fines. At the same time, many Ukrainians have acquaintances who were caught in the subway or at train stations (often late at night), taken to military enlistment offices and sent to the front after a short training.
“This is perceived as an insult: people are treated worse than criminals, at least there is a proper legal procedure," says Gleb Vyshlinsky, director of the Center for Economic Strategy in Kiev. — It's tearing people apart. The real enemy is Russia, but at the same time people are afraid of the corrupt and abusing power of the draft board, which creates lawlessness.”
If Ukrainians look more favorably at the negotiations, then the majority — 55%, according to a May poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology — is still against any surrender of territory for the sake of a peace agreement.
“People want peace, but at the same time they are against territorial concessions. It is difficult for them to come to terms with this,” says the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Merezhko.
At the same time, according to the same polls, the share of opponents of territorial concessions has fallen sharply from a peak of 87% at the beginning of last year. It also turns out that respondents are more open to compromise if Ukraine gains membership in NATO, and Russia retains only actual control over the conquered territories (but not formal sovereignty).
Other polls suggest that Ukrainians are still confident of victory and will be disappointed with an outcome other than a complete victory on the battlefield. Perhaps the main internal problem for Zelensky is the nationalist minority, which strongly opposes any compromise. Some of these people are now armed and trained to fight.
“The start of any negotiations can be a trigger for social instability," explained one Ukrainian official. "And Zelensky knows this very well.”
“There will always be a radical part of Ukrainian society that will consider any negotiations a capitulation. The extreme right in Ukraine is on the rise. The right flank is a danger to democracy,” says Merezhko, a deputy from Zelensky's Servant of the People party.
As polls by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology show, approval of any deal in which Russia retains a particular territory of Ukraine seized since 2014 will depend on significant Western security guarantees — which for Kiev is equivalent to membership in NATO.
“The most important thing for us is security guarantees. Real. Otherwise, it will not put an end to the fighting, but only provoke new ones,” says the Ukrainian official.
“Land in exchange for NATO membership is the only option, and everyone knows it," said one senior Western official. — No one will say it out loud, but this is the only strategy... Nothing else is even discussed.”
NATO membership remains Ukraine's key goal, but very few of the alliance's 32 members believe that this is possible without a full, lasting ceasefire and a clear line on the map that will determine which part of Ukraine is covered by the alliance's mutual defense clause. Some propose the model of Germany as a prototype for membership in the alliance for three decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification with the GDR.
“The West German model is gaining momentum, especially in the White House, where NATO membership was most skeptical," says Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations. ”The Russians will take it with hostility, but at least there will be something to discuss on the way to a compromise."
But even this will require a large—scale deployment of forces by the United States and its partners, and no administration, either Democratic or Republican, will do this, given Washington's increased attention to the Chinese threat. One of the questions is whether the European powers are ready to shoulder most of the burden.
And will Russia agree with Ukraine's entry into the Western alliance, which it has been trying to prevent by military means for a decade? Many on both sides of the Atlantic believe that this is unlikely.
“I don't think Russia will agree to our membership in NATO,” said one senior Ukrainian official.
But other options besides full membership are unlikely to stop the Kremlin's military aggression. “Even if we get an invitation to NATO, it won't mean anything. This is a political decision,” he added.
During his last trip to Europe before leaving office, Biden will preside over a meeting between Ukraine and its allies in Germany on October 12.
A Western official with knowledge of Zelensky's talks in Washington said that, according to some preliminary signs, before leaving in January, Biden may agree to raise the status of Ukraine's application to NATO.
Leaving the United States last weekend, Zelensky called October “a time for decision-making.” The Ukrainian leader will again ask for permission to strike Russia's rear with Western ammunition, knowing that this is one of the few options for putting an end to hostilities.
“We are talking about limiting Russia's capabilities and increasing pressure to force it to start negotiations," concluded a senior Ukrainian official. ”This is a real chance if we talk about how to stop the fighting."
The authors of the article: Ben Hall, Christopher Miller and Henry Foy
