What the Current Ukraine Negotiations Reveal About the Real Goals of Washington, Moscow, and Europe
While diplomats in Geneva speak of “significant progress” and a “refined peace framework,” the war on the ground behaves as if all of that is still a distant future. A new massive Russian drone attack on Kharkiv, with civilians killed in apartment buildings, is a grim reminder that an exhausting war continues in Ukraine’s east and south. At the same time, Ukrainian drones are increasingly striking targets deep inside Russia; in recent days even the Moscow region has been left without power and airports temporarily closed. This is the new phase of the war: both sides now have the capability to inflict damage far behind the front lines. In such an environment, talk of a “deal just around the corner” sounds both promising and profoundly fragile.
Militarily, the past few weeks have brought no dramatic turning point, but they have solidified trends that are extremely uncomfortable for Kyiv. Russian forces are slowly advancing at several points, especially in Zaporizhzhia, where reports speak of capturing a string of villages and pressure toward Huliaipole, while in Donetsk Oblast the grinding battle continues with small but real Russian gains. Ukrainians openly describe the situation on certain sectors as “difficult,” and Russia’s tactic of massive artillery barrages and stand-off glide bombs exploits gaps in Ukrainian air defense. Moscow accepts high casualties as the price for a slow but persistent push forward. This creates an awkward context for negotiations: one side can claim it is “gaining momentum on the ground,” while the other is being asked to negotiate from an ever-weaker position.
It was against this backdrop that Washington first tried to push through a 28-point peace plan that, at least in its original version, looked like a document written in Moscow and retyped in the White House. It envisaged further territorial concessions to Russia, limits on the size of the Ukrainian army, and a formal renunciation of NATO membership – in short, a permanent reduction of Ukrainian statehood to something resembling a demilitarized buffer zone. It is no coincidence that the Kremlin greeted the draft with cautious but mostly positive signals, while in Kyiv – and in key European capitals – it was judged as de facto capitulation. Only after resistance from Europe and open dissatisfaction inside Ukraine itself was the plan trimmed in Geneva to 19 points and stripped of the most blatant Russian maximalist demands. Now the starting point is the current line of contact, no territory taken by force is formally recognized, and Ukraine’s sovereign right to decide on EU and NATO integration is emphasized.
This revision brings the American-Ukrainian draft closer to European positions, but at the same time moves it further away from what the Kremlin publicly demands. Russia has already rejected a separate European counter-proposal that goes precisely in the direction of “freezing” the conflict along existing lines and providing Ukraine with de facto NATO-style security guarantees without formal membership. For Moscow that would mean: it fought the war, endured sanctions, yet the seized territories remain legally contested, while the West long-term insures Ukraine against another invasion. That is why Russia insists that its “strategic gains” – above all territorial – be codified in some form, or at the very least that Ukraine be permanently pushed into the status of a neutral, limited state. Otherwise the message is clear: the war continues, and the recent intensification of attacks can easily be read as pressure on the negotiating table.
Ukraine’s position is paradoxically both firm and vulnerable. Zelenskyy publicly repeats his red lines: no formal cession of territory, borders cannot be changed by force, no limits on the Ukrainian army, no amnesty for war crimes. At the same time, he is politically perhaps weaker than at any point since the war began – corruption scandals, societal fatigue, military pressure, and the feeling that the key ally in Washington now simply wants to “close the file” and turn to domestic matters. The Trump administration is sending a double message: it is willing to amend the original draft and take Ukrainian and European objections into account, but it is also making clear that support is not infinite and that a “decent peace” needs to be accepted relatively quickly. This creates the danger that Kyiv will be pushed into a deal that may stop the bloodshed yet leaves a deep sense of injustice and betrayal – something that, in a society that has suffered enormous sacrifices, will be very hard to sell without major political consequences.
Europe is trying to play the role of the voice of conscience and rationality, but it is late to the game. After years of following the American strategy of escalation while surrendering its own autonomy, now that Washington has abruptly pulled the handbrake, European governments are frantically drawing their own “red lines.” They say borders must not be changed by force, the Ukrainian army must not be limited, abducted children must be returned, war crimes must be prosecuted. At the same time they promise multi-year financial packages and discuss how to turn seized Russian assets into reparations. Yet their real power is revealed precisely in this moment: without American willingness to continue funding the war at full intensity, Europe lacks both the political cohesion and the military-industrial capacity to replace that support on its own. That is why it insists at least on having a seat at the table and that no deal be concluded behind its back.
The question “is a deal just around the corner?” actually conceals a deeper dilemma: are we talking about a ceasefire or a real peace? What is now being shaped in Geneva looks far more like an armistice than a peace treaty – a halt to fighting while leaving the key issues (status of occupied territories, long-term security arrangements, sanctions, reparations, accountability for crimes) open for some future phase. Historically, such a model often means only a pause between wars, not the end of war. For Ukraine it carries the risk of a “Korean scenario”: a country permanently divided, with a heavily militarized demarcation line, while the great powers around it shift priorities. For Russia it would mean de facto acceptance that it failed to break Ukraine or break the West, but it gained strategic depth and shattered the illusion of linear NATO enlargement eastward. For the United States it would be a way to close the war as a “solved problem” and refocus on China.
Is a pragmatic solution even possible that all sides can sell to their publics? In theory, yes – but the price would be highest for those who wanted the war the least. Ukraine would have to accept that it does not formally give up territory but in practice tolerates long-term Russian control over parts of the country, with some form of international oversight and security guarantees. Russia would have to agree that its annexations remain unrecognized, accept limited but real security arrangements for Ukraine, and at least partly pay for the destruction through reparations or loss of frozen assets. The West would have to acknowledge its own responsibility for pushing the region toward war through NATO expansion without a real strategy for peace, and abandon maximalist narratives about the “strategic defeat of Russia.” All of that sounds like compromise, but in today’s political climate it is often easier to continue fighting than to admit one’s own responsibility.
A third dimension remains: whether someone will walk away at the last moment. The Kremlin openly warns that if Ukraine rejects a plan that is largely acceptable to it, Russia will continue and intensify its offensive. In Washington there is nervousness about the domestic audience – Trump needs a “deal,” but it must not look like an open victory for Putin’s ultimatum. In Europe, governments are walking a tightrope: the war has already cost them dearly economically and politically, yet they have publicly tied themselves to the rhetoric that borders will no longer be changed by war. Zelenskyy cannot sign a document that most of society would perceive as a betrayal of everyone who died. In this web of mutually contradictory red lines, a collapse of the talks at some late stage is not a fringe scenario but an almost built-in risk.
A deal may therefore formally be “at the door” – in the sense that several versions of papers are circulating between Geneva, Washington, Kyiv, Moscow, and European capitals. But real peace is not even on the staircase yet. As long as Russian drones hit Kharkiv and Ukrainian drones turn out the lights around Moscow, it is clear that the war still dictates politics, not the other way around. A pragmatic solution would require all the great powers to acknowledge what they have refused to acknowledge for years: that security cannot be built on the constant expansion of blocs and the humiliation of the opponent, but only on a new, broader agreement on European security in which neither Ukraine nor Russia are mere pawns. Until such a framework emerges, every “peace” will remain fragile, temporary, and always just one drone or one political speech away from sliding back into open war.
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