As U.S. delegates arrived in Berlin this morning, there is something quietly unsettling about the renewed diplomatic bustle surrounding Ukraine.
This coming week’s talks, attended by senior European and Ukrainian officials, are being presented as a serious effort to explore the contours of peace. Yet beneath the reassuring language of “dialogue” and “de-escalation”, the urge, particularly in parts of Europe, will be to confuse process with progress, and compromise with stability.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s message ahead of the meeting, reported by the Associated Press, was striking precisely because it cut through this fog. Ukraine, he insisted, will not accept a frozen conflict, territorial concessions, or a settlement imposed by fatigue rather than justice. Peace, in Kyiv’s view, cannot be built on the quiet legitimisation of aggression. That stance may sound uncompromising, but it is rooted in bitter experience — and Europe would do well to remember it.
The Berlin discussions come at a moment of strategic unease. Ukraine’s war effort remains heavily dependent on Western military support, which has slowed in recent months amid political wrangling in Washington and growing war-weariness across parts of the continent.
Russia, by contrast, shows no sign of retreat. Its economy has been repurposed for war, its rhetoric hardened, and its leadership convinced that time, not diplomacy, is on its side.
In such circumstances, the temptation to talk — endlessly, reassuringly, inconclusively — is understandable. Diplomacy offers the appearance of motion without the discomfort of difficult decisions. But history suggests that when diplomacy becomes an end in itself, it risks becoming a substitute for resolve.
Ukraine knows this better than most. The Minsk agreements, endlessly cited as a model of negotiated restraint, did not prevent war; they merely postponed it, allowing Russia to regroup while Kyiv was constrained by diplomatic ambiguity. Any settlement that leaves Russian forces in occupation of Ukrainian territory would not be peace but a pause — one Moscow would use to prepare the next advance.
This is why Mr Zelensky’s insistence on clear principles matters. Sovereignty, borders, accountability: these are not rhetorical flourishes but the foundations of European security. If they are quietly traded away in back rooms for the sake of “calm”, the message to Moscow will be unmistakable. Aggression works, provided one is patient enough.
Some European voices argue that realism demands flexibility — that Ukraine must accept painful compromises to end the bloodshed. It is an argument that sounds pragmatic until examined closely. What, precisely, would such realism achieve? A Russia rewarded with territory, its methods validated, and its appetite whetted. A Ukraine dismembered, unstable, and permanently vulnerable. And a Europe forced to rearm anyway, knowing that its eastern frontier has been redrawn by force.
That is not realism. It is wishful thinking dressed up as maturity.
The Berlin talks also reveal a deeper tension within Europe itself. On the one hand, there is genuine admiration for Ukraine’s resilience and sacrifice. On the other, there is a growing unease about cost — financial, political, and psychological. Inflation, energy prices and electoral pressures have made sustained commitment harder to sell. The danger is that support for Ukraine becomes conditional not on principle, but on convenience.
Yet the choice facing Europe is stark. Either it supports Ukraine until Russia is forced to accept a settlement on Ukrainian terms — or it accepts a precedent that will haunt it for decades. From the Baltics to the Balkans, the lesson would be absorbed quickly: borders are negotiable, provided you have enough firepower.
Russia, for its part, is watching these debates closely. Moscow has mastered the art of exploiting Western doubt, amplifying calls for compromise while offering nothing substantive in return. Every suggestion that Ukraine should “be realistic” is read not as prudence, but as weakness. The Kremlin does not negotiate from generosity; it negotiates from leverage.
That leverage will not be created by conferences alone. It will be created by sustained military support for Ukraine, clear political messaging, and an end to the half-spoken hope that the problem will somehow resolve itself. If Europe wants peace, it must first convince Russia that war no longer pays.
Berlin, as a venue, carries its own historical resonance. It is a city once divided by force, then reunited not through concession to aggression but through endurance and resolve. That history should give today’s leaders pause. Stability in Europe was not achieved by accommodating those who tore down borders, but by standing firm against them.
Mr Zelensky understands this instinctively. His refusal to dress surrender up as peace is not obstinacy; it is clarity. Ukraine is not asking Europe to fight its war, only to remain true to its own professed values. To flinch now would not shorten the conflict — it would merely defer its consequences.
The Berlin talks may yet prove useful, but only if they are anchored in reality rather than illusion. Peace will come to Ukraine, but not through vague formulas or diplomatic exhaustion. It will come when Russia accepts that it cannot win by force — and when Europe accepts that defending peace sometimes requires the courage to reject bad deals.
Anything less would not end the war. It would simply set the stage for the next one.
Main Image: Museumsinsel Berlin Juli 2021 CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154298198
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