Hopes for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine before summer remain slim as fundamental disagreements on territory and military realities on the ground create a significant impasse, a Chinese scholar said on Sunday.
Zhang Hong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed to the vast gulf between the two nations' core demands as the primary obstacle to a near-term resolution.
"Currently, it seems that there is a certain degree of difficulty in achieving a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire before this summer. Firstly, the disagreements between Russia and Ukraine on the issue of territory are quite immense. The Russian side insists that Ukraine must completely withdraw from the Donbas region, while Ukraine insists on discussing security guarantees, ceasefire monitoring mechanisms, and post-war reconstruction issues first in negotiations, and finally leaving the territorial and withdrawal issues to be decided by a Ukrainian national referendum. If the core territorial issue cannot be resolved, a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire is fundamentally impossible to achieve," said Zhang.
The second major factor is the military stalemate on the battlefield, Zhang said.
"Secondly, it is difficult to break the Russia-Ukraine military balance. Although Russia's comprehensive strength is stronger than Ukraine's, and the Russian military has been continuously on the offensive, we have seen that since the beginning of 2024, the speed of the Russian military's monthly advance has remained very slow. Therefore, this kind of balanced stalemate on the battlefield has also led to neither Russia nor Ukraine yielding at the negotiating table. It is indeed also very difficult [for Russia ] to try and force Ukraine to make huge concessions at the negotiating table for what cannot be obtained on the battlefield," he said.
Furthermore, international support for Ukraine, particularly from European nations, has bolstered Kyiv's negotiating position, said the scholar.
"It should be recognized that Europe supports some of Ukraine's territorial and security claims, and has provided financial and military aid to Ukraine. This has also given Ukraine a certain degree of confidence in the negotiations, enabling it to resist Russia's military pressure as well as diplomatic pressure from the United States. Therefore, the Russia-Ukraine peace talks remain a difficult problem, destined to be a slow and tortuous process," said Zhang.
The U.S.-brokered second round of talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday, with Russia and Ukraine agreeing to a large-scale prisoner exchange, but failing to achieve substantive breakthroughs on core issues such as territorial arrangements and a ceasefire.
Russia-Ukraine ceasefire unlikely before summer due to disagreements on major issues: Chinese scholar
