Six Capitals, No Agreement: The Ukraine Talks Have a Process Problem

The United States has been working to end the war in Ukraine since early 2025, and its negotiators have now met in Abu Dhabi, Berlin, Geneva, Istanbul, Paris and Riyadh, with envoys shuttling to Moscow and Miami ^[1][2]. That is six capitals and two side trips ^[4], roughly eighteen months of effort ^[22], and no agreement, punctuated in recent weeks by massive strikes across both Ukraine and Russia ^[3].

The diagnosis offered in Foreign Affairs is worth attention because it does not reach for the usual explanations. The authors credit the effort but argue that activity is not strategy, and that decades of mediation experience point to a set of conditions: talks that are well organized, parties that own the process, agreement on the process itself, and working personal relationships ^[5][6]. Absent those, efforts to stop the fighting tend to falter while the strategic, economic and human costs accumulate ^[6].

Three design failures follow from that framing. First, ownership. Mediating a full-scale war is among the hardest tasks in international affairs, and protracted fighting makes it self-sustaining as leaders come to treat negotiation as a distraction or a domestic liability ^[23]. Successful processes have therefore paired a lead mediator with supporting states. The 1995 negotiations that ended the Bosnian war were backed by a contact group of France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United Kingdom ^[17]. The 2016 talks that closed the Colombian government's half-century war with the FARC involved Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela ^[18]. In Ukraine, according to the authors, Washington has largely gone it alone, with European allies, Gulf partners and Turkey involved only at the margins ^[19]. Five supporting states, then four, then none ^[24].

Second, staffing. The argument is that mediation requires a continuous effort by a team whose primary job is ending this particular conflict, with professional expertise and deep knowledge of its history and dynamics ^[15]. Rotating principals through capitals is not that.

Third, sequencing. The instinct is to wait for willingness before building a process. Kyiv has said it wants a cease-fire and talks ^[7]; Putin called Ukraine's government a "junta" in May, and the intensifying strikes on Ukrainian cities suggest he is not in a talking mood ^[8]. The authors invert the order: leaders move to negotiate not only when they are failing militarily but when they can see a credible alternative to war, so a well-designed process is the instrument for gauging and shaping intentions rather than the reward for good behaviour ^[14].

The pressure side of the ledger is the reason the argument is not academic. Russian forces advanced by less than half a square mile per day in June 2026, more than 90 percent below their June 2025 rate ^[10], which on those figures implies something near five square miles a day a year earlier ^[11]. Ukrainian long-range drone strikes are disrupting Russia's energy sector and state revenues, and hits on refineries and logistics are being felt in major cities ^[12].

Watch three things: whether European governments move from margins to cosponsors and parties, as the authors urge ^[20]; whether a standing negotiating team with a single mandate is named ^[15]; and September's Duma elections, where the Kremlin's task of delivering for the ruling party has become harder ^[13].