Ukraine, explained.
Vladimir Putin won’t accept any deal that doesn’t meet Moscow’s core objectives (Kremlin)
A flurry of diplomacy over Ukraine looks like progress, but the terms on the table so far favour Moscow.
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Ukraine: Perils for Kyiv in revived peace talksUkraine: Perils for Kyiv in revived peace talks
Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine are intensifying. This seems encouraging but may yet prove a poison pill for Ukraine.
US special envoy Stephen Witkoff met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European representatives in Oslo on 20 October. Afterwards, Finnish President Alexander Stubb hailed the “genuine progress (Opens in new window)” made, without offering any detail.
US sources suggested a two track process (Opens in new window): the first focused on Ukraine’s future, including security guarantees, closer integration with Europe and post-war economic reconstruction assistance, while the second looked more at repairing Russia’s relations with the West, including new (unspecified) European security arrangements.
Witkoff went on to St Petersburg on 21 October and met again with President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov reported that Russia had agreed in principle to resume technical level three-way talks with Ukraine and the United States, possibly in mid-November. However, Ushakov added that the (unspecified) European/Ukraine ideas conveyed by Witkoff were “not very useful (Opens in new window)”, and that for Moscow the key lay in “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends (Opens in new window)”.
Left unclear is what concessions would be required of Ukraine – above all, territorial. And the nature of this unspecified “security system”.
Reasserting Russia’s global power, influence and status has been an enduring leitmotif of Putin’s quarter century rule.
Separately, Ushakov confirmed (Opens in new window) reports that Putin has proposed to his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, a trilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump during the upcoming APEC summit in Shenzhen, China on 18–19 November.
Trump has responded positively to the idea. The agenda remains unclear, although Trump indicated he would prefer it focus on denuclearisation (Opens in new window). It is hard to see Beijing agreeing to this, given that China has resisted engaging in nuclear weapons control negotiations, so long as its own nuclear arsenal – which it is fast expanding and upgrading – remains inferior to that of both Russia and the United States.
Russia (Opens in new window), though, would clearly aim to use the proposed trilateral summit as a means of negotiating over the heads of Kyiv and its European allies to advance prospects for ending the war in Ukraine on Moscow’s terms.
What might emerge on Ukraine from a Shenzhen summit? Not a fully-fledged deal but perhaps an understanding over certain key elements of a possible settlement. Whatever the outcome, it’s hard to see Ukraine coming out well out of it.
Beyond potentially securing Trump’s support for a deal on Ukraine, a summit at APEC would offer Putin even more. The Yalta-style symbolism of the Russian leader deliberating with his US and Chinese counterparts on major global issues would play to Putin’s great power pretensions. Reasserting Russia’s global power, influence and status has been an enduring leitmotif of Putin’s quarter century rule.
Unsurprisingly, the prospect of the three great powers deliberating on its future is unnerving for Ukraine – and deeply worrying for Europe.
Finland President Alexander Stubb, right, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, centre, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy deliver statements following talks with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (@alexstubb/X)
Fear of being cut out of the negotiating process has worried Kyiv and its European allies about Washington’s overtures to Moscow over the past 18 months – prompting the Oslo meeting between Zelenskyy and Witkoff. But talk of a trilateral summit at APEC will only deepen Ukraine and European apprehensions.
Although Moscow may engage, performatively, in the Witkoff–Jared Kushner-led negotiating process so as not to alienate Trump, there’s no real sign yet that Russia is ready to end the war – except on its own terms.
Russia’s continuing destructive aerial bombing campaign against Ukraine aims to bring Kyiv to its knees, strengthening Moscow’s negotiating position for whenever serious talks to end the fighting take place.
Putin won’t accept any deal that doesn’t meet Moscow’s core objectives: confirming Russia’s control over the whole Donbas (requiring Ukraine to give up sovereign territory it still holds), ensuring a compliant government in Kyiv, and assurances of Ukrainian neutrality.
Zelenskyy has reiterated (Opens in new window) Kyiv’s readiness to freeze the current front lines to achieve a ceasefire. But before agreeing to any meaningful long term peace deal, Ukraine will need rock-solid security guarantees from the US and Europe – and it’s still not clear anything bankable will be forthcoming.
Kyiv is probably sceptical too that an impatient and frustrated US administration, anxious to end the war and already incongruously blaming Ukraine for the lack of progress, can be a genuinely even-handed mediator.
If the US were to throw its weight behind a proposed deal to end the fighting, whatever form it might take, it clearly has leverage it could exert over Ukraine – witness the recent apparent unexplained brief curtailment (Opens in new window) of US intelligence support and denial of Starlink access (Opens in new window) to Ukraine. Washington might also potentially restrict European-funded supplies of US military equipment to Ukraine.
Yet, whatever might emerge from this reinvigorated diplomatic process, Ukraine won’t simply fall meekly into line with a proposed agreement that doesn’t take its interests adequately into account.
For Kyiv the war is an existential struggle to protect and sustain its national sovereignty. Zelenskyy has recently shown his willingness to resist US pressure, resuming attacks on Russian refineries and oil infrastructure.
For Kyiv, continuing European support is crucial. That’s not in doubt currently. But the outlook is more uncertain, with key European centrist governments facing elections next year, under populist pressures from left and right from parties unsympathetic to Ukraine.
Ukraine has shown courage and resilience in resisting Russian depredations for nearly five years. It will need all this, and more, to weather the challenges ahead.
About the author
Ian Hill
Ian Hill is a retired senior career diplomat in the New Zealand foreign ministry.
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