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As Ukraine prepares to unleash its long-anticipated offensive, an important (some might say divine) voice is floating the idea of peace talks to end the war with Russia.
The Vatican revealed last weekend that it is pushing behind the scenes to negotiate – an initiative that follows in the field More vague but high-profile China’s final season to nudge the brutal, 14-month-old conflict into negotiations.
On Sunday, after a visit to Hungary and a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Pope Francis spoke of a secret peace “mission” involving Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Francis did not elaborate, but told reporters traveling with him that he was “willing to do whatever it takes” to reach a negotiated settlement.
People on all sides of the conflict want peace. But many Ukrainians, and some of their supporters in the West, regard the timing of the request for negotiations – as Ukraine moves nine new western-equipped combat brigades into position to recapture land seized at the start of the 2022 invasion – with deep suspicion.
For them, the impulse to abandon the current peace round – to consider it a strategy of Moscow to divide the West and force negotiations to integrate the occupied territories – is strong.
Putin’s plan is to drag it out, diplomats say
But one of Canada’s former top diplomats said the country played a role in getting Moscow to the negotiating table – on Ukraine’s terms.
Kerry Buck, who is Canada’s ambassador to NATO, recently told a House of Commons committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has more people to throw at the war in Ukraine and less to lose” – which could make for a very long war.
“A long war of attrition is very much in Russia’s interest and, in fact, may be a strategy,” Buck told the Commons defense committee last month. “He has said a lot publicly, hoping to see the support of the West begin to crumble.”
He said Canada has a role to play in achieving peace within and outside of NATO. He said Ottawa could reach out to Russia’s allies — countries that could be influential with Putin even if “we could find a less palatable position.”
Countries such as China and India can be “useful interlocutors with Russia,” says Buck – who also notes further that the institutional capacity and expertise of Canada’s diplomatic corps needs to be rebuilt at the same time.
“We need to talk to some countries that have influence with Russia, and that will be key to making some peace settlement at some point during the President’s term. [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy asked for a peace settlement,” he said.
Buck said Global Affairs Canada needs Chinese experts and people “close to India who can help put pressure on Russia and elsewhere.” He said it would take “a full court press to convince President Putin that it’s time to put our hands down and come to the table.”
What NATO lacks today, say international experts on ground warfare, is a “coherent political strategy” to match an effective military strategy in eastern Europe.
Jack Watling, a senior researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told the same Commons defense committee that Ukraine could win a firefight – one that could hit all military objectives on the ground in an upcoming counterattack and push Russian troops out. from the country.
Beating Russia may not be enough
But simply defeating Russia on the battlefield will not guarantee peace, Watling said. A defeated Moscow could still use its navy to block Ukraine’s coastline. It can continue to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities – as it did last weekend – on a semi-regular basis.
“It still keeps Ukraine’s airspace closed, essentially denying Ukraine’s ability to have an economy,” he said. “And, unless we have a political strategy that forces the Russian government to believe that it will get more by negotiating in earnest … there is no easy end to this problem.”
The biggest obstacle to achieving a clear allied vision of postwar peace, Watling said, was the fact that “some countries differed in [NATO] have a different vision of what the result” of the war should look like.
There is no lack of clarity about the Ukrainians themselves, as the ambassador to Canada Yuliya Kovaliv made clear last week to MPs in the Commons foreign affairs committee.
“Ukraine seeks peace but Ukraine seeks real peace,” Kovaliv said. “Ukraine – President Zelenskyy – developed and presented a peace formula that has 10 points and the most important thing is the restoration of Ukraine’s borders, bringing justice.”
Zelenskyy’s conditions for peace, laid out at the UN last year, include the complete withdrawal of Russian troops, the establishment of a special court to prosecute Russian war crimes and a commitment to de-mining.
“This is the framework for future peace,” Kovaliv said. “What Ukraine offers to every country is a real peace plan based on international rules and order.”
On Monday, Zelenskyy spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who, according to an official reading from Trudeau’s office, “expressed his support for Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts towards a just peace.” The statement said Zelenskyy will attend the upcoming G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan.
Watling said that the next few weeks would decide the fate of the counter-offensive – and that the counter-offensive itself would determine the future direction of the war.
And that is why this time for peace is important.
‘The next few months will be … critical’
Because of “low morale and the poor quality of training of their soldiers,” says Watling, “in the end, Russia is ineffective because it loses and loses people in the battlefield. And this is what it must continue to do.
“We cannot offer a ceasefire where they can put their mobilized forces through deliberate training and therefore improve their capabilities. [with] war because the Ukrainians don’t have the strength to hold them back.”
Russia has invested heavily in building a line of fortifications in the south and east of Ukraine in the territory it captured at the beginning of the war. If that line of defense is breached, it could lead to an incident, Watling said.
“The next few months will be very critical because if Ukraine can move Russia, the Russian command and control system can create a very chaotic process. The headquarters is 120 kilometers from the front,” he said.
“If that can happen, then we can see a rapid deterioration of Russia’s defense position.”
On the other hand, Watling said, if the Ukrainians “can’t breach the barrier belt built by Russia, and they lose those units – or suffer friction in those units that have the skills to breach the barriers – then this could be a very attritional war, very protracted .”
If the counter-attack results in a renewed war of attrition, he said, the advantage slides over to Russia.
Ukraine continues to ask western allies for heavy military equipment – tanks and artillery, fighter planes.
Watling told the four-party Commons defense committee that the biggest challenge facing Ukraine was finding spare parts.
“Actually, it’s boring, but hundreds and hundreds of different parts are so small that Ukrainians do not have intellectual property,” he said.
“If they don’t have it [technical drawings] to be able to reproduce, they do not know heat treatment or tolerance. This resulted in a lot of our own equipment … Soviet legacy equipment was damaged, but also equipment provided by the international community was damaged.
Due to the lack of equipment, Watling said, “Ukrainian commanders have to decide between sending howitzers back to Poland and not knowing when they will return to them” or using damaged equipment.
“I think that’s an underappreciated aspect, something that needs to be addressed.”
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