As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, there have been calls for the sides to sit down and discuss an end to the fighting, especially as fears grow about further escalation. However, many others argue that now is not the time for negotiations and that the fighting must in fact be stepped up. So just what exactly are the arguments for and against peace talks? And should the threat of escalation, perhaps even a nuclear escalation, be a part of the debate?
On the 24th of February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. At the time, the general view was that it would be a quick war. Facing the supposed might of the Russian army, many expected that Ukrainian forces would be swiftly overrun and that the capital Kiev would be seized in weeks, if not days. After that or so the thinking went. Moscow would either install a new puppet regime or would annex large parts of Ukraine, if not the country as a whole. Instead, as we've seen, the war took an entirely different direction. The Russian advance towards the capital was not only stopped, but was eventually forced back. And while large parts of the east and south of Ukraine fell to Russian forces often after bitter and bloody fighting, Ukrainian forces eventually managed to halt the advance and in recent months have managed to take back significant amounts of Russian held territory. But despite this progress, the war is far from over. And as the conflict marks its first anniversary, there's a sense that the war in Ukraine may well become a far lengthier and more destructive conflict than anyone anticipated. With many analysts now predicting that it could well continue for at least another year, if not into 2025, this doesn't necessarily raise questions about whether it might be time to consider a real effort to relaunch negotiations between the sides.
The first and most obvious argument in favor of negotiations is the human cost of the war. This conflict has proven to be far, far bloodier than anyone expected. While exact figures are hard to come by, as neither side has produced a precise tally of those killed and injured, the estimates are nevertheless horrific. Although the Ukrainian government insists that it had lost around 13,000 troops in the first nine months of the war, EU and US officials have estimated that the actual number is far higher than this. Meanwhile, it has also faced a very heavy toll of civilian casualties. According to the UN, by the start of 2023, 7000 Ukrainians had been killed and over 11,000 injured in fighting and shelling. All this from a total population of around 44 million. However, it's widely accepted that the Russian death toll vastly exceeds this. There's a growing consensus that Russia has, in fact, lost around 100,000 troops in this war. This is a truly extraordinary amount, especially as many have pointed out, that the death toll from the nine year war in Afghanistan, a conflict considered bloody at the time, was around 14 to 15000.
This will be taking an extraordinary toll on Russia, especially as evidence now seems to be emerging that Moscow has been sending poorly trained and poorly armed soldiers to hold the front line against Ukraine's advances. Meanwhile, there's increasing talk that Russia may now be planning a major offensive for the spring, following a partial mobilization that saw a further 300,000 troops added to the ranks of the Russian armed forces. There are fears that an even larger call up may soon be launched. Given that Russia now seems happy to feed its troops into the front line, even with little or no training, the death toll in this war could rise dramatically, thus speeding the calls for efforts to end the bloodshed. Then there's the wider devastation that's been caused, as well as the complete destruction of cities like Mariupol, countless towns and villages have been partly or completely destroyed. Altogether, it's estimated that the cost of reconstruction is now well over $600 billion, an amount that will inevitably continue to rise. If one then factors in the wider effects of the war, including the significant increases in international food and fuel prices, which has had a harmful effect on hundreds of millions of people in poor and developing countries. It's. Unsurprising that there have been widespread calls for the war to stop and for talks to start, including from major countries like India and China.
But while there's certainly good reasons to argue in favor of peace talks, there are also very sound reasons why any discussions are not only unlikely at this stage, but may also be counterproductive. First, there's the question of finding the common ground for any discussions. It's often said that peace requires a sense of what's called a mutually hurting stalemate. Both sides have got to realize that not only can they not win, but the costs of continuing the conflict or dispute is painfully high. At this stage, this doesn't seem to be the case. To be sure, Ukraine has taken heavy losses. However, it feels that it's on a winning streak. There seems little reason to stop the offensive now, especially as talks, if backed up by a ceasefire, may simply allow Russia to consolidate its position. This would make any further fighting even bloodier. Meanwhile, there seems to be little public desire for talks. Opinion polls show that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly against dialogue with Moscow if it means making any territorial concessions. At the same time, Russia also appears to be against any talks, although there were some signs in the autumn that it had scaled back its original demands for regime change. The most recent reports suggest that Russia now wants Ukraine to accept the loss of the areas that Moscow has annexed, something that, again, Ukraine is absolutely unwilling to accept. In the meantime, even though the war is going badly, Russia seems willing to throw in more troops. Of course, things may change. Public opinion might turn against the war in a way that the Russian regime can't ignore. But this doesn't seem to be the case, at least at the moment.
But there's also another important wider argument against talks at this stage. We tend to think of wars in one of two ways civil wars within a country or interstate wars between countries. But there is in fact a third type of war, the so called systemic war. This refers to conflicts where the outcome has the potential to utterly transform the very nature of the international order. An obvious example is, of course, the Second World War. For many observers, Ukraine has now taken on many of the characteristics of a systemic war. The Russian invasion has violated many of the core tenets of modern international relations by trying to subvert the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. There's a growing sense amongst many Western leaders and observers that a Russian victory would not only have dangerous consequences for wider European security, but it would completely transform the international system by allowing Russia to retain large amounts of territory taken by conquest, it would open the way for others to follow. To this end, many feel that this is a war that must now end with a decisive Ukrainian victory. An argument that now seems to be spurring the decision to send Ukraine the heavy weaponry, including tanks it needs to win.
But this idea of a systemic must win war also touches on another element that needs to be considered in any discussion about peace talks. The threat of a nuclear strike. There's been a lot of speculation that if Russia were to find itself cornered, perhaps either by losing control over the Donbass or more probably Crimea, then Moscow may feel that it has no choice but to respond with a nuclear strike. This isn't as unlikely as it may seem. Russia has a rather different military doctrine when it comes to nuclear weapons than the West. Many observers, including senior government officials across Nato, feel that this is therefore a real, if small possibility. In view of this, there's a body of thought that anything and everything must be done to prevent any conflict from reaching this point, even including starting negotiations. But while a nuclear escalation is certainly a terrifying possibility, many others would argue that this cannot be Ukraine's burden to bear. It's fighting a legitimate conflict to retake territory that was seized from it by military aggression. If it's now forced to relinquish that territory because Russia has threatened a nuclear strike, then this would legitimize the use of nuclear weapons to support wars of aggression.
The wider consequences of this are obvious. There's a very real. Possibility that it will spur nuclear proliferation as countries see that nuclear aggression is rewarded or that nuclear weapons are the best way to deter a greedy neighbor from seizing territory in the first place. In this sense, there's an argument to be made that the nuclear factor isn't a matter for Ukraine to consider and shouldn't have a bearing on peace talks. Instead, it's an issue for the international community as a whole to address. The world needs to make it clear to Russia that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic consequences.
Of course, none of this means that there shouldn't be negotiations. And in fact, almost under every scenario, bar a full Russian conquest of Ukraine, which now seems highly unlikely. There will need to be some sort of discussions at some stage, even if to wrap up issues regarding things like prisoners of war and perhaps reparations another important topic, but it does mean that the arguments about negotiations aren't quite as simple as many on either side might suppose. As the war in Ukraine now enters its second year many are bracing for what may now be a rather longer and more bloody conflict than anyone expected. Of course, there's no easy answer either way when it comes to the question of negotiations.
