One-third of Ukrainians would give up land for peace – but it’s not as simple as that
All pathways to peace in Ukraine lead through Washington and Beijing
According to a recent opinion poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, almost one-third of Ukrainians are now prepared to make territorial concessions to Russia if this brings the Russian war of aggression to a swift end and preserves their country's independence. Despite some regional differences, a general pattern of public opinion prevails across Ukraine: more than half of the population rejects the territorial concessions that one-third would be willing to make.
Yet, while this may give an impression of a solid majority against concessions, the increase among those willing to compromise is dramatic. It had remained at or below a lowly figure of 10% until May, 2023, before gradually increasing to the current 32%. Over the last year, the number of those finding it difficult to decide whether territorial concessions are worthwhile more than doubled from 6% to 13%. As a result, the current majority of 55% remaining categorically opposed to any territorial concessions pales in comparison to its one-time high of well above 80%, and the overall trendline has been negative for more than a year. The growing war-weariness of increasing numbers of Ukrainians is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon given that Russia continues to advance on the battlefield, especially in the critical Donetsk sector of the almost 1,200km-long frontline, albeit without making any strategic breakthroughs and at tremendous cost.
Even if this trend were to continue and a majority of Ukrainians were willing to trade some territory for peace, the, as yet unanswered, question of what a credible pathway to peace could look like would remain. The peace plan advocated by Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is essentially dead after a disappointing peace summit in Switzerland in June, 2024.
Ukraine has not officially abandoned its idea of a global coalition of states pressuring Russia to end its aggression and withdraw from all Ukrainian territory that Moscow has illegally occupied since 2014. However, the prospects of achieving peace that way appear increasingly slim, at best. Consequently, there needs to be a re-think of how Moscow and Kyiv can reach a mutually acceptable agreement that will bring about a lasting peace--and it is hardly conceivable that this would be possible without the more active and constructive engagement from Beijing and Washington, and possibly a larger contact group of countries hammering out an acceptable and lasting peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. An anticipated visit of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, to Kyiv in August could provide an opportunity for discussions to bring India into such an effort.
Yet even in such a larger grouping of countries, the US and China would still be the pivotal veto players, and that makes engagement with them, and their engagement with each other, vital for the prospects of peace in Ukraine.
Recent efforts by Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, to involve China in peace-making efforts seem to have faltered, for now. Following their meeting in Guangzhou on July 24, 2024, China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, noted that the conditions for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow were not ripe yet. Crucially, the Chinese position that they "support all efforts conducive to peace and are willing to continue to play a constructive role in ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, and resumption of peace talks" is much more minimalist than Ukraine's vision of a "a lasting and just peace" that entails the full restoration of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity in its internationally recognised 1991 borders.
In contrast to its February 24, 2023, position paper on Ukraine, which emphasised that "the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld", the Chinese position is now much more closely aligned with Russia's, which focuses on a ceasefire to freeze the current front lines.
The other part of the equation is Washington. While there has been much discussion of what Donald Trump's choice of JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate might mean for Ukraine, the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the November 5, 2024, electoral contest for the US presidency makes a Trump-Vance White House far less of a foregone conclusion. And even if it were, the internal Republican debate on how to deal with the war in Ukraine, too, is far from concluded. Trump's former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, recently co-authored an opinion piece suggesting a much more muscular approach to achieving peace in Ukraine. While Pompeo, too, foresees territorial concessions on the part of Ukraine, he also advocates the strengthening of Nato, Ukrainian membership in the alliance and swift accession to the EU, reconstruction of Ukraine utilising frozen Russian assets in the west, and non-recognition of any Russian territorial gains.
Given China's alignment with Russia's view on the way forward to peace in Ukraine, it is of little surprise then that the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, welcomed what he interpreted as a Ukrainian willingness to negotiate. Equally unsurprising is Peskov's reticence to fully embrace Trump in light of Pompeo's "peace plan". However, a Trump-Vance victory in November still looks more promising for Putin than the alternative: Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee has a clear track record as a staunch defender of Ukraine and critic of Putin. But it is far from clear whether Harris would take a tougher line than Biden or simply continue a set of policies that have, so far, only prevented Ukraine from losing without providing it with a path to military victory.
Regardless of the outcome of November's election in the United States, Putin can take comfort from the fact that the current overall trajectory of the war is in his favour. Gradual gains on the battlefield have chipped away at the Ukrainian people's willingness to endure whatever hardship is required to restore their country's 1991 borders. By the time there will be a new president in the White House in January 2025, this is unlikely to have changed for the better. China is politically clearly on Russia's side, while Iran and North Korea offer important military supply lines. The escalating conflict in the Middle East is also likely to see world leaders take their eyes off the ball when it comes to Ukraine and add to pressure, though not necessarily in equal measure on both sides, to end the war which is increasingly seen as a highly unwelcome distraction from other problems.
The key question in the effort to end the war against Ukraine, therefore, is less about the need for a negotiated solution than it is about how to deal with each side's red lines. And here, according to current public opinion in Ukraine, the issue of territorial concessions is less problematic compared to Nato membership. More than half of the Ukrainians polled reject territorial compromises that also require the country to forego membership in Nato, while between 47% and 57% can accept different degrees of territorial concessions to Russia if Ukraine can join the transatlantic alliance. If such a compromise between Kyiv and Moscow were achieved, it would most likely come about as a result of pressure from Washington and Beijing. And thus the real question might be under what circumstances the US and China would see such a compromise, and thus peace in Ukraine, in their own long-term strategic interests.
This is an updated and expanded version of an article for The Conversation.
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