The Financial Times: Ukraine faces 'darkest hour' in conflict with Russia

The West believes that it is urgent to conclude a peace agreement; Ukrainian society is exhausted and ready for negotiations, says FT

Ukraine is losing on the battlefield in the east of the country, and Russian troops are relentlessly advancing despite losses, writes The Financial Times . Ukrainian society is exhausted, mobilization is causing social tension, and Ukraine faces a difficult winter with severe power and heating outages. Against this background, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky returns from the United States without agreements on two key issues: permission to strike deep into Russia with Western weapons and the promotion of the Ukrainian application to join NATO.

According to the publication, more and more parties to the conflict are eager to start negotiations. Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, Ukrainian officials, and Western allies have spoken about this, demanding that Zelensky find a path to a negotiated resolution to the conflict, despite doubts about Russia’s readiness to enter into negotiations in the near future and concerns about what Ukraine’s position is now too weak to provide fair conditions.

“Most players want de-escalation,” a senior Ukrainian official in Kiev told the FT . “Now I think more about how to save my people. It’s quite difficult to imagine that we will be able to push the enemy back to the borders of 1991,” the publication quotes the commander of one of the battalions in Pokrovsk.

The greatest threat from allies for Kyiv is the possible victory in the US elections of Donald Trump, who may try to impose an unfavorable peace agreement on Ukraine under the threat of suspending military aid. Ukraine's staunchest supporters in Europe do not have sufficient weapons reserves to support Kyiv if the United States stops supplies, the newspaper writes.

As the FT notes, at the UN General Assembly in New York, Ukrainian officials became more open to discussing a ceasefire agreement even in the presence of Russian troops, and Western officials believe that an agreement is urgently needed. At the same time, security guarantees for Ukraine are a key point for concluding any agreement that provides for Russia maintaining control over the territories it has acquired since 2014. “Land in exchange for [NATO] membership is the only option, everyone knows that. No one will say it out loud, but this is the only strategy on the table,” the FT quoted a senior Western official as saying.

Ukrainian society has also become more open to negotiations, FT notes. According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the number of Ukrainians who believe that Kyiv should enter into negotiations with Moscow increased by 33 percentage points compared to last year and reached 57%. More than half - 55% - are still against any formal cession of territory, but at the peak, at the beginning of last year, this answer was given by 87% of respondents.

Photo: Reuters