The famous line of Irish poet WB Yeats from the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree comes to mind: “And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow…” Yeats was expressing his longing for the peace and tranquillity of Innisfree, an uninhabited island in Ireland near which he spent his summers as a child while residing in an urban setting. And that is how Ukraine’s search for peace is meandering—not in a sudden, overwhelming wave; rather, in tiny, quiet increments, much like a gentle rain or a slow leak.
The “leak” by Russia’s presidential aide for foreign policy Yuri Ushakov is no doubt an increment of potentially immense consequence when he told Kremlin’s preferred reporter, Pavel Zarubin, on Sunday that President Vladimir Putin never refused to speak with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Replying to a pointed question about whether Putin would answer a call from Zelensky, Ushakov foretold, “I think he would answer, of course. Putin has never refused to talk. He [Zelensky] is sending signals through various sources. If he really wants to negotiate, he is free to come [to Moscow].”
The remark comes within a week of the joint phone call on 27 October between Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Putin, during which, per a subsequent disclosure by Ushakov, the Nordic leaders discreetly broached the subject of direct contact between Putin and Zelensky. Zelensky later appreciated their debriefing. This is the first thing. Apparently, Putin repeated the refrain that Zelensky can always visit Moscow and that the Kremlin would ensure his personal safety and security. Now, an addendum, as it were, has appeared for the first time to Putin’s standing offer. Presumably, it was an orchestrated Q&A. This is the first thing.
Secondly, the Kremlin closely studied the commotion in Europe that the two Nordic leaders’ impudent behaviour triggered—as if the wolf entered the haypen. The two Nordic leaders broke ranks. Denmark and Sweden protested they were not consulted. However, the two EU heavyweights—France and Germany—simply looked away, and the super hawkish European Commission (EC) leadership under Ursula von der Leyen and her fiery foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas were uncharacteristically subdued.
How to explain it? As the Guardian newspaper (no friend of Russia or Putin) noted, “The confusion reflects a wider disagreement across Europe over how to approach Putin, even as governments remain broadly united in their support for Ukraine… France has long advocated keeping a channel to Putin open, while Germany and Britain have been more cautious. The Baltic states and Kaja Kallas fear that renewed high-level engagement could ease pressure on Moscow without securing concessions.”
Thirdly, the dissonance is at its loudest when it came to the question of who should lead any European outreach. Von der Leyen insists on nominating someone who will faithfully execute her policy line—in sum, put her in the driving seat. It is excruciatingly painful for Von der Leyen to dismount the high horse she has been riding to demonise Putin and insist Russia can be defeated in the war.
This is the crux of the matter: the EU, with its narrative on the war collapsing, is not able to come up with any peace proposals. Its one-point demand is to have a physical presence at the high table of negotiations. Moscow has said it does not make sense unless the EU has something to bring to the peace table. Trump agrees.
In fact, across the Atlantic no one is paying attention to the acrimony in Europe regarding the seating arrangement at the peace table. The American elites are busy with domestic politics and, if at all, on the US’ war with Iran. Generally speaking, the Ukraine war has ceased to be a hot-button foreign-policy issue among the elites. The ease with which Trump could mothball the Graham Act sanctions on Russia is telling. Zelensky’s support base in the US is also steadily shrinking. In practical terms, it turns out to be CIA’s war.
Clearly, the trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi will go ahead without any European participation. Meanwhile, Slovakia says Bratislava will represent itself. The house that Von der Leyen built to centralise all decision-making seems far too fragile as multipolarity gains ground in Europe. This trend can only gather pace as incumbent governments may be replaced in four of the EU’s biggest member states in national elections during 2027—France, Italy, Poland and Spain. A recent Carnegie paper in mid-September assessed that radical-right parties with Eurosceptic orientation and who are Russia-friendly are expected to do well.
The Carnegie paper titled How Europe’s 2027 Elections Could Test EU Governance reluctantly admitted that the war in Ukraine “is likely to remain the EU’s most urgent security challenge. Radical-right parties are sharply divided on this issue, but as the cost of the EU’s support for Ukraine rises, resistance in several countries will increase. Locking in the union’s backing for Kyiv through multiannual programmes would reduce the risk of a new constellation of political forces putting the union’s commitment to Ukraine in doubt.”
Overall, therefore, the Kremlin’s overture to engage Zelensky in a phone conversation comes not a day too soon. The catch is, Zelensky is a protégé of Britain’s MI6, but here too, Britain’s ability to sustain the present momentum of the war is increasingly debatable. A BBC report gave a stark warning of “painful and depressing few years ahead” for the British people “after forecasts showed growth in living standards grinding almost to a halt.”
Ushakov’s remark testifies to the suppleness of the Kremlin’s strategy of not being an impediment to peaceful settlement in Ukraine but with no let-up in the frontline. Large-scale Russian troop movements, the destruction of bridges over the Dnieper, the focus on Odessa and Kharkov, etc. message that in the Kremlin’s estimation, there might be no alternative but to seek a military victory.
In a Substack piece, Gordon Hahn, the US security expert and specialist on Russia, visualised that Moscow may “add to its original demands” by pushing the ante on territorial issues, including the seizure of Kiev (“the mother of all Russian cities”) and Odessa (which Putin calls a “Russian city”)—i.e., gain control of the territory east of Dnieper (what Russians call the “Left Bank”) letting western Ukraine collapse into warlordism.