Ukraine may have lost its last chance to secure a peace treaty with Russia over its shared war that has grinded on for two-and-a-half years.
Ukraine and Russia were planning a clandestine meeting in Doha, Qatar this month to begin partial ceasefire talks that might have evolved into a full-fledged peace treaty, The Washington Post reports.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky scuttled that opportunity when he invaded Russia and began an advance into Kursk, a historical marking where the largest tank battle in history occurred in July 1943 and the Red Army defeated Nazi Germany’s last offensive on the Eastern Front.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory has resulted in damage to a nuclear energy plant. Both Russia and Ukraine blame each other for that attack.
For the last year of the war, Russia has focused on degrading Ukraine’s power grid with cruise missile and drone strikes. The attacks have severely limited Ukraine’s functioning power base and blackouts are common. Ukraine has targeted Russia’s oil facilities and succeeded in reducing the amount of petroleum that Russia can refine by about 15 percent, The Post notes.
Delegates to the Qatar conference were optimistic that they could produce a document that would lead to a comprehensive agreement to end hostilities, anonymous sources told The Post.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remain miles apart on any peace treaty. Zelenskyy is expecting Putin to withdraw Russian forces out of all areas occupied in Ukraine during the current war as well as from the Crimea.
Russia is expecting Ukraine to relinquish control of much of the Donbass region where the Russian population has expressed an eagerness to secede from Ukraine.
Ukraine is vanquished in terms of military personnel and can only survive with further and escalated NATO arms assistance – which carries with it the increasing risk of direct conflict with Russia and the potential for nuclear war.
Russia and Ukraine haven’t had any peace talks since very early in war, as The Post notes, so this development in Qatar was a rare opportunity to break the silence.
A diplomat who spoke to The Post said the talks were at first postponed after Ukraine moved into the Kursk region.
Russia “didn’t call off the talks, they said give us time,” the diplomat told The Post. Ukraine wanted to send its people to Qatar regardless of the Russian response but this was rejected by the host nation
Zelenskyy’s office told The Post that the peace summit was canceled not because of the Kursk adventure but “due to the situation in the Middle East,” and that a video conference was still possible.
Putin’s office did not reply to The Post when asked for clarification
But a “Russian academic” close to the Russian government told The Post that the talks are effectively dead. “You know our Russian leadership usually does not make any compromises under pressure,” the person noted.
