How to Pave the Way for Diplomacy to End the War in Ukraine

Ukraine and its Western backers have precious little common ground with Russia. Yet all the key players seem to agree on one critical issue: the war in Ukraine will end in negotiations. As Russian President Vladimir Putin told the conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson in a recent interview: “We are willing to negotiate.” A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, while casting doubt on Putin’s sincerity, retorted in a statement that “both we and President Zelensky have said numerous times that we believe this war will end through negotiations.” The absence of decisive battlefield outcomes over the past two years has made the alternative to a negotiated end (one side’s absolute victory) seem like a fantasy.

Despite the absence of a viable alternative to eventual talks, there is no sign that the belligerents will start negotiations any time soon. Both sides believe that reaching an acceptable deal is currently impossible; each fears that the other won’t compromise or will use any pause to rest and refit for the next round of fighting.

Even if a deal is currently out of the question, all parties should take steps now to bring about the possibility of talks in the future. In the middle of a war, it is hard to know whether an adversary is genuinely ready to end the fighting or cynically talks of peace only to further the aims of war. The challenge of discerning an adversary’s intentions is nearly impossible in the absence of dialogue. Therefore, it is necessary to open channels of communication so as to be in a position to take advantage of the opportunity to pursue peace when that opportunity comes.

It is time to begin to build those channels. For Ukraine and its Western partners, that means “talking about talking,” or making conflict diplomacy a key subject of bilateral and multilateral interactions. And all parties should signal their openness to eventual negotiations. This will require the warring parties and their allies to take unilateral steps that convey their intentions to the other side. Such signals might include changes in rhetoric, the appointment of special envoys for negotiations, self-imposed limitations on deep strikes, and prisoner-of-war swaps.

If neither side begins this process, the warring parties will likely remain stuck where they are today—fiercely battling over inches of territory, at a terrible cost to human life and regional stability, for years to come.

AN UNTESTED PROPOSITION

Mutual mistrust makes it hard to take the first step toward the negotiating table. The West sees Moscow as a font of propaganda and lies, so addicted to untruths that it lies even to itself. Nothing illustrates this phenomenon better than the official rhetoric in the run-up to the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which numerous Russian representatives publicly and privately swore, and seemingly believed, would not happen. Moscow similarly sees the last 30 years as a series of broken Western promises. The prime example is the seemingly inexorable march of NATO enlargement, which numerous Western officials in the 1990s said, and seemingly believed, would not happen. Ukraine and Russia had a long history of mutual accusations of broken promises even before Moscow annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas in 2014. After February 2022, trust became impossible.

Yet mutual mistrust between belligerents is a feature of every war, and thus of every negotiation that ended those wars. If trust were a prerequisite for communicating, belligerents would never start talking. The parties can and should begin talking despite their mutual mistrust.

But in this case, mistrust is compounded by pervasive assumptions of maximalist intentions. Kyiv believes that Moscow is still seeking to install a puppet government in Ukraine and will use any respite in the fighting to gather strength before opportunistically resuming the battle. Russia, as Putin recently noted, sees the West as intent on using Ukraine as an instrument to ensure Russia’s “strategic defeat.” If an adversary’s objectives are truly maximalist, one faces a simple choice between capitulation and continuing to fight. As a result, both sides appear resigned to the inevitability of a long, hugely destructive war that both claim not to want.

It is possible that each side is right about the other’s maximalist goals. But neither side can know for sure without talking. In the absence of a channel of communication, any proposition about the other side’s true intentions is an untested one.

Not testing this proposition comes at a very high cost. The war of attrition is killing enormous numbers of soldiers and civilians and grinding up military and financial resources. U.S. officials estimated in August 2023 that almost 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or wounded since February 2022. The war is also disrupting international security in ways that serve no one.

FIRST STEPS

For Kyiv’s allies, the opening gambit is to begin talking about talking among themselves. Some will need convincing; others are already convinced and simply need a sign that diplomacy is no longer taboo. U.S. officials have repeatedly said they expect the war to end in a negotiated settlement. But they have not communicated to the other allies what that means in practice or explicitly oriented the strategy for ending the war around a negotiated outcome.

Eventually, the discussion of conflict diplomacy needs to begin in North Atlantic Council and G-7 meetings, as well as bilateral engagements between allies at the highest levels. Talking about talking does not entail any changes in policy in the short term. Time and effort need to be spent on developing a diplomatic strategy long before negotiations actually start.

In parallel to the intra-alliance discussion, the issue needs to be brought to the table in engagements between allies and Ukraine. Kyiv justifiably worries that a move toward negotiations will mean an end to military assistance. As they begin to talk with Kyiv about talking, allies should therefore keep up or even increase security assistance.

The United States and its allies can start by soliciting Ukraine’s views on the subjects of communicating with the other side during the fighting and the nature of the war’s endgame. Right now, these issues are not on the agenda. Once Ukrainian officials begin to hear the same questions being asked by multiple interlocutors at multiple levels, they will engage in internal discussions to identify their preferences and approach to conflict diplomacy. Weaving the subject of talks into discussions concerning long-term military and financial assistance would also underscore an important reality: no amount of aid can ensure Ukraine’s security and prosperity without an end to the war.

SIGNAL ACHIEVEMENT

It is too early to begin real talks with Moscow. And Kyiv would have to be in the lead when they begin. But even today, the West can use signals to convey its intent to enable an eventual negotiated end to the war. Signals are unilateral actions, such as military deployments, public statements, sanctions, or diplomatic gestures, to convey a state’s intentions. Such signals are particularly useful when formal communication channels are closed, since they require no direct interaction with the other side in order to execute. Notably, these actions are reversible; the point is to credibly demonstrate intent and provide space for the other side to reciprocate. When signals work, they can reduce the uncertainty about the other side’s true intentions.

Adjusting Western officials’ rhetorical emphasis in public statements would be a modest but important signal. For example, officials could restate their openness to conditional sanctions relief as part of a negotiated outcome to the war. But talk is cheap, and Moscow will likely not believe it. Therefore, the United States and the European Union should also consider appointing special representatives for conflict diplomacy. Even though these officials would spend months engaging with allies and Kyiv before talks with Moscow are even considered, the appointments themselves would signal to Russia that the United States and Europe are prepared to engage in eventual negotiations.

Kyiv and Moscow have more opportunities for signaling, because they are the belligerents. Moscow, especially, needs to find ways to signal; Russia should indicate that its war aims are limited, that it is prepared to negotiate an end to the war, and that it will abide by the terms of a settlement. In addition to appointing a diplomatic point person to serve as a counterpart to the new U.S. and EU representatives, Moscow could suspend strikes on Ukrainian cities, indicate a willingness to enact an all-for-all prisoner-of-war swap, and cease its inflammatory rhetoric about the Ukrainian leadership.

Kyiv, in turn, could soften the September 2022 presidential decree that established “the impossibility of conducting negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation, V. Putin.” Kyiv could clarify that the decree applies only to the Russian president and not to other representatives of the Russian government. And if Moscow stopped striking nonmilitary targets in Ukraine, Kyiv could reciprocate by ceasing strikes it has been conducting in Russia.

These proposed efforts—talking about talking among allies and with Kyiv, and signaling to Moscow—would not represent a change in policy. They do not even represent a move to start negotiations. Rather, they would merely begin what is likely to be a long process of moving toward eventual talks. Getting to the table will not be easy, but the alternative is an endless, grinding war that no side claims to want and both sides lose by continuing to fight.