Samuel Ramani, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank and CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk, spoke to CGTN Europe about Ukraine’s 20-point peace plan. He said the framework focuses on ceasefire arrangements, security guarantees and post-conflict reconstruction, while stopping short of any territorial compromises. Ramani noted that an immediate breakthrough remains unlikely, as Moscow has not publicly accepted the proposal and continues to seek concrete territorial gains.
00:00Joining me now is Samuel Romani, who's an associate fellow at the think tank RUCI and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk.
00:09Samuel, thank you very much for joining me.
00:11Now, this 20-point peace framework, it covers ceasefire arrangements, it covers security guarantees, it covers reconstruction too,
00:21but it doesn't cede any land to the Russians, does it?
00:25Do you see this as being able to be taken past the line?
00:30Do you think this process is actually going to work?
00:34I think that it's going to be very difficult to get an immediate breakthrough on this.
00:38I think obviously the Russians have kind of hinted that any kind of deviation from the original 28-point peace plan
00:44that may have come through U.S.-Ukraine talks or European intervention would be unacceptable,
00:48and so far this plan has arrived on the Kremlin's desk and Moscow has not publicly accepted it.
00:56And I think that there is also an issue relating to the Zaporizhia nuclear plant,
01:00which the U.S. wants to have shared between the Ukrainians and the Russians.
01:03There was a statement just now from Zelensky saying that that was very inappropriate.
01:07And the Russians want, obviously, concrete territorial gains,
01:10that we're seeing a repetition from Vladimir Putin as well as from some of his close allies,
01:14like Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, of the maximalist demands,
01:18taking over not just Donbass, but also areas, of course, on Zaporizhia too.
01:24And, of course, while these diplomatic efforts are ongoing on the ground,
01:28the fighting is continuing, isn't it?
01:30How do you think this ongoing military pressure shapes the prospects for meaningful talks?
01:36Does it help or does it hinder, do you think?
01:39Well, the Russians are calculating that this is going to make the Ukrainians kind of bend the knee, right?
01:43And the Americans are going to basically kind of try to convince Zelensky that the war is unwinnable
01:47and that it's only going to lead to more destruction of your country,
01:50and you have to accept a deal on unfavorable terms before the terms become catastrophic.
01:55And the Russians have just taken over Siversk,
01:57which gives them an edge in potentially taking over Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
02:01They're making gains in the Sumi direction, around Kupiansk and Kharkiv.
02:05And also there's a steady increase in civilian casualties.
02:09We just saw a report coming through from the Ukrainian showing that to go from June to November of this year to last year,
02:14there's 12% more civilian deaths.
02:16And attacks on the high rises in Kiev and Kharkiv and Odessa are making that a daily reality.
02:22So the Russians think that this ongoing conflict is going to play into their hands,
02:26but Ukraine isn't backing off right now.
02:28And Russia also isn't showing signs that it militarily can actually take over those larger cities in Donbass in the near term.
02:35So I think that the attritional fighting is more likely to continue,
02:39and it may not have an immediate impact on the diplomatic negotiations right now,
02:42unless the balance shifts dramatically in Russia's direction, and Ukraine has to make concessions.
02:48Sam, you were talking earlier on about territorial questions,
02:51and we were discussing the fact that it's a red line for both Kiev and for Moscow when it comes to territorial questions.
02:59And that kind of raises the question, will anything actually be realistically achieved by this peace plan?
03:05Do you see any room for compromise here when it comes to territory?
03:09Well, I think it's going to be very difficult to see a room for compromise over here.
03:13Obviously, the Ukrainians are going to be against any kind of de jure recognition of Russia's occupations of Crimea or Donbass or other territories.
03:22They may accept de facto session of territory, and the Russians may have to swallow that.
03:26But I think, yeah, the core point is that Russia believes it can, by waiting things out,
03:32it can gain more territory and gain a stronger advantage than it already has.
03:35Ukraine does not want to unilaterally cede the remaining 25% of Donetsk that it doesn't hold,
03:41thinking that its fortresses and its large cities like Slovians and Kramodorov are going to be next to impossible for Russia to overrun in the near term.
03:49And as long as both sides maintain that kind of reality, Ukraine being dug in and the Russians being determined to make more gains,
03:56a territorial compromise becomes next to impossible.
03:59So that's why I see this war dragging on well into 2026, unless there's a big dynamic that changes.
04:05How would you characterize Russia's current posture, do you think?
04:09What do you think is more important for Moscow, gaining peace or gaining territory?
04:14I think for the moment, gaining territory is probably somewhat more significant,
04:19because the Russian economy, even though it showed some signs of softening with there being high interest rates,
04:25and there also being labor shortages and dislocations caused by the wartime industrial boom kind of slowing down a little bit,
04:32that the Russian economy is holding up.
04:34Russia's core international partnerships with China, with India, with the Gulf monarchies, with Iran, Africa, are also holding up.
04:42Russia's not isolated from the world.
04:44So I don't think that there's an urgent imperative on Putin's side to basically completely change tack, completely change direction.
04:51So I think as long as that's the case, I think territorial gains will be more important than peace.
04:56So, yeah, I think it really depends also on how Russia's international positioning and economic situation plays out.
05:03I don't think that there's going to be a major change in those two things in the coming months.
05:07Okay, for now, Samuel Romani, thank you very much for that.
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