Western capitals should keep lines open to Moscow

Get free updates from the war in Ukraine

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding war in ukraine News every morning.

What would a press secretary at the Russian embassy in the West be sending to the Kremlin these days? A German officer asked me this question at the beginning of the counter-offensive in Ukraine. I was reminded of this last week during the NATO summit – and even more so after the revelations of conversations between former US officials and Russian diplomats.

As NATO debated the future of Ukraine, the British media was so consumed by a scandal involving a BBC presenter that the summit barely made the front pages. So yes, happy times for Russian diplomats in London who want to deliver the message to the Kremlin they know it wants to hear about a distracted, self-obsessed Britain.

The German official was being coy but saying an essential thing: It’s pretty credible to imagine that Vladimir Putin is still being given self-incriminating lines. What is the use of telling the truth to a colleague?

And that’s where revelations from April of conversations between US former national security officials and Russian diplomats, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, come into play. After months of both armies paying a terrible price with few changes in the front line, it has become all the more important for the West to be able to influence Moscow’s psyche by telling the bitter truth.

The revelation of talks by NBC – including in New York and with the outgoing head of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas – prompted accusations of treachery. For many people in Ukraine, the idea of ​​contacting representatives of a state that has perpetrated such genocide is illogical. Others fear that engaging in any contact means falling into a Russian trap, which would lead to a shabby deal in which Ukraine’s interests would be betrayed by Western countries. real politician I just want to see the war end.

The latter’s concerns are natural. The 2015 Minsk accords that ended the first phase of Russia’s invasion faced the same accusation. The Dayton deal of 1995 after the Bosnian War is also beneficial. It divided Bosnia and Herzegovina in a way that actually rewarded the aggression of Bosnian Serbs.

Ukraine fears it will eventually be drawn into a grand bargain in which it will have to give up its formal goals of defeating Russia and gaining control of all its territory, including Crimea. Some officials in Europe cite Finland’s ceding of 10 percent of its land to the Soviet Union after the Winter War of 1939–40 as an example of a settlement.

So yes, those engaged in back-channel negotiations will be aware of the danger of unwittingly getting caught up in an “understanding” of Russia’s position that veers closer to appeasement.

And yet secret talks and held at multiple levels are required. The April talks are just one of many back-channels and not the most important, not least given that Lavrov is not a key Kremlin player.

At the moment, neither Ukraine nor Russia is even remotely ready to consider a deal. A European government minister has warned that the war may not end until next year. The West is still hoping for a breakthrough through counter-offensive, as progress so far has been slow. It’s worth remembering that after D-Day, Allied forces fought bloody battles in Normandy for more than two months before invading the German borders. It is possible that the Russian troops would collapse suddenly, by surprise: as the late military historian John Keegan stressed, never underestimate the importance of morale in battle. As for Russia, it will pin its hopes on retaliatory failure, and may be wondering if it should wait to see how Donald Trump fares in the 2024 US election cycle.

But whether a Russian defeat or a standoff is the most likely scenario for Ukrainian supporters growing fearful, some level of dialogue is almost inevitable, and the more contacts beforehand, the better.

Such an approach has been controversial throughout history. The revelations of secret talks on South African apartheid in the 1980s would have surprised many on both sides, but they helped pave the way for democracy.

The uncertain state of Russian politics makes it all the more imperative. Given the carnage during his presidency, it’s natural for Putin’s opponents to be offended by the argument that we should be careful what post-Putin orders, lest his successor come off worse. Of course, ideally for the West, Russia would emerge free from Putin’s dictatorship.

But there are also real concerns about what might happen in the event of his regime disintegrating. Running through the minds of Western officials is how the collapse of the Russian state could lead to a catastrophe similar to the collapse of Yugoslavia.

The West needs to tell Moscow how serious we are about our resolve. It also needs to decide who to talk to and trust, after long years when the value of Russia’s expertise has been undermined in Western foreign ministries.

In recent history, time and again autocratic rulers have shown an amazing ability to misunderstand their enemies’ intentions, and vice versa. Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein come to mind. Somehow the West must penetrate the self-delusion lurking in Putin’s court.

I’m definitely underestimating the backbone of Russia’s press secretaries. But even if so, we need more back-channels, not less.

alec.russell@ft.com