Fake Peace Talks: Why Only Real Diplomats Should Be at the Table
Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council Rustem Umerov attends a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S., November 30, 2025. REUTERS/Eva Marie Uzcategui TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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Why should professional diplomats lead negotiations? Because for the military — even former ones, as General Kellogg himself admitted (with all due respect) — “the last 10 meters are the hardest.” In other words, when you’re trained to break through defences, not build agreements, the boundary between diplomacy and force becomes dangerously thin.
If only two issues are resolved — in this case, the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from unoccupied Ukrainian territory and the division of control over the Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant — then everything else will supposedly fall into place.
For people who approach negotiations like a business deal, this isn’t a problem at all: you add figures here, subtract there, and calculate an acceptable profit margin.
For diplomats, however, “if everything is not agreed, nothing is agreed.” And this is not about the “last 10 meters,” but about something far more fundamental: an incorrectly chosen framework, a draft built entirely on Russian terms, and an inability to arrive at a comprehensive settlement because the approach was flawed from the outset.
That is, international agreements must rest on jointly accepted universal rules and norms and, at a minimum, be workable, setting new frameworks and obligations for a sufficiently long period. They must include mechanisms for monitoring compliance, clearly defined conditions for withdrawal in case of violations, and — most importantly — be concluded in good faith, with both sides prepared to fulfil them.
If, in drafting a peace agreement, the questions of a ceasefire and security guarantees are pushed to the very end (that is, treated as secondary), then this is not a road to lasting peace, but an imitation of diplomacy.
Bring professional diplomats back to the negotiating table — on all sides.
As a reminder, as part of efforts to resolve the fighting in Ukraine, the American team is considering a “Korean scenario” for ending the war. According to a journalist from The Washington Post, negotiators are seeking different formulas to make Ukraine’s territorial concessions more palatable to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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