And now, the main event...

A second day of negotiations to end Russia’s war against Ukraine wrapped up in Abu Dhabi today. Once again, all sides praised the talks as constructive, but had little to show for them except a limited prisoner exchange—the first in five months. While the development is doubtless the most important moment of the war for those people’s families, it is not exactly the kind of diplomatic breakthrough that Trump has been looking for. In fact, Russia, characteristically, asked for even more during this round than it had before. Now, instead of demanding de facto recognition of its control over the Donbas region, it wants international de jure recognition, including by the United States.

Heading into this week’s talks, Trump personally beseeched Putin to stop Russia’s punishing bombing campaign on Ukraine’s civilian energy grid. The bombardment has left millions of Ukrainians stranded in high-rise apartment towers with no electricity for the elevators—and, more importantly, no water or heat during the coldest winter of the war. Social media has been flooded with images of babies and the elderly struggling to stay warm in temperatures as low as –13 Fahrenheit; toddlers climbing seven flights of stairs in their snowsuits to a freezing apartment; people trying to sleep in their cars, or in tents in the metro. In response to Trump’s request, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s mustachioed spokesman, said that the Russian leader had agreed to halt the attacks and give the negotiations room to proceed.

It seemed like a promising start to the talks. Except that it very quickly became another example of how these talks have always gone: Both sides are doing the bare minimum to make Trump think they’re helping him reach his goal, even as they misread each other on purpose or out of chronic mistrust. Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the partial ceasefire, which he said would last a week, starting January 30. The Kremlin countered that it would last until February 1, the date the talks were originally set to start—that is, two days. (The talks were ultimately postponed because of tensions in the region over Iran.)

In any case, during the two days that Russia wasn’t bombing Ukraine’s energy grid, it was busy bombing other civilian targets, like a bus taking coal miners home at the end of a shift—an attack that killed at least 12 people. And by February 1, Russian drones and rockets were once again raining down on Ukrainian power plants that had already been badly damaged. The assault coincided with the coldest days of the season, plunging thousands of apartment buildings in Ukraine’s two biggest cities back into freezing darkness.

The delegations that each side sent to Abu Dhabi, when negotiations finally started yesterday, reflected their well-earned mistrust. Some I spoke to in Washington sounded hopeful because Russia had sent higher-level officials for this and the previous round of talks, which took place two weeks ago. Still, I couldn’t help but notice a little “fuck you” buried in the guest list. The Ukrainian delegation was led by Rustem Umerov, the former defense minister and head of Ukraine’s national security council, but it also included Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky’s new chief of staff, who happens to be the (notoriously daring) former head of Ukrainian military intelligence. In response, the Russian delegation was headed by Igor Kostyukov, the head of the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence, and the only senior military figure in the delegation whose name the Kremlin disclosed. The Russians have always been sticklers for protocol and reciprocity—and in their belief that there is no such thing as a former spy.

The Americans, meanwhile, were represented as usual by Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. The Europeans, who have been trying to find a way into the negotiations, were absent. But on the eve of the talks, the Financial Times reported that the Ukrainians and Europeans had agreed to a security guarantee in the event that Russia breached a future ceasefire (which, given the history, seems inevitable).

It goes something like this: If Russia violates a ceasefire, within the first 24 hours, the Europeans give them a diplomatic warning, and the Ukrainian military does what it has to do to repel the attack. If the fighting continues beyond that, a “coalition of the willing” would step in, including some E.U. members, along with Turkey, Norway, the U.K., and Iceland. Should the hostilities continue for 72 hours past the initial violation, “a co-ordinated military response by a western-backed force involving the US military would take effect,” according to the FT.

This seems like major progress, but as always, “seems” is the operative word. Like the negotiations as a whole, the security agreement is an elaborate performance by all sides, a simulacrum of negotiating for peace where none is actually on offer. On one side are Ukraine’s ostensible allies, making promises on which they know they won’t deliver, not least because any guarantee strong enough to satisfy Ukraine would be unacceptable to Russia. The Kremlin has already made clear that foreign boots on Ukrainian soil (other than Russian ones, of course) are a nonstarter.

The Russians, meanwhile, seem to be the most clear-eyed. After the first day of negotiations, Peskov vowed that they’d keep fighting to achieve their maximalist demands: Why settle diplomatically when you’re winning militarily? Granted, they’ve not been able to achieve most of their military goals, and their economy is slowly sinking into the mud of this pointless war. Russian social media is flooded with people broadcasting sticker shock at the grocery stores, where prices rose sharply last month, while Putin announced this week that the Russian economy grew by 1 percent last year—which means the real number is much, much lower. Still, it is abundantly clear that Putin will continue to tank the economy to try to get what he thinks he’s owed in Ukraine.

And yet, at the end of every summit or meeting or phone call, the participants declare that they have agreed on everything excepting a couple small points, like land and security guarantees—as if those aren’t the crux of the whole damn thing. Then they arrange the next round of talks, continuing the charade, all for an audience of one.

That’s all from me, friends. I’ll see you back here next week. Until then, good night. Tomorrow will be worse.

Julia

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