US, Germany hope to nudge Ukraine to negotiate with Russia through targeted arms deliveries
Washington and Berlin plan to supply Ukraine with enough weapons to hold the front line and have a strong negotiating position, but not enough to liberate territory taken by Russia, according to a report in the German tabloid Bild.
The report, citing unnamed government sources, says that President Joe Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz do not plan to directly pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to negotiate.
“Zelensky has to realise that things can’t go on like this,” a source told Bild. “Without any outside demand.”
“He has to address the nation of his own free will and explain that negotiations must be opened,” the source said.
In the event that Kyiv and Moscow fail to agree to open negotiations, Berlin and Washington hope that the front line will “solidify” and the conflict will “freeze” without formal agreements.
“It’s like Minsk, but without Minsk,” the source said, referring to the Minsk agreements of 2014-2015, which were an attempt to end the war in Donbas but which actually led to the war in Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent said that it could not verify these revelations.
In the context of growing challenges to the alliance in favour of Kyiv, the press has been writing that the West wants to “push” Ukraine to negotiate with Russia and make concessions.
Western officials deny these revelations and stress that any peace negotiations with Moscow are a decision for Ukraine.
“We are not aware of any discussion with Ukraine about negotiations outside the framework of the ‘Peace Formula,’” Zelensky’s 10-point plan, said the State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel.
Zelensky has denied that allies are pressuring him to open negotiations.
“None of our partners are pressuring us to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia, to talk to it and give it something,” he was saying at the beginning of November.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
