Diplomatic Mirage

As Russia tightens its grip and Ukraine demands a seat at the table, the future of the war is being negotiated without its primary victim.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new, more insidious phase. A Russian missile barrage on Saturday killed at least fifteen people, reducing residential buildings to rubble, plunging homes into darkness, and leaving a central city reeling. The strike on Poltava alone claimed eleven lives, four of them children. In Kharkiv, another drone attack killed one person, while three police officers died in Sumy. Russia, undeterred and unrepentant, continues its campaign of destruction with a strategic precision designed not just to cripple infrastructure but to terrorize an already exhausted population.

Yet, while missiles rain down, a different kind of battle is playing out behind closed doors. In Washington and Moscow, the future of Ukraine is being discussed in hushed conversations that pointedly exclude Kyiv. President Donald Trump and his aides have floated the idea of a negotiated settlement that could swiftly end the war. Trump’s former National Security Advisor Keith Kellogg insists that Ukraine must hold elections, even as it battles an existential threat. But democracy under bombardment is a contradiction in terms, and for Ukraine, holding elections under martial law is constitutionally impossible.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Kremlin presses its advantage. Reports of Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, particularly near the city of Toretsk, suggest that Putin’s forces are leveraging military gains to strengthen their position at the bargaining table. This is war by other means: a strategic combination of battlefield success and diplomatic manoeuvring designed to force Ukraine into a weaker negotiating position. Every missile strike, every encroaching battalion, underscores the Kremlin’s desire to dictate the terms of any future settlement.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for his part, is acutely aware of the risks of being sidelined. He has insisted that Ukraine must be present at any peace talks, and those talks must include its key Western allies. The idea that Washington and Moscow could strike a deal over Ukraine’s fate without Ukrainian involvement is not just undemocratic - it is ominous. A settlement forged in Kyiv’s absence would amount to a tacit endorsement of Russian expansionism, rewarding aggression and setting a perilous precedent for future conflicts.

Russia, for its part, has little reason to negotiate in good faith. The battlefield momentum has shifted. And in the West, war fatigue is real. The longer the conflict drags on, the harder it becomes to justify the billions in military aid.

Zelensky understands this. A peace process that sidelines Ukraine is not a peace process but is a surrender disguised as diplomacy. In Trump’s calculus, a quick deal would be a victory, regardless of what it means for Ukraine’s long-term security.

If Ukraine is forced into a ceasefire on Russia’s terms, the consequences will extend far beyond its borders. A frozen conflict would entrench Russian territorial gains, giving Putin a permanent foothold in the country. More alarmingly, it would send a message to other would-be aggressors: that military conquest, if sustained long enough, can be legitimized through diplomacy.

The recent Russian strike on Odesa, condemned by UNESCO for damaging historic buildings, is a grim reminder of the cultural and human toll of this war. But beyond the immediate devastation, the long-term fight for Ukraine’s independence is being waged in a realm where bombs do not fall—across negotiating tables where its future is being decided in absentia.

Zelenskyy is right to insist on a seat at those discussions. For the West, the choice is either to stand firmly behind Ukraine, ensuring it has both the military strength and diplomatic leverage to negotiate on its own terms, or risk orchestrating a settlement that merely sets the stage for the next war. For now, Ukraine fights on. The world debates. And in Poltava, in Kharkiv, in Sumy, the sirens keep wailing.