Check in Kyiv: prospects for peace?

0:00Rosie Blau:Youth mental health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

0:35Oliver Carroll:The Economist

0:42Rosie Blau:Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:57Rosie Blau:Our correspondent recently joined a police mission to destroy coca labs in the Colombian rainforest where much of the world's cocaine is produced We find out whether these dangerous sorties will really bolster the war on drugs And you might have heard that crime is rife in London but just because you've been told that doesn't make it true What does the cold hard data actually show?

1:33Rosie Blau:First up though.

1:42Rosie Blau:As the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary, this has been a brutal year. Bitterly cold, with much of the country's heat and electricity supplies knocked out.

1:58Rosie Blau:Shellings and drone attacks have been constant.

2:01Claire McQue:It was a cruel attack. Our miners, they were going back home from their shift in the mine. And the first drone attacked the bus.

2:12Rosie Blau:Oletzky-Povolotsky is from DTEC, an energy company in Ukraine.

2:16Claire McQue:Eventually the second drone hit the people So we understand that these drones had the cameras And operators, pilots had full understanding That these are peaceful people And they hit them intentionally

2:31Rosie Blau:He said 12 people died in that incident earlier this month Which DTEC says was caused by a Russian device A cruel attack on a passenger train killed five

2:46Rosie Blau:And just last night, yet another onslaught left over 100 ,000 Ukrainians in the dark this morning. In recent weeks, American-led peace talks have led to an agreed prisoner swap. But the war itself drags on.

3:02Claire McQue:For almost a year now, the talk of ceasefire negotiations, they've hovered around like a ghost. It's hard to believe they're actually happening while Ukraine is being hounded night after night. Oliver Carroll is our Ukraine correspondent. But lines are appearing that could frame the end of this four-year war. And we're reaching the hour of decisions. Now, we've said before on this podcast that the time for this would be around March for a variety of reasons. the end of the winter offensive, problems about hardware, mobilisation, economy on the Russian side, similar problems in Ukraine. So this could be the moment.

3:43Rosie Blau:Oli, there were talks last week which didn't achieve a breakthrough. We've been there many, many times before. What is it at this point that you would say is holding up peace?

3:54Claire McQue:Well, there wasn't a breakthrough, but I wouldn't say the talks were without some kind of progress. And sources close to the negotiation team in Ukraine tell me that for the first time, the Russians are showing a level of constructive approach which they haven't seen before. But the unresolved issues, they're essentially the same as they've been for many months now. The first is security guarantees. There's been an agreement between Ukraine and the United States about what the United States calls Article 5, like security guarantees. It's a little way short of that. but the question is whether Russia can accept those guarantees.

4:29Claire McQue:The peace process has been quite unusually structured in the sense that it's not operated as a single track and so the existence of this security agreement between US and Ukraine doesn't mean Russia accepts it. The second point is territory. Russia has added extra requirements basically demanding that Ukraine withdraws from the heavily fortified parts of the Donbass it still holds. Ukraine says Any ceasefire should stay with that current line of demarcation. And the compromise currently being discussed is about creating a demilitarized zone. Sources close to the negotiation teams have been saying that what people are trying to do is steer around positions which are indigestible to both societies.

5:11Claire McQue:And I asked President Zelensky at you last week whether there were signs of movement. And he said that Putin had begun to show some openness to this idea of a demilitarized zone. And there's also the sense that Zelensky himself has signaled some kind of flexibility, but only on a reciprocal basis. So yeah, we do have some sense there's movement. And it might be as soon as March that we have some kind of an outline of a plan. But then there's so many hoops that need to get through, not least constitutional and everything else.

5:42Rosie Blau:So there are signs of some progress, but no breakthrough on peace talks. What about on the battlefield? What's happening on the ground?

5:50Claire McQue:It's a mixed picture, and I think it requires a little bit of nuance here. Russia is still making creeping battlefield advances at huge costs. In December, Ukraine said that it managed to take a record 35 ,000 killed and wounded Russian soldiers. But Ukraine is far from out of the woods, even with these huge killed and wounded figures. And even when you have a very slow moving front line, the broader issue is of strategic resilience. How long can Ukraine sustain this war, even keeping the front line where it is, if it's losing its own men? And this winter as well, I mean, the main battle hasn't really been on that front line.

6:27Claire McQue:It's been on energy infrastructure, long-range drones from Russia, which have been ramped up to 400 a day being manufactured. Just today, we had a ballistic attack on Kiev. Ukraine has made its own missile strikes on Russian targets, and certainly life in Belgra just on the border with Ukraine isn't nice at the moment. But Ukraine, its society, its economy, it's taking a much larger hit.

