What risks do "peace negotiations" with Russia pose for Ukraine and NATO?
The First Peace Summit for Ukraine is set to be held in Switzerland in a few weeks. World leaders will be discussing the conditions for ending the Russian war. Preparing for the summit is one of Kyiv’s top priorities.
However, while this process is ongoing, certain Western countries, by limiting their assistance to Ukraine, are pushing Ukraine towards "negotiations" and effectively towards concessions to Russia – sometimes without even intending or wishing to. And the voices of foreign leaders advocating for Russia to be involved in negotiations have grown louder.
Read more in the article by Sergiy Solodkyy, New Europe Center – Negotiations or capitulation? How the view of Ukraine peace talks needs to change.
Following Ukraine's unsuccessful counteroffensive in 2023, Western approaches to military aid for Ukraine were in need of a radical overhaul. Limited and measured assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine had failed. The only correct option seemed obvious: to transform the "drip-feed" into an "avalanche" in which Ukraine would receive more and more weapons weekly, demonstrating the futility of prolonged war with Russia.
Instead, the opposite happened: instead of delivering massive arms supplies, key Western countries put the process on hold. And although there are no real grounds to believe this pause was deliberate, that doesn't change the consequences.
Instead of the promised support "for as long as it takes", Ukraine has been weakened.
Because of this, calls for negotiations from China, Türkiye, Switzerland, Slovakia, etc. have grown louder. The camp of countries supporting Ukraine's covert capitulation, presenting it as a "freezing" of the conflict, has grown larger.
Even as it declares itself ready for negotiations, the Kremlin does all it can to sabotage them.
Putin has created a "Russian reality" and he demands that it be accepted, and Western resistance to this is either too modest or inconsistent.
The time for a turning point has indeed come.
Rather than pushing Ukraine towards negotiations, what is needed is ambitious, swift and large-scale support. And it's time to finally understand that negotiations would only lead to undesirable outcomes in the near future.
The most important thing to realise is that negotiations would not stop the war. They will only lead to destabilisation in Ukraine, with narratives of "secret negotiations" being spread by Russia in Ukrainian mainstream and social media.
Moreover, there is a risk, of starting negotiations is that it could further slow down arms deliveries to Ukraine, or even bring them to a halt.
On top of that, the risk of direct war with NATO will increase. Moscow's claims relate not only to Ukraine, but also the entire Euro-Atlantic space. Russia openly talks about redrawing NATO territory and imposing additional conditions on the Alliance.
The West's decision should not be about how to compel a weakened Ukraine to sit at the negotiating table, but how Ukraine should be urgently strengthened.
The decision to form a coalition of resolute states that seek to expand assistance to Ukraine has long been overdue.
The New Europe Center has developed a vision: a list of eight initiatives from international partners that can contribute to forcing Russia into genuine – not pretend – negotiations.