On March 3, local time, the second round of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks was officially opened in Brest Oblast, Belarus. Since this round of negotiations is the first time that Russia and Ukraine have begun a substantive game to end the war, in addition to the verbal and verbal swords at the negotiating table, the open and secret struggle between the two sides on the field has also become particularly eye-catching. The inferior Ukrainian side is even more preemptive, launching a creative attack on Russia in public opinion:
Ukrainian President Zelenskiy told the media earlier in the second round of talks that Russia would be ready to pay compensation to Ukraine.
To understand what the results of this second round of negotiations can be achieved, we must first understand the background of the situation in Russia and Ukraine before this.
First of all, the first round of Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine has not made any substantive progress.
Although the Russians and Ukrainians launched the first round of peace talks on February 28, just five days after the start of the war, it is clear that such hasty talks will not achieve any substantive results, and all the representatives of the two sides can do is to use their respective interests to explore each other's hypocrisy: Russia demands that Ukraine recognize Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, while the Ukrainian side demands that Russia cease fire and withdraw its troops before continuing negotiations.
There is no doubt that such conditions cannot be accepted by both Russia and Ukraine, and such talks can only be used as an opening statement.
The scene of the second meeting
Second, Russia's military offensive against Ukraine has become more and more intense.
While seeking peace talks with Ukraine, Russia's military operations have not stopped for a moment, and in the early morning of March 3, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov told the media that since Russia launched special military operations, Russian troops have destroyed 1612 parts of Ukraine's military infrastructure. In the early morning of the 2nd, Russian paratroopers landed in Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine, while the Russian army had completely controlled the city of Kherson, the capital of Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine, and surrounded the seaport city of Mariupol. This situation of fires everywhere means that the Ukrainian capital Kiev is already largely isolated.
Finally, substantial Western aid has been delayed.
Since the beginning of the war, although the West has reacted quite quickly, immediately imposing a series of sanctions on Russia, if you look closely, you will find that most of these sanctions are "thunderous and rainy":
At the beginning of the war, Western countries announced sanctions against many Russian politicians, including President Putin, and announced other sanctions such as banning flights from Russia and prohibiting Russian media from broadcasting in the West, but this was obviously meaningless to alleviate the situation in Ukraine;
On February 26, Western countries finally gave the first meaningful sanctions against Russia: kicking Russian banks and financial institutions out of the SWIFT system. But the funny thing is that by March 2, when the European Union finally gave its own specific list of sanctions, the media of various countries found that the so-called sanctions against "all Russian financial institutions" only involved 7 Russian banks, and did not include the Russian Sberbank, the largest bank in russia, and the gas industry bank with the deepest connection to the energy sector.
As for why, EU officials say the two banks are the most used funding channels for oil- and gas-related transactions between EU countries and Russia. Since the EU has still not imposed sanctions on Russian-related oil and gas transactions, the SWIFT system cannot distinguish between the types of transactions, so naturally it can only spare the two banks.
SWIFT
In summary, the current situation is clearly highly unfavorable for Ukraine. It is precisely because of this that we can understand that if this negotiation game involving substantive interests is to make real progress, it can be difficult or very simple:
It is difficult because the Russian side clearly sees the talks as a casino to demand more favorable terms from the Zelenskiy government, and the offer is completely sky-high in terms of prices – earlier in the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov publicly stated that the relevant "peace agreement" must include Ukraine to destroy all weapons that can threaten Russia, while restoring neutrality and not joining NATO.
So the question arises: what kind of weapon is a "non-threatening to Russia" weapon? Obviously, this criterion is entirely up to Russia.
This kind of clause is to say that it requires Ukraine to give up all military forces and achieve true "dearmament", but also can not join NATO, in the future, once Russia and NATO conflict, Russian troops can enter Ukraine at any time, ukraine as a battlefield against NATO.
