Writers venturing predictions generally prefer events to prove them right, not wrong. But I’d much rather miss the mark in this case than hit the bullseye.
Because I venture the opinion that negotiations in Geneva will not end the Ukraine war. Each of the two parties to that hideous conflict wants to avoid being the one that knocks over the furniture and walks out in a rage.
Yet the minimum that Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to accept still seems more than the maximum Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can agree to.
Ukraine’s negotiators are reportedly willing to go along with the deal’s 19 points — these were reduced from 28 — with only “minor details” to be finalized. But, as the saying makes clear, the details are where the devil resides, and that’s an insurmountable problem.
The main purpose of the Ukrainians’ ostensible acquiescence is probably to stay onside with President Donald Trump while the proposals are massaged in their direction, eventually prompting Putin to reject them and get the blame. Ukraine wants to prevent two things: Trumpian wrath and Putin running the table.
Ukraine cannot reasonably be expected to accept the deal. It contains so much that is inimical to the country’s interests that the original proposals were read by many as dictation from the Kremlin. Offensive items include handing over areas of eastern Ukraine that Russian forces have been unable to take by force. It’s a heavily fortified area, too, the loss of which would open Ukraine to future attacks when, as seems inevitable, the tyrant in Moscow decides it’s time to break his word again.
The proposals also included Ukraine cutting its armed forces from 900,000 to 600,000. The pretext for this was to discourage any effort to retrieve lost territory by force. But no one believes such an attack would be likely from Ukraine’s war-weary people against Russia’s forces of 3.5 million. The real aim was surely to weaken Ukraine for future destruction. Yes, the 600,000 has been adjusted to 800,000, which perhaps makes it a more natural postwar reduction. But Putin’s malevolent designs have been made clear, and have been underlined by his opposition to any but notional Western defense guarantees.
Even while accepting that Ukraine will unavoidably have to cede lost territory in exchange for peace, it is impossible to believe Putin is negotiating in good faith or that Russia will relinquish its goal of further conquest.
It will not give that up in the long term until the idea of a revived Russian empire eventually crumbles, but no one knows how distant that prospect is. And Moscow cannot be expected to agree a cessation of hostilities even in the short term until the price of continued war is higher than the mere huge slaughter of its own troops. Historically, Russia has always regarded that as the cost of doing business.
THE LAMING OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
To push the price up would take a degree of cohesion that Western Europe has signally failed to achieve, or a level of economic pressure that Trump keeps threatening but steadfastly declines to apply or, finally, a level of military support that he is evidently unwilling to give.
It’s all very well to look at the bloodshed and say it can’t go on. The problem is that it can. And it probably will.
