The three stumbling blocks to a Ukraine peace deal

A month in, and the war in Ukraine looks very different to how anyone expected. On the first day of the invasion, western intelligence sources believed that Kyiv would fall to Russian forces within 72 hours, underestimating the Ukrainians’ ability to defend their territory and overestimating the Russian military’s capabilities.

Among Vladimir Putin’s many errors was his underestimation of western unity. He did not predict the severity of the sanctions against Russia or that his act of aggression would snap Europe (most notably Germany) out of its complacency over defence spending. In some ways, Putin, by going for a full-on invasion, made it easier for the West to adopt a unified position. If he had instead developed things more gradually, he would almost certainly not have been met with such a response.

In the hours after the conflict began, the debate in Whitehall was about whether western unity would hold if Putin successfully installed a puppet government in Kyiv. Would there be unanimity in Nato about arming and funding a Ukrainian insurgency? Just this week, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany accused Berlin of preparing to speak to a puppet government just hours after the Russians had rolled across the border.

But to date, the Russian military has failed to deliver on most of its goals. The Ukrainian government is still in Kyiv and the western powers continue to provide it with defensive weapons. The Russians have so little presence in the west of the country that Nato can be fairly confident that supply lines moving equipment in will not be attacked, something that would escalate the conflict. Indeed, the Russian army appears to be pulling back from around the capital and instead concentrating on the east.

The peace talks in Istanbul appear to be making some progress.