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Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis triggered by the announcement of a new 28-point plan for ending the war appeared – temporarily – to have been contained. A American diplomat spoke of "notable headway" after bilateral negotiations in Geneva. On Monday night, Moscow made its countermove: another massive barrage of missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.

The Cycle of Diplomacy and Destruction

The sequence of contrasting events captured the harsh reality of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are fought: hopeful statements are released from multiple capitals. Considerable effort is devoted on containing particular approaches. By night, Russian leadership clearly shows the world that, for them, military action persists as the key method for achieving "settlement".

Nocturnal Warfare

As military strikes unfolded into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's exposure was exposed. Ukraine is capable of detecting projectile deployments from enemy soil, a capacity afforded by up-to-date information. From observation points, defense planes that had been deployed to engage hostile cruise missiles flew past – modern combat jets supplied to Ukraine by Western partners.

Moments later, Kyiv's missile defense activated: defensive missiles fired to intercept a hostile projectile. This was a sophisticated defense system at work, presumably delivered by Western nations. Every firing jolts you unexpectedly, causing tremors. The instant of fear quickly becomes sober acceptance: perhaps the approaching threat won't cause damage this time, protecting urban areas from devastation and additional electricity failures.

Continuous Dangers

Not long after, a heavy machine gun engaged a unmanned aircraft somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – most likely imported technology. Sadly, the projectiles didn't strike the opposing UAV – it pressed on overhead toward its objective.

Intermittently, this persisted until dawn. Kyiv faced the early updates: seven people killed, damage and heating outages in multiple buildings as a result of the night's assault. As customarily, everyone still went about their day – enduring hostilities. But those full day illustrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on Western support – a need that regional partners are demonstrably unable to substitute in the short term.

Ineffective Peace Efforts

The detailed framework from US administration generated strong feelings, discussion and profound anxiety – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's largest corruption scandal in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after previous diplomatic encounters and international summits.

Every new initiative from US leadership adheres to the same pattern: a political offensive against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, succeeds in resisting. They manage the tension but never actually secure success. This trend will, certainly, continue.

Strategic Calculations

It is convenient to criticize specific actors of persistently promoting Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the whole story. US administration operates on a premise understood by international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have lost on the battlefield. The US administration believes that it is unrealistic to pressure the Kremlin to abandon the land that it already controls in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.

The issue is that while accepting these circumstances, Washington does little to deter Moscow, through words or deeds, from assuming that the situation will not shift further in its benefit in the near future.

Conflicting Perspectives

Therefore, Moscow is certain that the clock favors them – that Ukraine and its supporters are coming close to fatigue. Their reason to sign a deal that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is almost completely absent. There may be many attempts to end hostilities, but they will carry on as long as Russia's leader remains supremely confident in the conclusion.

On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still hold out, progressively conceding civilians and areas but avoiding a total frontline collapse until situations evolve in its favour.

Existing Situation

Realistically, there are no genuine requirements for a armistice. Now, subjective factors are coming into play: political desires to negotiate peace and secure international recognition, and Ukrainian leadership's double obstacles – on one hand, not to alienate a key ally, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the flag against any plan Kyiv finds unworkable, so that their priority does not switch to domestic problems. And although their objective will now be much harder after current events, it remains quite doubtful that this will change their overall approach.

These conflicting dynamics are driving the talks.

Conclusion and Outlook

It took a mere seven days to eliminate the proposed articles of the current initiative. Assertive and inconsistent approach of the matter by US administration, pushback by Ukraine and the other European countries, along with soothing efforts of negotiators, and finally, current information leaks, all did their job.

While new proposals based on established approaches are forthcoming, Kyiv, London and other European capitals should arrive at a critical understanding: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to fend off diplomatic offensives from Washington that are based on Russian demands and reflect particular unwillingness to modify developments, if they stand together and improve their protective measures at a much faster pace. If they do, no combination of diplomatic or military actions will be able to defeat them. In the meantime, Ukraine's capability to counter nocturnal attacks will, for the coming months, largely rely on continued Western support.