The Russo-Ukrainian War has been going for over ten years, and it has been nearly three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of their southwestern neighbour. But in the past few years, there have not been significant changes on the frontlines. In late 2022 Ukraine had a shocking success in pushing Russia out from around Kharkiv, but beyond that not much land has been captured by either side. A study by the New York Times found that essentially no land had swapped hands in 2023, though 2024 has seen some more action. Russia has slowly but surely been gaining in Ukraine’s south and east. For its part, Ukraine has grabbed some of Russia’s territory, particularly its Kursk region.
Until the Kursk incursion, voices in the West had started to murmur about the necessity of Ukraine acceding to negotiations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had even seemed to bow to this reality, discussing the idea of sending representatives to a peace conference with Russia this coming November. But that was before Kursk. Now, Ukraine seems to believe that the Russian territory they hold will act as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.
Enter German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who wants to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. While he has publicly only said that, “Now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace,” reports indicate he is readying a peace plan which could see Ukraine give up some territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire.
Scholz apparently wants to be known as a “peace chancellor,” though one cannot help but wonder if domestic troubles are causing him to push for this. One year before the next federal elections, his government remains toxically unpopular. One polling average has his entire coalition (of the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the liberal Free Democrats) with a total of 31 per cent of the vote – the exact percentage that the centre-right Christian Democrats have. His own party is only at 15 per cent, third after the CDU and the populist-right Ukraine-sceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD). Threats of the latter’s success in recent elections in east Germany already prompted Scholz to reverse course on migration (or at least, to claim to have reversed course; considering he made the exact same promise almost one year ago, scepticism is more than warranted). It is therefore feasible that he is attempting to take a stronger line on negotiations due to domestic turmoil.
But whatever the reason Scholz is seeking negotiations, he is likely to run into significant headwinds.
Firstly is the possibility that he really will ask Ukraine to give up its territory. The concept is effectively anathema to most Ukrainians; in a July poll, just 32 per cent answered that they would accept concessions to Russia if it meant a quick peace. With Ukraine’s success in Kursk, that number is likely to be lower today. After all, the Ukrainian government seems to believe that it can use Russia’s conquered territory as a bargaining chip. One gets the idea that Ukraine’s proposal would be that Russia gets Kursk and that Ukraine gets back everything Russia took.
But Russia would likely laugh such a proposal out of the room. As of this writing, they have occupied about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, including some major eastern cities. Ukraine, by contrast, has occupied a few sparsely-lived in settlements (the largest town they have captured in the Kursk region tops out at just about 6,000 people), and they are nowhere near the actual city of Kursk. Why would Russia negotiate when they could simply wait, slowly throwing soldiers onto the battlefield until the erosion of time and the lack of resources force Ukraine to leave Kursk?
Secondly, it is highly unlikely that the Ukrainian government would even consider formally letting go of any territory, even Crimea, which it has not controlled for a decade. Zelensky’s “peace formula,” which he still claims to be his starting point for negotiations, is effectively the sort of thing one would force on an enemy which has been soundly defeated. His plan would see Russia pay for all the damage it caused, return all land and prisoners, and allow itself to be held to account by international judicial bodies. It resembles the surrender of Japan, or the 1919’s Treaty of Versailles, and those were forced on completely spent, exhausted enemies. Not only is Ukraine nowhere near Moscow, but Russia is far from spent.
Which brings makes the difficulty clear: the war can only end with Ukraine giving away some land which Russia controls. But Ukraine has no interest in doing so, and Russia feels no need to end the war now, when it might be able to conquer even more land in the future.
Had Scholz made a hard push for negotiations earlier this year, or even in early July, he may have had some success. The war looked stalled. Even major pro-Ukraine American Democrats were starting to express frustration with the lack of negotiations.
But, as has happened so often in his chancellorship, Scholz stalled. Time and time again, Scholz promised action on migration, talking big but delivering little. He repeatedly stalled on Ukraine aid, from tanks to missiles. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, he talked a big game on increasing defence spending at home – but that too is starting to resemble a short-term promise rather than a long-term reality.
And now, he may have missed his chance to make a real impact on this war and to etch his name into history as a man of peace.
In Thuringia two ‘extremist’ parties took half the vote, so where is the centre now?