Vladimir Putin
Therefore, peace in Ukraine is still far away
The peace conference this weekend will not change the situation
Niclas Vent
Reporter
This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Updated 22.40 | Published 22.14
With great fanfare, over 100 countries have just concluded a peace conference on Ukraine.
But peace has not come a millimeter closer.
There are at least four reasons for that.
Quick version
Let's gloss over the obvious.
Legally and internationally, the matter is crystal clear: You do not change the borders of states by force, period.
Then Putin and his parrots can argue about NATO, Maidan and what James Baker actually said to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 until the cows come home.
A reasonable end to the war in Ukraine would therefore run along the lines drawn by President Zelensky:
That Russia leaves all occupied territories, pays reparations, prosecutes war criminals and returns all abducted Ukrainians.
Unfortunately, the reality is not as clean-shaven.
The US, which used to be pejoratively described as the "world police", has locked itself into the station. The miscreants have beefed up and the baton is crooked. Arresting the culprit in the Kremlin is thus not possible, and the shaggy constable is not going to try. His best plan is to channel the coffee coffers into a neighborhood cooperation against crime that can stand up to the bad guys as best it can.
We know that the Ukraine war will end with negotiations.
Other outcomes are possible, but unlikely. It applies to both total Russian victory or a Russian state collapse that causes Putin's forces to merge and flow out of Ukraine like raindrops from a windshield.
Therefore, this weekend's peace conference in Switzerland should have been a step in the right direction.
But negotiations require at least two parties - and Russia was not there.
Therefore, the conference was not about creating peace in the true sense, but about drumming up support for Ukraine's path there.
It went like that, but on the other hand, it didn't matter that much either.
There are at least four reasons why peace is still very far away.
1. Totally conflicting requirements
President Zelensky's ten- point plan for pecace is based on Russia's withdrawal to the 1991 borders. This means leaving not only occupied eastern and southern Ukraine, but also the Crimean peninsula. It is completely unthinkable from a Russian perspective.
This also applies to the Ukrainian demands that Russian war criminals should be brought to justice and that Russia should pay for the war's damages.
Putin, for his part, celebrated on Friday his own demands for peace:
That Russia gets to keep all the conquests made so far - and more. Russia demands to receive all the counties that Putin annexed without controlling in their entirety: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya.
"Scam", "propaganda" and "dictator's peace" opposed leaders of Great Britain, Italy and Germany.
Putin also demands that Ukraine not seek NATO membership, which is clearly at odds with Ukraine's need for guarantees for its future security. It is hard to see how such would be a sufficient deterrent outside NATO.
2. Both sides still hope to win
For peace negotiations to begin, at least one party must become pessimistic about the future, convinced that things will only get worse if the war continues.
We are not there yet.
Countries like Sweden must therefore do more to change Putin's calculus, if they are serious about standing behind Ukraine's war aims.
3. No international agreement
After this weekend's peace meeting in Switzerland, 82 countries and organizations signed a declaration in support of Ukraine's territorial integrity. The EU closed up arbitrarily.
But key countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil did not.
Of the world's 10 most populous countries, only one – the United States – signed.
China wasn't even there.
4. China doesn't want to
If there is anyone who can force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, it is Xi Jinping.
But he has no great desire.
China would certainly have something to gain from a ceasefire, points out Alexander Gabuev in Foreign Affairs:
- Prestige as a peacemaker around the world, especially in the Global South.
- Moderated criticism from the West for the support for Putin.
- Since a cease-fire would not solve the causes of the war, the sanctions against Russia would also remain, and thus Russia's dependence on China.
- For the same reason, the US would not be able to shift resources from Europe to East Asia.
The war is draining resources from both the Western countries and Ukraine at the same time as it locks Russia into a position of dependence on China, without costing China anything.
Therefore, it suits Xi Jinping perfectly to continue portraying the West as warmongers and portraying himself as a peacemaker, without actually putting anything behind the words.
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