Paul Goble
Over the last year and particularly in the last several weeks, both Ukrainian and Russian officials have insisted that they have no interest in a frozen conflict. Kyiv has ever more pointedly claimed that Ukraine could not survive such an arrangement, and Russia has declared that any peace accord must address the “underlying causes” of the conflict (President of Ukraine, December 19, 2024; Kremlin.ru, March 13). That might seem to be the end of the matter, but moving in the direction of a ceasefire toward a frozen conflict, one in which there is no final settlement outside of a written agreement or a continuation of fighting, is perhaps the only scenario in which Russia’s war against Ukraine can be quieted in the short term. This is a timetable that the third participant in these negotiations, the United States, appears to be committed to and an outcome that Washington would likely declare as a peace settlement (see EDM, March 21). While making the argument against a freeze to affect negotiations, Moscow is likely to escalate military aggression against Ukraine if peace talks do not go its way.
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