War in Ukraine: Negotiate peace – but how?

After a year of Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, little speaks for the success of diplomatic efforts. In Germany in particular, there is a passionate discussion about a peace solution.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz tried it a year ago. He visited Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shortly before the start of the war and spent hours negotiating with him at a six-meter-long white lacquered table about a non-violent solution to the Ukraine conflict — as is well known, without success. The Russian President stalled him, and his troops marched into Ukraine on February 24. The rest is known.

Cosima Gil
ARD Capital Studio

Putin lost trust. Despite this, the Chancellor continues to telephone the Russian President regularly, every six to eight weeks. The respective positions are exchanged. The conversations are friendly, there are no threats. But you don’t really get any further in a direct conversation. Germany has clearly taken sides and is supporting Ukraine to the best of its ability – most recently with the announced delivery of battle tanks and armored personnel carriers. However, this means that you are no longer a neutral, direct intermediary.

diplomatic attempts at peace

The Western partners are taking a two-pronged approach: keeping channels of communication open while imposing harsh sanctions. Negotiations go better when a third party mediates, says Matthias Dembinski from the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research: “In order to be able to work well as a mediator, this person or this party would have to be recognized as trustworthy and neutral by both sides of the conflict.” The Chinese recently announced a peace initiative at the Munich Security Conference last weekend.

But there are doubts that they will be recognized as trustworthy and neutral by both sides. From the point of view of the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, they do not meet these criteria. She rules out China as a neutral mediator: “Because we know that China very clearly supports Russia’s positions. We also know that many economic goods go from China to Russia. So China has positioned itself alongside Russia.” Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, on the other hand, welcomes the Chinese announcement. More details are to follow on the anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression.

According to left-wing foreign policy expert Gregor Gysi, Brazilian President Lula da Silva would be a candidate for a mediating role. He had recently brought himself into play. The Federal President and Federal Chancellor have also courted the Brazilian during state visits. The talks should not have been easy.

But even the left-wing politician Gysi has concerns about the left-wing politician Lula, because he wants to negotiate peace with China. To make matters worse, Lula has in the past vehemently attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even blaming him for complicity in Russia’s war of aggression.

failed mediation

The list of politicians who have tried diplomatic means is quite long. Especially in the first weeks of aggressive war. Among those present were French President Emmanuel Macron, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and even ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

For a moment it looked as if Erdogan could become the dove of peace. At the beginning of March 2022, the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Antalya. Both sides were said to have been willing to make concessions: Ukraine was open to withdrawing its call for NATO membership, and Russia would not seek to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

A short time window for diplomacy, which is getting smaller and smaller over the months, says peace researcher Dembinski: “Both sides are actually further away today than they were in earlier phases of this war. Russia has now annexed four administrative districts in eastern Ukraine and wants to do it all again make significant territorial gains.” According to Dembinski, Ukraine has made additional demands for reparations and for the war crimes to be punished.

The last public talks to limit or end the war were in April 2022.

Grain and prisoner exchange

Only the grain agreement was a small diplomatic success. It was closed between Ukraine and Russia in the summer of 2022 through mediation by Turkey and the United Nations. Both countries are considered important grain exporters, especially for the Global South. Although both sides benefit, things were not without complications here either.

There have also been regular exchanges of prisoners. Most recently, around 100 prisoners of war were exchanged. So far, however, both sides have limited negotiations to technical issues and have not declared themselves willing to go further on this basis and to talk about modalities of a ceasefire, says Matthias Dembinski from the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research.

The fact that both sides are far from getting closer was also evident at the beginning of January. At that time, a ceasefire that had been announced for the Orthodox Christmas celebrations was not complied with. There is no mutual trust.

Do words only count when there are weapons behind them?

“Every negotiation reflects the facts on the ground” – this is the sentence written by US President Joe Biden in the summer of 2022 New York Times article. Peace at the negotiating table therefore depends on the current military situation.

“If both sides realize that they can no longer make any progress militarily, then a window opens for negotiations,” according to a theory explained by peace researcher Dembinski. A “ripe moment” is the technical term. According to this theory, a stalemate on the battlefield would be diplomacy’s hour.

Since the beginning of the war, Germany, but especially the USA, has always supplied just enough weapons for Ukraine to hold its own against Russia. Military analyst Markus Reisner sees evidence that the US is always trying to deliver just enough to match the Ukrainians. With this coordinated approach, they do not want to drive Russia into a corner – also for fear of irrational actions. And an irrational act might be the use of nuclear weapons.

The “boiling the frog” strategy

In the NDR podcast “Armed Forces and Strategies” Reisner explains this so-called “boiling the frog” strategy – “that is, to boil the frog without the frog noticing”. The dilemma is that Russia believes it can choke Ukraine to death, while the West and the US believe they can choke Russia long enough for the Russians to run out of air. But that would prolong the war, says Reisner.

Peace researcher Dembinski still harbors at least a small glimmer of hope for the coming months. He can imagine that another negotiation window will open up. That is when the Russian and Ukrainian spring offensives come to nothing.