Ukraine War | Diplomacy and escalation

While diplomatic efforts are being made to find solutions to the Ukraine conflict, Russian missiles hit Kiev. Photo: AFP/Serhii Dilin Fortunately, the days when calls for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine were dismissed with "You can't talk to Putin!" and "Putin will only accept surrender" are over. There have never been as many negotiations as in the past few weeks: representatives from Ukraine, the USA and Europe spoke to each other in Miami. A little later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Finland's President Alexander Stubb and European and NATO representatives met in Oslo. This was followed by a conversation between Witkoff and President Putin in St. Petersburg. Russia and Ukraine want to hold direct talks again around November 10th, mediated by the USA. On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine exchanged the remains of 277 soldiers.

But military violence is also increasing. On Thursday, air alarms were sounded eight times in Kyiv in the first twelve hours. The night before, one Kiev resident was killed and 22 others were injured. Two people were also killed in an airstrike on a market in a Kharkiv suburb on Thursday. One person was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Belgorod region.

While the negotiations are gaining pace, the spiral of violence has also become increasingly rapid in recent weeks. We can only hope that diplomacy will overtake the escalation - and we will soon no longer be talking about the past weeks of the war, but about its final weeks.

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