A couple of new things. First is the WSJ article. Don’t have access, but here are the briefs:
And a couple of screenshots from the article itself that were posted elsewhere (the second is the highlighted part above, I think):
What is stopping Europe from providing “ironclad security guarantees” to Ukraine? Moreover, what is stopping Europe from providing Ukraine with the EU membership once the hostilities stop and some peace agreement is reached and signed? That, by definition, would provide security guarantees supposedly better than NATO membership where no one is actually obligated to go to war. This was discussed previously by me and others, but here we are again.
What if we move on from the USA providing any guarantees because that is highly unlikely to happen (I would say it ain’t happening) and think of viable alternatives. The problem is that none of it is happening, no NATO, no EU in the foreseeable future, no guarantees because no one is going to directly engage in war with Russia over Ukraine. That’s just the reality of it. So what now?
Russian withdrawal from the occupied areas of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions is not going to happen. I believe this clear as day. Access to the Sea of Azov is not going to be granted under no circumstances (unless forced somehow). Again, clear as day: simple logic suggests that there will be no such trade for the remains of Donbas. That little bit of Mykolaiv region is likely off the table too. That leaves Sumy and Kharkiv. Here is the map from BBC (the first one google gave me to show occupied territories):
The first striking thing, even without thinking of any strategic meanings, one can clearly see that the remaining Donetsk region will not be exchanged for two occupied regions in the south. On the other hand, Kharkiv and Sumy for Donetsk is the reverse of the issue.
But now I remember we are talking about ceasefire for the UA forces leaving Donetsk entirely and this is rather ridiculous because we are not quite at a point where beggars can’t be choosers just yet (and strategic forward thinking is not thing, obviously). So the conclusion is that the war will continue, maybe until the beggars can’t any longer pretend to be able to choose? I am personally still not entirely convinced the Trump-Putin meeting will take place in the first place because the deal that will be hammered out will undoubtedly be rejected by Ukraine with Europe behind their back.
I think the most important take away from this entire thing is the change to “dignified peace” and the acceptance by the European allies of the territories being lost. The latter is suggested here: “[…]territory can be exchanged only in a reciprocal manner-meaning that if Ukraine pulls out of some regions, Russia must withdraw from others.” This had never been spoken outloud previously. Yet, now that there has been acceptance, Putin has a lot less work to do as he now needs to expand this commitment, which is a lot easier than getting to where we are today.
The second thing is this declaration by some EU leaders and the UK after meeting with JD Vance:
Statement by President Macron, Prime Minister Meloni, Chancellor Merz, Prime Minister Tusk, Prime Minister Starmer, President von der Leyen and President Stubb on Peace for Ukraine ahead of President Trump’s planned meeting with President Putin.
www.gov.uk
We stand ready to support this work diplomatically as well as by upholding our substantive military and financial support to Ukraine, including through the work of the Coalition of the Willing, and by upholding and imposing restrictive measures against the Russian Federation.
Here we (rather they) are with the coalition of the willing again. Hasn’t it been proven several times over that the project is basically dead?
We share the conviction that a diplomatic solution must protect Ukraine’s and Europe’s vital security interests.
We agree that these vital interests include the need for robust and credible security guarantees that enable Ukraine to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny. Meaningful negotiations can only take place in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities.
I talked about the security guarantees above. It seems that Ukraine had made the choice it was free to make, no? On the meaningful negotiations, these are not going to be about Ukraine per se, but a new European security architecture. There will be no ceasefire either before
meaningful negotiations about Ukraine take place, for obvious reasons discussed previously. We have been through a “temporary” reduction of hostilities already. And again, nothing is stopping Europe to protect its security snd other interests.
The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.
That’s simply not true. This is exactly how it will be decided, in my opinion. We will basically let Ukraine be beat down into acceptance and not because we are ruthless and don’t care, but because this is the way it is; or we will “manhandle” it to get there before being beat down to it.
We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force. The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.[…] We underline our unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.
That would be an obvious contradiction.
We continue to stand firmly by the side of Ukraine. We are united as Europeans and determined to jointly promote our interests.
United is rather questionable, especially in the whole European context (something Redshift can probably chime in on). Promoting your interests is not the same as protecting them as declared previously in the same statement. Hence,
And we will continue to cooperate closely with President Trump and with the United States of America, and with President Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine, for a peace in Ukraine that protects our vital security interests.
Anyway, this is arguably the weakest statement I have yet seen on the subject. In my opinion, this actually shows that Trump has a lot more leverage than (I) previously thought (I discussed it here a month or two ago). The EU and UK tariff negotiations can probably provide a glimpse into this stuff here. It appears that while thinking they are negotiating the protection of European security interests in a bundle of the tariff “deal”, they may have negotiated themselves out of them. Trump is going to take advantage of every weakness and he appears to be doing just that here. Putin is going to do the same.