Can the Ukrainian government accept such conditions? Of course not. After all, the countries that have historically accepted such conditions have, without exception, accepted them only after their complete defeat in the war, and when the Russian army had not even completely taken Kiev, the Russian government put forward such conditions, and the Ukrainian side naturally had no reason to agree.
Ukraine under the flames of war
It is very simple to say, and precisely because Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is only one step away from being taken.
Since February 27, the Russian army has suddenly stopped the offensive against Kiev, putting the war into a strange state of siege under the city and casting doubt on the offensive capabilities of the Russian army.
But in fact, this 72-hour ceasefire is deliberately done by the Russian side: the Russian side needs to create conditions for the first round of negotiations on the 28th to leave a good impression on international public opinion; it also needs to provide a gap for the Russian army to rest, supply and replenish its military strength - Kiev is after all a large city with a population of more than 3 million, and the Russian army wants to fight a city war in such a place, which is a huge test in various aspects.
From 2 March, the Russians resumed their offensive against Kiev. On the 2nd, the Russian army northeast of Kiev was only 65 kilometers away from the center of Kiev, and after merging with the Russian army in the east and west of Kiev, it would form a three-sided encirclement of Kiev.
The reason why we chose to resume the offensive on the 2nd was naturally to cooperate with the second round of negotiations - if you Ukraine does not agree to our conditions, we will use the army to personally achieve these conditions, and you have no choice.
From this point of view, this negotiation is indeed very simple for Russia.
Russian troops in action
That being the case, now all the pressure is on the Ukrainian side.
According to the information disclosed by the Ukrainian negotiators in advance, Ukraine hopes to achieve three goals at the talks: to build a humanitarian corridor, a ceasefire, and never to make concessions on the issue of the territorial integrity of the country.
However, if combined with the overall situation and russia's demands, Ukraine's three goals, in addition to the humanitarian corridor may be adopted by the Russian side, the other two points are simply not acceptable.
Knowing that it will not be accepted, and knowing that Kiev is in danger, why should the Ukrainian side put forward such conditions?
This is because, first, it is a matter of the sovereign dignity of States, and these conditions must be put forward. Second, it is buying time for Western intervention.
The Ukrainian army in combat readiness
Because what everyone can clearly see is that the war has been fought until now, and the Russian side has some taste that cannot be sustained. After all, Russia is not a big economy, and it has easily eliminated the shadow left by the collapse of the Soviet Union by selling oil and gas, but it has been hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis and the Crimean crisis in 2014, and has wasted a lot of military and financial resources on Syria.
By 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has given Russia another kick in the russian economy, and now the war against Ukraine is, in every sense, a gamble on national fortunes with the military and financial resources accumulated over the years.
Whatever Putin's strategic goals, the war was only on the eighth day, and Russia's economy was in danger of collapsing: international rating agencies had downgraded Russia's credit rating to the lowest junk level, and the ruble's exchange rate against the dollar fell to 120 on the 28th, forcing the Moscow authorities to introduce a number of capital controls in recent days to stabilize the country's social economy.
Therefore, for Ukraine, only by dragging the war as far as possible, imposing more severe economic sanctions on Russia for the West, and buying time for more military aid for itself, is the only hope for economically dragging down Russia and forcing Russia to withdraw its troops.
Biden, Putin and Zelenskiy
That being the case, at least not losing to Russia in terms of momentum, became one of the things that the Ukrainians had to do well in order to win. For example, on the same day of March 3, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced that the Ukrainian army would shift from defensive mode to offensive mode from now on. It doesn't matter whether the Ukrainian army really did this, but in terms of momentum, it can really increase some confidence in the Ukrainian representatives attending the talks to confront the Russians.
After understanding this, we can truly understand why Zelenskiy "clamored" for Russia before the talks, and Russia should be ready to support compensation to Ukraine.
But as I said earlier, no matter how much imposing words are said, keeping Kiev is where Ukraine has all the strength to face Russia. But on this issue, can Zelenskiy still have such confidence?
Probably Zelenskiy could only choose the four words "believe in yourself".