The end of the war. Kyiv and Moscow are negotiating? Several options are on the table

The end of the war. Kyiv and Moscow are negotiating? Several options are on the table

When both Moscow and Kyiv begin to believe that they will no longer be able to achieve a better result on the battlefield, the leaders of Ukraine and Russia, wherever they are, will have to meet and agree on a mutually acceptable solution, which will make both sides feel better than continuing the war.

Considering this issue, the magazine "Foreign Affairs" asked for the opinion of as many as 72 international experts in geopolitics.

There is no consensus among them, although more than half of them - 40 of them disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that Ukraine will have to give up part of its territory.

A smaller number of experts, nine of them, do not take any position, while 23 of them agree or fully agree with the statement that Kyiv will have to agree to territorial concessions to Moscow.

Most of those who think that Ukraine will lose part of its territory belong to geopolitical realists, and many personally believe that this option is not only the most realistic, but also the most positive for the whole world.

"The people of Ukraine have won the admiration of the whole world for their courage," writes Professor Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Defense and Engagement Research Center.

"The cost of integrating these regions would be extremely high, reconciliation would progress intermittently, and reintegration would never be complete," believes Graham, who believes that these areas would remain a constant source of tension within Ukraine. The well-known political scientist from the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer, who in his lectures blamed the behavior of the West for the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, says that it is difficult for him to imagine a Ukrainian victory and the liberation of the territory. It is easier to imagine that the Russians will keep the territory they have now and conquer more and more over time," he said.

"Given these parameters, it seems likely that an eventual agreement would include territorial concessions to Ukraine," Mearsheimer said, but he also emphasized that it is possible that an agreement might not even happen. Instead, we could end up with a frozen conflict, something like the situation in Korea," he concluded. 

Several analysts have pointed to this very possibility as one of the potential scenarios for the war to lead to a standstill, ending in a formal or informal ceasefire in which neither side recognizes territory held by the other.

Dan Healy, a professor of modern Russian history at the University of Oxford, believes that even an agreement would result in a frozen conflict, which will simply be reactivated at some point in the future.

Most experts believe that the issue of territorial concessions should be divided into three categories: Crimea, as a separate issue, then the parts of Donbas that have been occupied since 2014, and finally the latest territorial conquests of Russia.

Although on paper Russia has annexed areas it has only partially occupied, such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, this is territory it could perhaps give up.

Crimea, on the other hand, is the biggest issue around which most clashes will be waged in both Russia and Ukraine.

No current or future Russian leader will be able to give up Crimea, which is fully integrated into the territory of Russia, but it is also hard to believe that Ukraine could give up that part of its territory. The most optimistic negotiated solution would be some kind of international mission in Crimea, which would provide long-term steps for Crimean self-determination under controlled, democratic conditions. However, most geopolitical experts believe that Ukraine will not and should not trade its territory. Historian Anna Reed, former correspondent of the Economist from Ukraine, believes that there will be no negotiations at all.

"The Ukrainians know that the only path to security is a decisive victory," said Reed, who also believes the battlefield will determine a new de facto border.

Andrei Kolesnikov from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believes that Putin is not interested in a deal either.

"He blocked the possibility of peace negotiations by annexing Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. And since he did it on purpose, it means that he does not want negotiations," he said.

Others, like Angela Stent, a foreign policy fellow at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, believe that negotiations are impossible for the simple reason that Moscow is not a reliable party.

"Russia has violated all agreements on the territorial integration of Ukraine that it has signed over the past 30 years," Stent said.

The negotiated agreement would only be temporary until Russia decides to continue its attempt to take over all of Ukraine.

Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Andrea Kendall-Taylor, believes the same.

"Any deal involving territorial concessions by Kyiv would only prolong the war by encouraging Moscow to attack Ukraine again in the future," she said.

The only stable outcome is one in which Ukraine regains at least the territory it held on February 24, 2022.

Professor of Russian and Caucasian history from the University of Cambridge, Hubertus Jahn, points out that giving territorial concessions to Russia would be an extremely dangerous precedent.

"If the order established after 1945 on the basis of international law should survive, then the territorial concessions that were reached by violating that law are out of the question," emphasized Jahn.

"Russia must not be allowed to set a precedent for future thefts of territory. But the reality could turn out to be different," he said.