“Pushing Ukraine to Negotiate Now Would Be Disastrous” is the title of an article by James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), also known as Chatham House. Nixey is highly disturbed about doubts surfacing in the U.S., including inside the Biden administration, about Ukraine’s counteroffensive and calls by some for preparing the groundwork for peace negotiations.
But, he desperately warns, “this can’t be a reason to pursue peace negotiations!” The counteroffensive hasn’t stalled—it’s just that the U.S. was too timid about supplying Ukraine with a “technological battlefield edge.” Weakening support now will only make Ukraine more vulnerable, with the resulting threat to European and global security. Nixey points to “worrying signs” that even in some areas of the U.S. government, support for Ukraine is “wavering,” but repeats that now “is not the time to talk.” It’s of course understandable and “ostensibly reasonable and often well-intentioned,” he admits, that there is an urge to find an end. But nothing that Russia says or does contains “reasonable grounds for compromise.”
There’s only one way to get this “slower-than-desired offensive” moving, Nixey insists. The West “should accede to Ukraine’s wish list, not least for longer-range weaponry that can reach behind front lines, including into Russian territory.” Raising negotiations at this stage suggests “a lack of belief in a Ukrainian victory on the part of Ukraine’s supporters and an unwillingness to stay the course” and that is not acceptable. If Donald Trump were to win the U.S. election in 2024, this would greatly empower Putin, Nixey observes, but this may not even be necessary for him to win. “The greater danger comes from Ukraine’s friends in the Western powers pushing for a false peace, and a `solution’ to the conflict that sows the seeds of even greater disaster.”
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/08/pushing-ukraine-negotiate-now-would-be-disastrous
