Marnie Howlett - What Peace Settlement would be Acceptable to Ukrainians to End the Violence.

Ukraine confounded military experts and pundits in 2022, firstly by surviving, and then by pushing the Russian army back from thousands of square kilometres of its territory. Politicians and pundits around the world had urged Ukraine to offer concessions in order to secure a peace settlement with Russia. Giving up territory in the east or pledging to remain neutral, would in their views have saved Ukrainian lives and reduced the risk of Russian aggression or even a nuclear strike. But Ukrainians are in no mood to trade land of concessions for a fragile or temporary peace. It’s doubtful too whether anything the West or Ukraine could have done, short or total capitulation, would have satisfied Putin. But now Ukraine has shown extraordinary strength, resilience, and success on the battlefields, it raises the question as to what sort of settlement would be acceptable to Ukrainians and whether they may have to cede some territory or sovereignty to end the violence. Marnie Howlett is a Departmental Lecturer in Russian and East European Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations and Oxford’s School of Global and Area Studies. She is also an Associate Member at St. Antony’s and Nuffield Colleges. Marnie's research lies at the nexus of geopolitics, cartography, borders, and nationalism within the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in the country analysing the role of borders in shaping grassroots dynamics. Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, she has been working on several projects related to Ukrainian nation-building at the grassroots, including running public opinion and conjoint experiment surveys in the country. Her main research interests also include the use of digital, visual, and spatial methods for political research. ~ | ~ | ~ | ~ | ~