Hryhorii Perepelytsia
Doctor of Political Science, Full Professor at the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of the Educational and Scientific Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute
DOI:
Abstract. The article analyses the possible scenarios and options for ending the russian-Ukrainian war, focusing on achieving peace and ensuring Ukraine’s security. The author notes that the West does not want to accept the new realities that have emerged over the course of the russian-Ukrainian war, striving to preserve the status quo disrupted by russia and the ruins of a no longer viable international security system.
It is emphasised that Ukrainian diplomacy faces the formidable challenge of restoring the state’s peace and security in the context of global confrontation. The article contains considerations on whether Ukraine can tackle this issue present in national, regional and global dimensions. While analysing this problem, the author focuses on the following key tasks for Ukrainian wartime diplomacy: 1) achieving peace, 2) creating a vision for this peace, and 3) identifying ways of attaining it by Ukraine, russia and other influential geopolitical actors.
The author outlines two potential paths to achieving a positive outlook for peace and security for Ukraine. The first is diplomatic, relying on strength, and the second is military, based on victory. The victory can be complete, achieved through military means, or partial, attained through negotiations, which is the current preference of the state leadership and Western partners.
Furthermore, neither side of the war has yet fully reached the conditions when a diplomatic settlement would yield positive results, i.e. when the both parties recognise that complete victory is unattainable, the costs and losses of continued war outweigh the expected gains, or there are insufficient resources to achieve the war objectives.
In his conclusions, the author summarises that achieving a compromise to end the war on terms acceptable to both Ukraine’s and russia’s at the second peace summit seems unlikely. It is emphasised that the second peace summit should take place only after favourable geopolitical conditions have been established.
Keywords: war, peace, security guarantees, Ukrainian diplomacy, NATO, regional security, victory.
Download Article (ukr)
References