When Will It Be a Good Time to Negotiate with Russia?

At Foreign Policy, Rajan Menon suggests now is not the time to negotiate with Putin. But when will it be time? It doesn’t appear Ukraine will soon push Russia back across the line. What’s the endgame that will make it appropriate to negotiate? Menon explains his perspective, writing:

As the Russian military’s slow advances in Ukraine continue, calls for talks to end the war have become common—some made by well-regarded foreign-policy specialists. Their ideas are neither prudent nor persuasive, but they should be examined in good faith rather than dismissed as appeasement.

Those urging negotiations rightly note that U.S. assistance to Ukraine on the level of the latest tranche—some $61 billion for military, economic, and humanitarian purposes—will not continue forever. Sending Ukraine another hefty sum next year will prove an even tougher sell, even if Joe Biden remains president; and if Donald Trump wins, he may end support altogether.

Still, the most recent U.S. aid package, along with the military assistance from various European countries, will enable Ukraine to fight into the next year—nearly half as long as the war has now lasted. Given this war’s twists and turns, the possibility that Kyiv could use it to rebound, while not certain, cannot be ruled out.

We can predict neither what that length of time will be nor the difference the newest batch of Western weaponry will make. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that it has now begun arriving, with the artillery and long-range version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) already in use.

Some claim that the best Ukraine can hope for is a deal that includes its partition. Even assuming this prognosis proves true, the nature and extent of a partition matters: There are worse and better variants. Ukraine’s ability to negotiate a postwar settlement that it can live with depends on its military performance over the next 18 months or so. In other words, negotiating from a position of strength matters.

THOSE PROPOSING TALKS between Kyiv and Moscow tend to believe that Ukraine cannot possibly achieve anything resembling victory (such as regaining large tracts of territory now under Russian occupation); that the calendar favors Russia; and that Ukraine’s continued armed resistance will only produce more death, destruction, and territorial losses, which it can avert by reaching a settlement—soon. The war has taken an enormous toll, as I have seen firsthand during four visits to Ukraine, so the desire to end it is understandable.

Despite their good intentions, the “negotiate now” camp skirts a critical question: Who will (or should) initiate the talks? One possible answer: the United States, Ukraine’s principal supplier of weaponry—perhaps even over Kyiv’s head. But there’s virtually no chance of that happening so long as Biden remains president: Nothing he or members of his foreign-policy and national security teams have said or done suggests they plan to strong-arm Kyiv into a settlement with Moscow. The $42 billion in military assistance—part of the latest installment of American aid—is meant to keep Ukraine in the fight and will, into 2025, even if Trump wins in November.

Perhaps those advocating negotiations expect that Kyiv will conclude that continuing to fight will produce an even worse outcome and, moved by that logic, seek a compromise with Moscow. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t indicated the slightest inclination to take this step—not since the failure of the talks held in Belarus and Turkey soon after the invasion.

His goal remains retaking all lands lost to Russia since 2014—Crimea included. This objective isn’t written in stone and could change if the facts on the ground do, but so far it has not. One can dismiss it as outlandish, but what matters is that it persists.

Maybe those who recommend negotiations anticipate that Ukrainians’ war weariness will impel Zelensky to bargain with Russia. That’s possible, but for now Ukraine’s citizenry opposes a deal with Moscow at least as much as its leaders do—it’s common to be told by ordinary Ukrainians that Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t be trusted to honor the terms of a settlement. As proof, many point to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which included a pledge by Russia, one of the signatories, to respect Ukraine’s borders.

I have repeatedly asked various Ukrainians—bartenders and hotel clerks, former and current officials, soldiers on the front lines—whether the war had produced privations that were so painful that they had concluded, reluctantly, that it was time for a settlement with Russia.

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