Back in December I wrote about the Flim Flam Theater Of Peace Talks On Ukraine:
The negotiations over the weekend between the U.S., Ukraine and Europe about the parameters of a ceasefire or peace agreement with Russia were surreal. The three sides are fighting each other over detailed points that Russia is sure to reject. They also left out important points which Russia had named as its priority items.
There is no way that any of this will lead to peace. Which may well be the point of the whole theater.
One point of those one-sided negotiations were some vague ‘security guarantees’ for Ukraine.
Today’s Financial Times is first to discuss these in more detail (archived):
Ukraine has agreed with western partners that persistent Russian violations of any future ceasefire agreement would be met by a co-ordinated military response from Europe and the US, according to people briefed on the discussions.
…
Under the plan, three people familiar with the matter said, a Russian ceasefire violation would trigger a response within 24 hours, beginning with a diplomatic warning and any action required from the Ukrainian army to halt the infraction.If hostilities continued beyond that, a second phase of intervention would be initiated using forces from the so-called coalition of the willing, which includes many EU members plus the UK, Norway, Iceland and Turkey.
If the violation turned into an expanded attack, 72 hours after the initial breach, a co-ordinated military response by a western-backed force involving the US military would take effect, the officials said.
NATO Secretary Rutte has confirmed the three stage theme. I wonder if it has he who came up with that fantasy.
What exactly does ‘intervention’ mean? Sending a battalion of British grenadiers from west-Ukraine towards the east to cover three miles of a who knows how long frontline? How many Iskander missile and KAB bomb strikes strikes would it survive?
The UK and France have pledged to deploy troops and weaponry to Ukraine, as part of security guarantees supported by the US to underpin a 20-point peace deal aimed at ending Russia’s almost four-year-long invasion.
A European-led “deterrence” force would provide “reassurance measures in the air, at sea and on land” after a ceasefire, with the intelligence and logistical support of the US, leaders of Kyiv’s key allies said following the Paris meeting.
How a ceasefire would be monitored and enforced will be critical to its durability. The US has offered to provide high-tech monitoring capabilities along the 1,400km front line.
Luckily none of this nonsense will come to pass. As the FT notes correctly:
Russia has [..] dismissed the security guarantees discussed by the US and Ukraine out of hand. Dmitry Medvedev, a former stand-in president for Putin, said in comments published on Monday that “these guarantees can’t be one-sided”, according to Tass. “These aren’t guarantees for Ukraine. These are guarantees for both sides: Russia and Ukraine. Otherwise the guarantees don’t work.”
Moscow has also said it will not agree to any ceasefire before a comprehensive deal to end the war is reached or accept any western troop deployments to Ukraine.
Meanwhile Politico is falsely accusing Russia of breaking a Trump-brokered energy ceasefire:
Russia broke an energy truce brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump after just four days on Tuesday, hitting Ukraine’s power plants and grid with more than 450 drones and 70 missiles.
“The strikes hit Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Kyiv region and the capital, as well as Dnipro, Odesa, and Vinnytsia regions. As of now, nine people have been reported injured as a result of the attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a morning statement.
The Russian strike occurred half-way through a truce on energy infrastructure attacks that was supposed to last a week, and only a day before Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators are scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi for the next round of peace talks.
On January 29 Trump suggested to reporters that a one week energy truce was in place. It came after the Ukrainians had pleaded for one. The last severe Russian strike on Ukrainian energy facilities had happened on January 23-24. That was also the day on which, during negotiations in Abu Dhabi, an energy ceasefire was first discussed.
On January 30 Russia publicly agreed to hold fire until February 1:
The Kremlin said it had agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s request to halt strikes on energy targets, which have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of Kyiv apartment buildings. But spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated the measure would end on Sunday.
In a later talk Peskov confirmed that date. February 1 was also the day on which a new round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi was supposed to take place.
Politico’s claim that Russia broke a ceasefire after the time frame it had committed to had ended is an obvious lie.
On January 31 Ukraine again had a countrywide blackout. It was not caused by a Russia attack but by a rupture of two main power lines due to icy condition.
On February 1 Zelenski unilaterally moved the next date for negotiations in Abu Dhabi to February 4 or 5:
A new round of US-brokered trilateral talks between Ukraine and Russia will take place in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4 and 5, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, adding that Kyiv was ready for a “substantive discussion.”
President Zelenskiy said on Sunday that the events would be delayed as Ukrainians faced uncertainty over the fate of an energy ceasefire with Russia amid plunging temperatures.
Last night the Russia used over 500 drones and missile for another strike against Ukrainian energy facilities. It destroyed one combined heat and power plant in Kiev, another one in Kharkiv and one in Dnipro. Several high voltage transformer stations were also hit.
From the Russian perspective the one week energy ceasefire started after the last strike on January 23-24 and ended on February 1. Russia likely considered Zelenski’s attempt to bind the energy ceasefire to the negotiations in Abu Dhabi and the one-sided moving of the negotiation date as a trick to prolong the energy ceasefire.
It did not fall for it.