The time is ripe for European leaders to set aside the self-licking summits in European capitals and get in the room with the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia to orchestrate a modern-day Helsinki Conference.
A durable peace for Ukraine will require several interlocking agreements, each of which will be incredibly difficult to negotiate, but all of which will be vital if we are to avoid a general war in Europe .
In a recent post on X, former U.S. diplomat Dan Fried, commenting on the June 7 E3 Leaders’ Statement on peace in Ukraine, said, “If Russia wants to end the war it can, you know, end the war.”
It’s important to pause here and note that Fried was the State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy from 2013 until 2017. I know, because I was directly involved at the time, that Fried is the architect of the policy of making Russia sanctions permanent by linking them to the full implementation of the Minsk II agreement, which Russia and Ukraine interpreted in radically different ways. The main aim of sanctions conditionality was therefore to delay any possibility of peaceful settlement, and in that it succeeded.
Eleven years on, Fried’s remark echoes a common line of argument in pro-war Western circles: that Russia could simply end the war without a negotiated settlement. And yet an unconditional about-face by Russia is quite obviously never going to happen, and so the comment serves only to prolong the war.
The E3 statement flowed from the same logic. It offered nothing new or unexpected. Critically, it reiterated the line that roughly $300 billion of Russian assets will remain immobilized until Russia “ceases its war of aggression and compensates Ukraine for the damage caused by the war.”
The current World Bank estimate of the cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine stands at $588 billion. So, the E3 position amounts to confirmation that Russia will never see its money again and moreover will still have $288 billion left to pay.
This, I fear, is another example of Fried’s logic — that peace in Ukraine is indeed possible, but only on terms that Russia would be unable or unwilling to accept. As Western mainstream media carpet bombs the world with news that Ukraine is turning the tide in the war and could still win, then the calculus may be among Western policy hawks that continuing the war is no bad thing.
It’s certainly clear that no one appears in a rush. The E3 statement follows a sixteen-month period of endless and repetitive meetings by European leaders and Zelensky in which everyone violently agrees, but to which the Russians are never invited.
Only in recent months, notably since President Donald Trump’s Alaska Summit with Putin, has the topic of a negotiated end to the Ukraine war slowly bubbled to the surface in Europe. President Alexander Stubb of Finland , President Emmanuel Macron of France , Prime Minister Bart de Wever of Belgium have at various times dipped their toes in the water of suggesting diplomatic talks with Russia.
Last week, Zelensky himself issued an open letter to Putin about a possible meeting.
But, being that the letter contained several pages of personal barbs and insults about Putin, it is hard to see this as anything more than a self-licking stunt, of the type Dan Fried would support. The Europeans and Zelensky appear dug in for the long haul.
A senior Russian contact remarked to me recently that the Europeans spend a lot of time talking about the possibility of talks, but not the substance of what might be on the agenda. In truth, a vast amount of work will be needed in preparatory negotiations to map out the shape of a future peace settlement, requiring a clarity of focus that has hitherto been missing.
A durable peace for Ukraine will require several interlocking deals, possibly negotiated separately with different signatories. Talk of a single ‘peace deal’ for Ukraine is a lazy over-simplification. The latest E3 statement bundles up separate issues in the same basket as does the now dormant US brokered plan . A peace settlement for Ukraine will require, inter alia, the following.
A bilateral peace deal between Russia and Ukraine , brokered by the U.S. and others. The existing U.S.-brokered draft is the right place to start, as that includes the most contentious issue of territory, and in particular the future status of the remaining territory in Donetsk which Russia has not conquered. It would also need to cover sensitive topics such as the size of Ukraine’s army, Ukrainian children who were removed to Russia, and minority languages in Ukraine.
A clear plan and timeline for Ukraine to join the European Union . This can only be negotiated bilaterally by the EU and Ukraine, without U.S. or British involvement. It is arguably as difficult as a bilateral peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
Zelensky has said he wants to see Ukrainian accession by 2027 , but this is not going to happen, and not only because the war may still be ongoing. The Europeans aren’t over ea…
Read the full article at Responsible Statecraft →
United States