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Battlefield setbacks and US elections have reportedly driven a shift towards talks
European members of NATO increasingly believe in a negotiated end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict that would involve territorial concessions, according to the Washington Post, although Kiev remains opposed.
The US and its allies have funneled hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of cash, weapons, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine since 2022, while insisting they weren’t direct participants in the hostilities.
Several European countries are now undergoing a “quiet but growing shift” towards a ceasefire that would leave Russia in control of some of the territory claimed by Ukraine, while giving Kiev some kind of security guarantees, the Post reported on Wednesday.
Discussions behind closed doors have been fueled by the “bleak” battlefield situation for Ukraine and the prospect of US funding drying up when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, according to the outlet. While public declarations of support for Kiev continue, some countries are looking to “lay the foundations” for peace talks, ten current and former EU and NATO diplomats have suggested to the outlet.
One of the ideas reportedly making the rounds is to have Russia keep the territories it currently controls, while Ukraine would get either Western peacekeepers or other security guarantees, but not NATO membership.
“It’s certainly not fringe anymore,” one anonymous Western official told the Post, while a senior NATO official said that people who bring up such land-for-peace suggestions are no longer “practically burned at the stake” as they were in the past.
Among the European NATO members “there are 50 shades of gray” about what the peace deal might look like, Camille Grand of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the Post. Meanwhile, no one knows what Trump will propose once he is sworn in.
The current US administration has been “rushing as much military aid as possible” to Ukraine before that happens, according to the Post. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Brussels on Wednesday to discuss strategy with senior NATO, EU and Ukrainian officials.
The day before, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that “when the moment comes, nothing must be decided on Ukraine without the Ukrainians, nor on Europe without the Europeans.”
This presents a problem for NATO, as Vladimir Zelensky has refused any suggestion of abandoning his territorial claims or the so-called peace platform, calling for Russia’s surrender.
On Wednesday, Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak posted on X that peace proposals coming from the West amount to “peace at the expense of the victim” and involve no “real scenarios of forcing Russia to stop aggression.”
The biggest challenge for the West, according to the Post, will be “to navigate public messaging on negotiations after more than two years of warning of an existential threat to Europe” that required spending billions on Ukraine.
“That is one important thing about any arrangement we make,” one anonymous official told the Post. “It can never be seen as a victory for Russia.”
Moscow named its terms for the cessation of hostilities earlier this year, among which would be Ukrainian withdrawal from all regions that voted to join Russia, denazification of the government in Kiev, as well as military and political neutrality in perpetuity.
