SS: Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries.
But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported.
If true, and if these talks were in earnest from both sides, this is a really big deal. As far as I know there have been effectively zero significant de-escalations of the conduct of the war since arguably the grain deal.
It also seems, on the balance, like these talks would enormously favor Ukraine. They’re undergoing rolling blackouts in many regions, and some technical reports have come out re their power stations effectively stating that some are past the point of easy or even moderately simple repair; they’d effectively need to be rebuilt, they’ve been hit so many times. Whereas Russia has started to be hit, but I cannot imagine it’s on anywhere near the same scale, and regardless doesn’t have the cumulative effect that Ukrainian power plants have suffered.
Presumably, therefore, the Russian side has other motivations. Perhaps continuing to keep the war away from their populace (power outages are extremely obvious and disruptive to day to day life), perhaps they read between the lines and realized that with UA’s increasing drone strikes (and their range), they too would suffer cumulative damage that also threatens their fossil fuel production, their golden egg.
The Kremlin was most likely wishing for a frozen conflict. Good luck with that given its increasing and humiliating loss of control over Kursk.
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SS: Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries.
But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported.
If true, and if these talks were in earnest from both sides, this is a really big deal. As far as I know there have been effectively zero significant de-escalations of the conduct of the war since arguably the grain deal.
It also seems, on the balance, like these talks would enormously favor Ukraine. They’re undergoing rolling blackouts in many regions, and some technical reports have come out re their power stations effectively stating that some are past the point of easy or even moderately simple repair; they’d effectively need to be rebuilt, they’ve been hit so many times. Whereas Russia has started to be hit, but I cannot imagine it’s on anywhere near the same scale, and regardless doesn’t have the cumulative effect that Ukrainian power plants have suffered.
Presumably, therefore, the Russian side has other motivations. Perhaps continuing to keep the war away from their populace (power outages are extremely obvious and disruptive to day to day life), perhaps they read between the lines and realized that with UA’s increasing drone strikes (and their range), they too would suffer cumulative damage that also threatens their fossil fuel production, their golden egg.
The Kremlin was most likely wishing for a frozen conflict. Good luck with that given its increasing and humiliating loss of control over Kursk.