Progress towards Ukraine-Russia peace talks seems a long way off

As the battle for Ukraine turns into a bloody, mile-long fight in the freezing cold, Ukrainian and Russian authorities have insisted they are ready to negotiate for peace.

But it is increasingly clear that requests from both sides, even to start talks, are totally unacceptable to the other, lor that has led US and European officials to conclude that serious talks to end the war are unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future.

There have been no peace talks between Ukraine and Russia since the first weeks of the conflict.

This week, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, he detailed a proposal to hold a “peace” summit in late February, but he said Associated press that Kiev would only negotiate with Moscow if Russia first faced a war crimes tribunal.

The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, replied that Kiev would have to accept Moscow’s demands – among them, give up the four Ukrainian regions which Moscow claimed to have annexed in September – otherwise “the Russian military will deal with this matter”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, He said on Wednesday that “there can be no peace plan for Ukraine that does not take into account current realities with Russian territory,” including the four annexed regions, according to the Interfax news agency.

Stella Ghervas, professor of Russian history at Britain’s Newcastle University, said: “The Ukrainian proposal offers a glimpse into Ukraine’s vision of how the war with Russia could one day end.”

But, he said, “Lavrov’s reaction unpromising and it is an indicator that a peace negotiation could take months and months.”

Hardline positions suggest that both sides believe they have more to gain militarily.

Ukraine leads the battlefield, having retaken much of the territory it captured from Russia at the start of the war, although Moscow’s forces continue to hold large swathes of the east and south.

And Russia is pressing to its advantage, drafting more troops and plunging in air strikes against the infrastructure that has aggravated the misery of Ukrainians, even as the Russian army fights on the ground.

Last month, at a summit of leaders of the Group of 20, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskypresented a comprehensive 10-point peace plan that called for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern area known as Donbass, which Russian forces seized in early 2014.

It also calls for the creation of an international tribunal to try Russian war crimes; Moscow’s release of all political prisoners and those forcibly deported during the war; an indemnity from Russia for war damages; and measures of the international community to ensure the safety of Ukrainian nuclear power plants and ensure their food and energy security.

It’s a set of requirements a lot more severe than those initially offered by Ukrainian negotiators in the talks held at Istanbul a month after the Russian invasion, when they offered to adopt a neutral status – effectively abandoning their attempt to join NATO, which Russia has long opposed – in exchange for guarantees of security from other nations.

Since then, Russian atrocities have multiplied and the damage to Ukrainian cities and their economies has worsened.

In August, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said the framework proposed in Istanbul was no longer feasible.

“Ukraine’s emotional background has changed a lot, a lot,” he told the BBC.

“We have seen too many war crimes live.”

The President of RussiaVladimir Putinhe said over the weekend that he was willing to negotiate on “acceptable outcomes”, without specifying what they might be, although he clarified he had no intention of ending his attacks.

Western officials have dismissed Putin’s periodic offers to negotiate as empty gestures. Even as the Russian economy falters under Western sanctions, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin he said Wednesday that the Russian economy had contract 2% For the past 11 months, Reuters news agency reported, Putin has insisted there are “no limits” on Russia’s military spending.

This month, his defense minister ordered a further expansion of the military by more than 300,000 personnel, to reach a target of 1.5 million.

All of this suggests, according to Marnie Howlett, a professor of Russian and Eastern European politics at Moscow University oxford university, that “there is not necessarily a push for a negotiated peace or even any kind of negotiation, but a push for whatever ends one pursues militarily”.

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