The enigma of negotiation in Ukraine: High fire and sacrifice

This article was originally published in English

The Munich Security Conference This week will mark the first meeting between the president of Ukraine and the new US administration. Volodimir Zelenski is expected to meet with the American vice president, JD Vance, and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in what It could be the beginning of the negotiations to end the War of Russia In Ukraine. The question is in what terms and conditions.

Almost three years after Russia’s large -scale invasion, kyiv expectations are prudent. Although the Ukrainians repeat again and again that nobody wants peace more than them, after so many losses and sacrifices, they want justice. “It has to be a lasting peace And not a high fire that would bring a new war within five years, when the Russians regroup, build more tanks and more missiles, “says Evheniia Kravchuk, deputy chief of the parliamentary group of the Servant Party of the town of Zelenski.

Spoke with ‘Euronews’ a few hours after a New Russian attack with ballistic missiles against Ukraine And his capital, kyiv, and added that Putin’s expectations have not changed either. “Putin He has been willing to kill Ukrainians yesterday (and) today, and will be willing to kill Ukrainians tomorrow. We see no intention on the Russian part of ending this war of aggression and these killings. “

And even if the negotiations agree a high fire, no one in Ukraine now believes that it will last. As after the first invasion of 2014, Russia will regroup and return within a few years “with more tanks and more missiles,” says Kravchuk. “I don’t want my children and the children of other Ukrainians to have another war When there will be another dictator in the Kremlin or enough tanks and aircraft to invade. In addition, Russia would also mobilize Ukrainians from the occupied territories to go to war against their own country, “he says, and recalls that more than one million Ukrainian children remain in the occupied territories.

“They have been militarized, they have become weapons. His Ukrainian identity is being erased. They are making them Russians and telling them ‘you have to fight against your own relatives’, basically. “

Possible territorial concessions

One of Ukraine’s biggest concerns is If kyiv will be forced to transfer its territories, which Russia currently occupies. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and occupied some parts of eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, Moscow initiated the large -scale invasion and captured more land, sweeping cities and settlements in the south and east of Ukraine. Will Washington try now force Ukraine to totally give up these territories?

Andrew Novo, of the CEPA Transatlantic Defense and Security Program, states that There is a difference between “an iure concession and a FACT concessioneither. For example, during the Soviet period, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States, and those Baltic States were part of the Soviet Union. They were never part of Iure of the Soviet Union. And the United States and many other countries never recognized them as part of the Soviet Union, “explains Novo.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, those countries obtained or recovered their legal independence from the Soviet Union and its de facto independence from the Soviet Union.” Novo told ‘Euronews’ that It would be very difficult for Ukraine to physically claim that territory in current circumstances. “But if Ukraine can avoid an iure solution that gives Russia territory, at some point in the future you can claim that territory.”

In a sense, this could act as “a peace dividend” that would help the country to “rebuild and move forward knowing that it is still possible, as in the case of Baltic countries, recover the physical territory that was taken by the invasion.” However, Novo admits that, unlike what happened with the Soviet Union, the question about the Russian regime is “a very different type of speculation in terms of how stable it is and probably is that it maintains its power at the level at level national and its ability to Project international power in Ukraine. “

“It would be pure speculation to say that the Putin regime has five or twenty years left, or that a new government in Russia would change its policy.” And that is why security guarantees are key in any possible agreement.

Ukraine and the history of security guarantees

Last fall, the Ukrainian president shocked his western allies by stating that or NATO or nuclear missiles for Ukraine and that there was no third option. “O Ukraine has nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we must have some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know any effective alliance,” Zelenski said.

Subsequently, the presidential office and Zelenski himself had to reiterate on numerous occasions that Ukraine has no plans to return to nuclear weapons. “What I meant is that today there is no more solid security guarantee for us apart from belonging to NATO.”

Zelenski also had to explain that he was illustrating how serious things were for kyiv referring to the 1994 Budapest memorandum, for which Ukraine renounced his nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees of the main nuclear powers, including the United Kingdom, United States and Russia. However, Russia lacked his word and invaded his neighbor only two decades later.

Despite this bitter experience, Ukraine tried to negotiate with Russia after the first invasion in 2014. Those attempts gave rise to the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 agreements, which Moscow did not respect, followed by the large -scale invasion a few years later.

We don’t want another Minsk, but we don’t need another Budapest. “

Thus, “we do not need another Minsk, but neither do Budapest’s memorandum,” says Kravchuk, who adds that that is why the guarantees must also come from the United States, not only from the EU. He pointed to ‘Euronews’ that Washington He was not part of Minsk’s agreements. “That shows that this format, only Europe without the participation of the US president, does not really work.” To the question of whether Europe could intervene enough to replace the United States, Novo declared ‘Euronews’: “Obviously, Europe could not supply the United States, or politically or in practical material terms.”

He also explained that, from the point of view of negotiations, it only reduces the negotiation power of Ukraine. “If Ukraine is negotiating with Europe behind, you can obtain certain concessions from Russiaand can establish a certain type of stabilization of the situation. If Ukraine operates without the United States and only with Europe, that starting point would be lower. If it operates with the United States and Europe, then it has greater potential for a better solution from the Ukrainian perspective. “

Munich and the beginning of negotiations

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said wants negotiations to begin as soon as possiblebeing the Munich security conference the first step to end what he calls a “meaningless war that is causing massive casualties and destruction.” Novo admits that he does not necessarily expect a great advance of the meetings of the late week, but that some ideas will be presented.

“I hope the new administrationthrough its representatives at the Munich Security Conference, present at least some ideas on how to start negotiationshow to start advancing in the peace process in Ukraine, “explains Novo. Kravchuk, who will also be in Munich, states that Ukraine is in a different situation this year, since kyiv now controls part of the Russian territory in the border region of Kursk, which gives it more influence on any possible negotiation.

But, according to her, The most important thing to end war It is the unity of the allies of Ukraine. “This is what Russia is really afraid. They want to disly to the partners.”