Security experts expect a ceasefire in the Ukraine war in the new year. According to ex-NATO General Domröse, it could be in early summer 2023. A negotiated solution will then be sought – and Domröse also has an idea of ??what this could look like.
In the Ukraine war, experts expect a ceasefire in the course of the new year. “We will have a ceasefire in the course of 2023,” former NATO general Hans-Lothar Domröse told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Both Ukraine and Russia would launch another offensive in the next few months to try to achieve their military goals after all. But he expects a standstill in early summer. Then Russia and Ukraine would realize that they were stuck and that there was no point in fighting if you weren’t gaining any more space.
“That would be the moment for armistice negotiations,” said Domröse, who was also an army general in the Bundeswehr. There remains only a negotiated solution that is acceptable to both sides. One solution could be for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to waive the demand to immediately reintegrate areas occupied by Russia, such as Crimea, into Ukraine and instead agree on a transitional period, such as the 50-year transitional period that was used when Hong Kong was handed over to China give.
The Russia and security expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Andras Racz, also told the Funke newspapers that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia could take place in the summer. “I’m pretty sure that by the end of the year we’ll have some kind of truce: hopefully no more fighting, but certainly a lot less fighting,” Racz said.
He pointed out that presidential elections are due in Russia in 2024: “It is unlikely that Russia would want to wage an intensive war before or during the elections. I expect that Russia will therefore want to reduce the intensity of the fighting over the course of the year. Also because the supply problems of the Russian army are likely to increase in the summer.”
Racz recalled that a ceasefire had already been agreed several times under the Minsk agreements. At that time, the intensity of the fighting decreased, but they did not end. “It was a limited war in which both sides had diplomatic relations, there was trade and energy supplies – and yet the fighting went on. In a year we will have a limited war,” said the security expert.
