How are Negotiations for a Ceasefire Between Russia and Ukraine Going?

0:00Today on State of the World, how are negotiations for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine going? You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Monday, November 24th. I'm Greg Dixon. Last week, U.S. officials presented a plan to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. It is seen as favoring Russia. Ukraine wasn't consulted about the plan, which would have it giving up even more territory than is currently in Russia's control. European countries are also unhappy about the plan. It calls for a variety of European commitments, and European leaders say they also weren't consulted.

0:46U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Geneva over the weekend discussing all this with a team from Kiev, and he says he's optimistic that an agreement can be made. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a seasoned German diplomat about what he thinks should be in the deal. But first, we get Ukrainian reaction. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley takes us to Ternopil in western Ukraine, the site of a recent Russian attack. And she asks Ukrainians about the prospects for peace. We're arriving, oh my God, at the site where this building was just hit with a missile. It's just an incredible scene. There's this apartment building with jagged bricks just in the empty sky.

1:29I mean, the missile just blew the top off this building. There are clothes blown into the trees. A bulldozer is sifting through the rubble looking for bodies. 34 people were killed in the attack on this residential building, including several children. It came in the early morning hours of November 19th, about the same time the U.S.-Russian draft peace plan appeared. Ashen-faced onlookers gather behind a growing mound of candles, flowers, and teddy bears on the sidewalk.

2:0474-year-old Nila Chura, who lives a few streets over, describes the sounds of the missiles and drones that night. She says the air raid alarms began sounding around 3 a.m. The terrifying attack lasted five hours. I thought I'm going to be dead in a few minutes because you don't really know where it's flying from, but it's really close and you don't know where exactly it's going. That's gym teacher Inga Shkarupa. this western Ukrainian town lacks air defenses because it isn't regularly targeted. But residents say nowhere in Ukraine is safe. Katerina Ruchkov cowered in an underground shelter with her two children.

2:42I have a six-year daughter. All the time she screamed, my mom, we're dying. You know, it's really hard, but it's more harder about these kids who died for nothing. Ruchkov says Ukraine is being pressured to sign its capitulation. The plan, as first presented, calls for Kiev to give up important territory in the east that Russia has been unable to take in four years of fighting. Ukraine would have to cap the size of its military. There are no such constraints on Russia, which would be welcomed back into the G8 and sanctions dropped. Shkarupa says she just doesn't get it. It feels like Russia are victims, not us.

3:23We're paying the price, people are dying, cities are getting destroyed, and everybody's doing nothing towards Russia, nothing. For the Europeans, the plan reads like a Kremlin wish list, and they're trying to alter it while avoiding confrontation with the Trump administration. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said any proposal to end the war must have the agreement of Ukraine and Europe, given the repercussions for European security.

3:54My family died here, says businessman Oleksandr Himenyuk, looking up at exposed tile of the sheared-off top floor where his mother and sister used to live in a small apartment. Himenyuk says Russia will not stop unless it's defeated.

4:12They haven't stopped for 300 years, he says. Ukraine is being pressured at a time when the country is weakened by a corruption scandal involving the state nuclear company and some of Zelensky's advisers. People here say they want to believe in their president despite the scandal. Mother Katarina Rushkov says the volunteers here are testament to Ukraine's spirit and resilience. I believe in every person who works here right now, you know. I believe in these people. I live here. My kids live here. And she says we want to stay in our city and our country, which is Ukraine. Eleanor Beersley, NPR News, Ternopil.

4:53Now for the European view of the peace proposal. NPR's Steve Inskeep spoke to Wolfgang Isinger. He previously served as Germany's ambassador to the U.S. and the U.K., as well as deputy foreign minister. He now chairs the Munich Security Conference. Well, the good news is that there is a plan and it's being discussed, and that is better than not having a plan. The downside is that we're having some kind of chaotic situation because there was no previous meaningful consultation process between the United States government and her European allies. Now everybody is urgently trying to talk to everybody else in order to come up with an agreed version that we could all support as we confront the Russian aggressor.

5:44Quite frankly, let me just repeat what I have been arguing and some of my European friends have been arguing for many months now. I think in order to straighten things out as we try to go from war to peace in Ukraine, we should recreate something which successfully worked, led by the United States in earlier such crises, namely to have a meaningful contact group where we would all be united and hammer out on every single item an agreed position before we confront the other side. Is the public disagreement itself harmful to this process? Well, I think what's harmful to the process is that the Russian side will find it easy to exploit these differences.

6:32They will say, ah, the Europeans are now boycotting this wonderful American plan, and therefore the nasty Europeans are the bad guys. And that could sow discord and make the transatlantic relationship, of course, a lot more difficult to play a constructive role, which is exactly what we should be doing. This is why I think that a little bit of behind-closed-doors negotiating would take us a long way into a meaningful peace agreement. It's very important that Russia understands that the United States and Europe and Ukraine are on the same page. Otherwise, Russia will continue to find ways to divide us and to separate us.

7:18And that's not going to end the war at any time soon. Well, let's try to figure out what a sensible plan from your perspective would look like. This proposal that's on the table calls for Russia to keep the territory in Ukraine that it's taken. And it also gets some more. The Ukrainians have to back up some more. I'd like to understand what you think a sensible plan looks like. Would it begin with a ceasefire with the battle lines exactly as they are? Everybody keeps what they now have. You are absolutely right. I think a central point where most Europeans that I know would totally agree would be, let's start the process by agreeing a ceasefire along the lines that are currently in existence.

7:58And once the shooting stops, then we can meaningfully start talking about territory, etc., etc. Regarding territory, the most important point is that we must not recognize, under international law, the occupation, the annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia. We can take note of the fact that certain parts of Ukraine, like Crimea, and certain parts of eastern Ukraine are currently occupied by Russia, but that must not be a legal recognition. If it were a legal recognition, you know, then, of course, the next step would be that everybody would say, oh, okay, we can change European borders and we can seize territories by force and no one will stop us.

8:49that's a recipe for disaster for European stability and security going forward. What kind of security guarantee then does Ukraine need to receive that the rest of its territory will not be invaded at some future date by Russia? Well, I think most Europeans would agree with me when I say, of course, the ideal would have been to invite Ukraine into NATO. That does not seem to be possible because you need a consensus for that among all NATO members, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the absence of NATO membership, I think the best strategy for Ukraine is what we call in the international diplomacy world the porcupine strategy.

9:32In other words, America helps equip Ukraine in a way that makes Ukraine look like a military porcupine. If somebody tries to attack it, it may hurt a lot. That's the idea. Very interesting. So the security guarantee is not a promise from the United States or from Europe precisely. It is Ukraine's own strength. It is not limiting Ukraine's military. It's actually building it up even more. Well, that's the core of it, because quite frankly, history shows that guarantees, when they are written on paper, are sometimes worth zero in the real world. We've seen that with the so-called Budapest Memorandum in 1994.

10:16In other words, I think the hardware that Ukraine needs, Ukraine should get from us, from Europe, from the United States. We should continue to support Ukraine financially, military, politically. An argument that hardware might be better than the software of a promise. That comes from Germany's former ambassador to the United States, Wolfgang Ischinger. And he spoke to Steven Skeep.

10:48That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.