At some point, Ukraine will have to talk

The Nato summit in Lithuania this week will have plenty to say on holding the line for a country that is already co-opting the best of the alliance's weaponry to liberate its captured territory. EPA

Ukraine’s army is widely recognised as an effective fighting force, leading some experts to comment that – if it were ever admitted into the alliance – it would rank as the second or third most-capable army in Nato.

Again – if it were in the alliance. Nato is, however, a peacetime enterprise and Ukraine will have to wait for establishment of some sort of armistice with Russia before it can fulfil its membership ambitions.

The Nato summit in Vilnius will have plenty to say on supporting Ukraine and holding the line for the country that is already co-opting the best of alliance weaponry to liberate its captured territory.

The trenches in the Donbas and south Ukraine are hardened and lethally defended. Ukraine’s counter-offensive is a long-haul endeavour that can’t be easily second guessed.

Any strategy pursued by Kyiv must have a point at which it strikes out for peace through upfront negotiations or a wider diplomatic strategy. As the pre-eminent military alliance in the world, Nato cannot stand isolation from the consideration of peace either. It has to weigh the role of peace in its relations with the developing countries, who seek more stable food and fuel supplies, or the Asia-Pacific where Nato has a rising profile in the security arena.

So if someone asks the question “is something going on” to develop peace talks over the war, the obvious point is yes. Even if there is nothing much substantive to back that assertion up.

The question may well be posed in Vilnius, but don’t expect Nato leaders to depart from the script that there can be no negotiations without Ukraine. The 30-country alliance is at one on this issue. Kyiv can negotiate from a position of strength when they think the time is right.

The only discernible cracks in this are with fringe players. Meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Bulgarian president last week confined his description of the situation to a conflict and threw the media out of the room because he wanted to “discuss a proposal”.

Whether smokescreen or not, the Kremlin criticised the visit to Bulgaria, saying the Ukrainian leader was trying to "drag" other countries into the war.

It is easy to observe that Russia’s globe-trotting foreign minister Sergey Lavrov travels much less since the war started. However, he does get the occasionally foray outside the country, such as his recent G20 meetings in New Delhi or his UN visit to New York the following month.

In New York, he sat shoulder-to-shoulder with two members of the US foreign policy establishment, Charles Kupchan and Richard Haass. In the carefully worded comments from the White House on this meeting, officials said the encounter was not authorised by President Joe Biden but that he did know about it.

Tongues are wagging as a result. Mr Kupchan in May talked himself about the Chinese President Xi Jingping’s peace plan for Ukraine. He said at that moment he thought there would be time “later this year” diplomacy might emerge as a more viable option. Under the right circumstances, Mr Xi was one potential conduit to talks.

He pointed to Beijing’s role in brokering an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran for a restoration of ties across the Arabian Gulf. In the equation he outlined, Mr Xi could bring pressure to bear on the Russian positions. And he foresaw exhaustion on battlefield as creating an opening for pressure on Kyiv to shift its sights to the talks table. American officials would be key to this, too.

The incentives for all sides are only growing. Russia’s unity in its armed forces has been exposed by last month’s mutiny of the Wagner private mercenary group. Ukraine has a shot of making progress on the battlefield in the month ahead, but then what are the options?

After that, the realities of a Ukrainian economy highly dependent on tens of billions of dollars of foreign support will loom larger and larger. The American election in 2024 must in those circumstances cast a long shadow for the Ukrainians. A victory by Donald Trump would bring back a type of diplomacy that the Russians not the Ukrainians would see as opportunity.

Mr Kupchan has certainly questioned the durability of US and European support. Let’s stay tuned, he said in May. Knock-ons from the war must be a consideration over the long haul, he added perhaps as soon as the current offensive winds down.

Nato’s wider considerations are also worth bearing in mind, even it as it offers structure to Ukraine that embed the country in its workings.

Japan, South Korea and Australia are attending the Vilnius Nato meeting as the alliance shows its own interest in South-east Asia. On top of that, Nato officials have pointed to how its members have reduced their reliance on Russian oil and gas. Having done so, the alliance planners have now turned their sights on its dependence on Chinese rare earths and minerals. This is an important part of the Nato strategic cycle that, once started, has to complete.

“I am losing, how do I negotiate?” and “I am winning, why should I negotiate?” are two statements that stand in contradistinction. But the important shared word is “negotiate” and its relevance is only going to grow as this year closes out.