The on-again off-again character of peace talks to end the Iran war have not had similar echoes in Ukraine, now in its fifth year of war against Russia. It’s widely accepted that neither President Trump nor key members of his cabinet have the bandwidth to explore peace between Kyiv and Moscow when the US-Israel-Iran tango continues.
But less than a month back, President Putin on the back of a ceasefire with Ukraine and the exchange of prisoners, cited the possibility of the war ending. And just the other day, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy called for direct talks with Putin, in a third country, with a ceasefire in place.
Nandan Unnikrishnan, who heads the Russia studies programme at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, believes that “the war in Ukraine could end tomorrow, if the compromise conditions that were laid out by Putin to Trump when they met last year in Anchorage, are accepted, more or less. I mean, obviously some changes could be done through negotiations.”
But Unnikrishnan says the problem is that Ukraine, currently encouraged greatly by Europe namely the EU, is trying to stall it.
“That is not something that the Russians are going to accept. Not at this stage in the war. So to sort of sum it up, in a word, the circumstances or the conditions objectively exist to end the war. But I am skeptical that it is going to end this year.”
The cocktail is also muddled by other elements. Putin is firm that Zelenskyy must come to Moscow for talks, which would give the impression he’s the victor. Going to a third country defeats that purpose.
Putin also gave the impression he was willing to compromise but that would not include returning the Donbas in Ukraine’s east. He would want Ukrainian forces to pull out from the little Donbas they still control. So deadlock.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Nandan Unnikrishnan of the ORF.