6:52Rosie Blau:And on that much larger hit, four years on, how is this war affecting civilians?

6:59Claire McQue:People are tired, really tired. And it's unsurprising that if you look at opinion polls, looking for people's response to the idea of a compromise for some kind of pause in fighting. Overall, those figures are rising. And overall in Ukraine, as much as 40 % are now saying they would be ready for some kind of compromise, despite all the public rhetoric, which is all about defiance, resilience and so on. But those in Russian-occupied Ukraine, they've almost been forgotten about. And they're the ones who feel it most. Just last week, I traveled to the westernmost border with Belarus to report on a little-known working crossing.

7:36Claire McQue:It's been working since the first weeks of war. but effectively it's the last humanitarian corridor that people in Russian occupation can use to leave and come back to Ukraine and despite the risks of traveling out as much as you know 40 50 people are crossing each day and among the most desperate people I've seen it's put to me by an intelligence source here that in a Russian occupation it's cruel but it's really effective and the sort of pro-Ukrainian underground network they were relying on in the early years of war that's no longer there. It's been filtered out. And that's created new facts on the ground, which feed into this whole proposed deal-win discussion.

8:14Claire McQue:One that would mean Ukraine de facto giving up land and giving up the homelands of hundreds and thousands and millions of people. And for those crossing, that prospect carried significant anguish.

8:26Rosie Blau:What about Ukraine's leadership? There are rumours flying around about elections.

8:31Claire McQue:The leadership is hedging its bets on many ways, specifically on the elections. Some of the reporting has been a little bit off kilter. The idea that the Americans are pushing the Ukrainians to have elections by a certain date or lose the idea of security guarantees. My understanding is that it's a little bit more complicated than that. But more generally, if we want to talk about the two approaches that Ukraine is making to this war, then certainly plan A is this American-led negotiation. and the broad outlines are that if successful, Ukraine would get a chance of peace, at least a pause of the war, that's more likely, and some kind of mini EU membership.

9:10Claire McQue:On the other hand, Russia would get sanctions relief and a whole load of new business deals. Plan B, which is happening at the same time, is fighting on with the strengthened armies. You're seeing moves to reform the defence ministry, but certainly in terms of generals and the army more broadly, Few believe this war is going to end soon. I think there's also some doubt among Ukraine's partners in Europe, if for them, for Ukraine as well, but mostly for them, if a quick and dirty peace is the best outcome. For some in Europe, I think they believe the best scenario is for Ukraine to fight on as long as possible to give Europe a chance to arm up.

9:46Claire McQue:Whether that's necessarily the best strategy for Ukraine itself to take, that's a big question and it's a very delicate balance.

9:52Rosie Blau:So where does this get us to? What are the prospects for peace now?

9:57Claire McQue:Actually, for the first time in a long time, you might say quite promising, certainly for a pause, let's be very clear. Maybe as much as 50-50 sometime this year, maybe as soon as March. While in theory it's possible, there are multiple hurdles to jump over. And I'm absolutely certain that Russia understands this too.

10:20Rosie Blau:Oli, thank you very much.

10:22Claire McQue:It's always a pleasure, Rosie. Thank you.

10:54Rosie Blau:We must work with mental health professionals to support children. And we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at empowerourfuturecoalition.com slash solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future.

11:21Oliver Carroll:I'm flying in a Black Hawk helicopter over the western part of the Colombian Amazon.

11:27Rosie Blau:Claire McHugh writes about Latin America.

11:30Oliver Carroll:Almost 70 % of the world's cocaine is made in these border regions. There are thousands of small laboratories that are hidden inside the vast expanse of the rainforest. And here, trees have been cut down to make way for these fields of lime green coca.

11:52Oliver Carroll:I'm travelling with the Colombian police force, who are on a mission to take down the drug labs.

12:02Oliver Carroll:all of us are wearing helmets and bulletproof vests we're crammed into the helicopter on these tiny camping stalls the anti-narcotics commandos are clutching assault rifles as they ready to descend into the coca fields as we land a dozen of them jump out i follow with some trepidation because the criminal organizations that control these territories often mine the coca fields. It's really hard to walk because the wind from the helicopter blades is so strong. I follow the commandos as they stalk through the coca fields towards their target, which is a wooden shack concealed by banana trees. Inside, there's coca leaves soaking in plastic tubs of fuel, and I can see white blocks of coca paste.

12:52Oliver Carroll:Now that's the base ingredient for cocaine.

12:59Oliver Carroll:It takes less than 10 minutes Then the shack is set alight And as we fly off A grey tower of smoke billows into the sky