Helsbels

The talks in Abu Dhabi have ended. A few observations. The fundamental obstacle to ending this war is that neither belligerent currently sees an available peace settlement that would secure its essential interests at a lower cost than continuing to fight. Negotiations can arrange prisoner exchanges and address other practical questions. But they cannot manufacture a political basis for peace where none yet exists. For Putin, ending the war with a “victory” reduced to conquering the Donbas would create an enormous problem of historical judgment. Around 1.5 million Russian casualties, killed and wounded, to acquire another devastated stretch of Ukraine? Future generations of Russians might remember Putin as the opposite of a strategic genius: the ruler who squandered his country’s people, resources and international position for gains grotesquely disproportionate to their cost. This helps explain Moscow’s determination to turn negotiations about its war against Ukraine into negotiations about a “new European security architecture.” Russia needs a prize larger than the Donbas. Weakening NATO, pushing the Americans out of Europe and acquiring a veto over its neighbours’ sovereign choices would provide one. The historical precedent is clear. At the Berlin Conference in February 1954, Molotov proposed a European collective security system that would have displaced the Western alliances and relegated the United States to “observer” status. Today’s vocabulary is different; the strategic ambition is familiar. If war against Ukraine could deliver the displacement of American power from Europe, the Kremlin could present it as a historic success and draw dangerous conclusions about what further wars might achieve. For Ukraine, the calculation runs in the opposite direction. However appalling the costs of resistance, capitulation could still cost more. What is at stake is the survival of an independent state and the continued existence of Ukrainians as a distinct political nation. Putin’s account of Ukrainian history treats a separate Ukrainian identity as something cultivated by Russia’s enemies, including Polish elites and Austrian authorities. The dangerous implication is that what was supposedly constructed can be dismantled. Deportation, killing and forced Russification become instruments for undoing a nation whose independent existence the aggressor refuses to accept. From Kyiv’s perspective, surrender would therefore offer no reliable escape from violence. It could simply remove the means of resisting it. Europe already has a security order worth defending. Its principles include sovereignty, territorial integrity and the freedom to choose alliances. Russia’s violation of those principles is a reason to enforce them, not to replace them with arrangements requiring Russian permission. Nor does the United States have a compelling national interest in surrendering its position in Europe to Russia. Its European presence sustains American influence, military reach and alliances. Whatever commercial opportunities Trump, Witkoff or Kushner may see in an accommodation with Moscow, those opportunities do not establish that such a retreat would benefit America. A deal attractive to individual negotiators is not necessarily a strategic bargain for their country. That is the underlying impasse. Moscow wants a peace that converts aggression into a wider strategic victory. Ukraine needs a peace that preserves its ability to survive. Europe cannot accept Russian control over European security, and America has no sound strategic reason to facilitate it. Until those calculations change, the war is likely to continue. Calling the process a negotiation does not make the interests compatible. Without that compatibility, we will keep getting diplomatic choreography and, around it, this ridiculous circus.