2023.08.01

• Europe & Americas

Mission impossible: How to get Kyiv and Moscow to talk by HIGASHINO Atsuko (Geoeconomic Briefing)

Nearly 18 months have passed since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, but the reality is that neither side has the intention to cease hostilities and start peace negotiations at this point. If cease-fire negotiations were to take place in a situation under which Russian troops remain inside Ukraine, there is a risk that the Russian military would be ready and poised to invade again. For this reason, the dominant perception on the Ukrainian side is that cease-fire negotiations would be meaningless unless as many Russian soldiers as possible have been pushed outside its borders. Meanwhile, the Russian side has maintained its stance that it is open to peace talks with Ukraine only if Kyiv accepts the “new territorial realities” of provinces in the eastern and southern parts of the country — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — having been annexed by Russia in October in addition to Crimea.