The stakes are ‘pretty high’ for Ukraine today, says Canadian world affairs expert
A Ukrainian delegation will meet with U.S. officials for the latest round of negotiations on plans to end the war with Russia. Andrew Rasiulis, a researcher at the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs, says the meeting is “one of the last opportunities” for a diplomatic solution to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Today’s meeting could be one of the last opportunities for Ukraine to reach a negotiated settlement to end the war, said Andrew Rasiulis, a researcher at the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs and a retired Department of National Defense official.
The stakes are “pretty high,” Rasiulis said in an interview this morning with CBC News.
Time is running out before the war ends with military force, he explained, emphasizing that Russia has the advantage on the battlefield and Ukraine is negotiating from the weaker position.
“All these proposals that we see favor, in some way, the Russians. It reflects the reality of the battlefield,” Rasiulis said.
The biggest sticking point, he says, will be the rest of Donbass, particularly the fortified area around Donetsk. A possible compromise could be a demilitarized zone rather than an outright legal concession of territory, Rasiulis said.
He said Witkoff might actually be in a better position than anyone else to broker a deal because he is the only one speaking to both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Americans are now practically neutral on this issue. They listen to the Russians, they listen to the Ukrainians,” Rasiulis said.
