The announcement of an agreement to allow the export of Ukrainian grain from Ukraine’s remaining Black Sea ports is a ray of good news in an otherwise pitch-black night of war violence.
Turkey and the United Nations have been working on the agreement for a long time. If it really does allow ships (which will be inspected in Turkey) to be able to export Ukrainian grain again, that will be good news – for Ukrainian farmers and the countries in Africa and elsewhere. But first it must be clear whether the agreement is realistic, or just another Russian diplomatic smokescreen.
In the first case, the agreement shows that Russia and Ukraine can reach an agreement through mediation on points with enough overlapping interests. In theory, this could be the case for grain: Ukraine wants to export and has to get rid of its stocks quickly. Russia has already bombed many grain warehouses with missiles and has also stolen a lot of Ukrainian grain. So there is no mercy here, but calculation: perhaps the battle for the hearts and minds of non-Western countries and the desire to divide Europe and give arguments and ease sanctions.
The agreement shows how much the military situation on the battlefield affects the space for negotiations. The fact that Russia recently had to give up the strategically located Snake Island, and now has to reckon with missile attacks at sea, plays an important role. If Russia’s plan to take the entire coastal strip had not met with military resistance, there would have been no talk today of a partial lifting of its illegal naval blockade.
The temptation to think that this agreement is the prelude to a bigger deal is, based on what’s happening on the ground, unrealistic and incorrect. A ceasefire would give Russia a military respite, and time to prepare a new offensive. Putin is trying to divide and pressure the West by hand to force Kyiv into a political genuflection, one it won’t make militarily. The Russian war machine faces structural problems, exacerbated by the arrival of modern Western weapon systems on the battlefield.
A look at occupied territory shows that a deal with Putin is not an option at the moment. The OSCE recently published a report with shocking reports from the ‘filtration camps’ that Ukrainians have to go through before being brought to Russia – also completely illegally.
Reports of persecution, rape, torture and ‘disappearance’ of Ukrainians in occupied territory are numerous. And Russia openly acknowledges, this week through Foreign Minister Lavrov, that it is going to swallow the conquered territory. So a ‘frozen conflict’ basically means accepting a reign of terror and forced Russification for millions of Ukrainians. That is unacceptable not only for Kyiv, but also for Western allies.
Meanwhile, Hungary is busy flirting with Moscow. That should be the exception that proves the rule. Western countries are now thinking, reported The Washington Post, about sending modern fighter planes (which could be used by Ukraine next year at the earliest). Fortunately, this reflects the realization that giving in to Putin because of economic headwinds does not offer a solution, but will actually make the problem worse.
The position of the newspaper is expressed in the Volkskrant Commentaar. It is created after a discussion between the commentators and the editor-in-chief.