According to American analyst Rajan Menon, it is currently highly unprofitable for Ukraine to start negotiations with the aggressor country, Russia.
Points of attention
- One of the possible scenarios for the end of the war in Ukraine is the return of most of the occupied territories due to the mobilisation and support of Western allies.
- Russia may lose part of the occupied territories and agree to negotiations, which will open the way for Ukraine to become a member of the EU and NATO.
- The last scenario involves freezing the conflict with the demand for neutrality from Russia and the development of Ukraine's negotiating positions.
Why now is not the time for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia
Proponents of the deal with Putin seem confident that they will be able to predict the outcome of the war: victory for Russia (say, control of Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) and subjugation of Ukraine. However, such confident statements lack an evidentiary basis. No one can be sure how this war will end, and prognosticators should be more modest given that almost all prophecies so far have turned out to be false, Menon notes in his own material for the publication.
He believes calls for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have a significant drawback.
In particular, supporters of reaching an agreement between Kyiv and the criminal Kremlin regime of dictator Vladimir Putin state the problems of the Ukrainian military but do not mention the issues of the occupying army of the Russian Federation and the significantly more significant losses of the invaders in the war. Thus, any possible negotiations with the criminal Kremlin regime of dictator Putin must be conducted from a position of strength.
The analyst drew attention to the fact that Ukraine has only just begun to receive Western weapons.
A serious flaw in the arguments of the supporters of the negotiations is the proposed terms. Many supporters of peace talks want them to begin as soon as possible... But the United States and its European allies have just begun supplying Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and will not finish until early fall. It would be unwise to rush into negotiations without seeing what the introduction of additional weapons will be, whether the Russian armed forces will be able to maintain the current pace when Ukraine will have more firepower, Menon emphasizes in the material.
According to what scenarios the war in Ukraine can end
The analyst notes that having received enough Western weapons and replenished its front-line units' forces to mobilise, Ukan returned more of the territories occupied by Russia.
According to Menon, this may finally make Kremlin dictator Putin understand that his occupying army will not achieve new successes in the war.
In this case, Ukraine will have much more arguments during the negotiations.
The expert suggests that the war could end in at least one of the following three ways:
The occupation army of the Russian Federation is capturing even more Ukrainian territories at a time when Western partners are succumbing to war fatigue. It will allow Putin to impose his conditions on Kyiv, retain control over the captured territories, and bring the rest of Ukraine under his influence.
Russia loses part of the occupied territories. Putin recognises his inability to achieve additional successes and agrees to negotiations. Ukraine eventually became a member of the EU and NATO but refused to place NATO military bases and foreign military contingents on its territory.
The war has reached a dead end from which neither side can escape. At the same time, the Kremlin seeks recognition of Ukraine's neutrality. Kyiv is using its negotiating power to insist on armed neutrality, which would give it the freedom to train its armed forces in Western countries, equip its army with Western weapons, and thus remain outside Russia's sphere of influence.
While other scenarios are certainly possible, they all, with the exception of the first, have one thing in common: they require Ukraine to strengthen its negotiating position by ending Russia's momentum, launching its own counteroffensive, and regaining more territory. This requires time, which Ukraine currently has: Western weapons have just begun to arrive at the front, and their volumes will increase in the coming months. Russia and Ukraine may eventually negotiate a political settlement. But now is not the time to initiate them, Menon emphasises.
