Russia remains main obstacle to peace – expert

That’s according to Jade McGlynn, a research fellow at the Department of Military Studies at King's College London, who spoke in an exclusive comment to Ukrinform.

The expert believes the declaration signed in Paris is a positive outcome, “certainly in terms of how concrete it is, and definitely a positive from the UK, which has essentially been very resistant to the idea of committing to anything without American support.”

“I think there are undoubtedly some positives about yesterday’s summit of the Coalition of the Willing, particularly when you look through point 2 (support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine) of the Declaration and the support that would be provided by the Coalition of the Willing forces should Russia re-attack, which I think would be seen as quite likely,” said the expert.

At the same time, the expert doubts the declaration solves some of the big issues that hinder the peace process.

Given that the potential multinational forces are primarily seen as a deterrent, McGlynn explains that any deterrent has a psychological factor: “Does the other side believe in whether or not these forces would actually go to war or risk going to war with Russia? And I'm not sure that I believe them and I don't know if Russia would.”

She went on to say that Russia continues to be an obstacle in the discussions either between the Americans and Russia or between the Americans, Europe and Ukraine, or Americans and Ukraine.

“I don't believe that Russia is going to accept many of these points. For example, I'm sure that SACEUR would do wonderful monitoring of a potential ceasefire but right now the Russians will say he is the one currently helping to send missiles into Russia,” says McGlynn.

Also, the expert notes that Russia continues to believe that it can win by exhausting and collapsing Ukraine, and is “very happy to consider options where it's given military goals politically, but to be willing to negotiate it needs to accept that it cannot win military.”

Separately, the expert sees as a problem that the EU might not be able to rely on the US in terms of its own security any longer but European nations “have not yet come to terms with this.”

The expert concludes that further work along the negotiation track is needed to address what’s hampering “the resolution of this phase of the war to provide a much needed ceasefire”.

At the same time, McGlynn concludes that the war itself can only be resolved “inside Russia, and with Russia’s defeat.”