Ceasefire is the only correct way to solve Ukraine crisis

Editor's note: Dong Yifan, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a research fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The Russian-Ukraine crisis is about to enter its third year. This conflict has profoundly changed the map and pattern of global geopolitics. As the conflict continues and the West, Ukraine and Russia are all stuck in long-term confrontation, how the conflict will further develop and whether the parties can reach a consensus on the prospect of the conflict have attracted widespread attention from the international community.

From the perspective of participants, as Western countries still regard supporting Ukraine and confronting Russia as their most important goals, they continue to provide political, economic, military and other support to Ukraine.

For example, earlier this month, the European Union announced a multi-year financial assistance of 50 billion euros ($54.18 billion) to Ukraine, and the U.S. Senate passed a $95.3 billion aid package to Ukraine and Israel, adding fuel to the current tense situation. Meanwhile, Russia keeps on increasing its military investment, enhancing the production capacity of its military-industrial enterprises.

All these reflect that different parties to the Ukraine crisis are in fierce competition and it would be demanding to achieve significant progress in the short term.

However, for the U.S. and the EU, the continued consumption of resources and financial resources in Ukraine has become increasingly unsustainable, and their interference in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is backfiring.

In terms of the EU, the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict has had a major impact on its economy. Fields like energy, inflation, and industrial vitality among others have been negatively affected. EU's bleaker economic prospect can also be witnessed by a recent outlook released by the European Commission, which lowers the economic growth rates of the EU and the Eurozone, by 0.4 percentage points in 2024 from the previous outlook, to 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

For most of 2023, inflation rates in the EU and Eurozone remain higher than the 2 percent policy target of the European Central Bank. Economists generally predict that Europe will still struggle in the quagmire of high inflation and high prices in 2024.

The recent farmer protests sweeping many European countries also show the strong dissatisfaction of the public towards the political elites' focus on the confrontation between the EU and Russia and their incompetence in dealing with the economic situation and ignorance of people's downgrading livelihood.

From the U.S. perspective, the 2024 U.S. election will be a key node for Western aid to Ukraine. As former U.S. President Donald Trump's election momentum continues to grow, he claims that if he is elected, he will completely cut off U.S. assistance to Ukraine, and does not rule out the possibility of reaching a "grand deal" with Russia.

If, as widely predicted, the U.S. stops assisting Ukraine, then the West's strategy of using Ukraine to consume Russia's military and economic strength will be heavily influenced, and the geopolitical balance will be shifted in a direction unfavorable to the West. On the other hand, although the U.S. has gained profits from the Ukraine conflict, the cost of living crisis faced by the middle- and lower-class people in the country has also weakened its domestic support for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the struggle between the two parties, the government, and Congress in the U.S., as well as the Palestinian-Israel conflict have also reduced the country's ability of sustainable support for Ukraine.

However, although its financial support for Ukraine is unsustainable, the West still views the Ukraine crisis and European security issues with a zero-sum game and camp confrontation mentality. Examples can be seen that the defense ministers of many European countries have called on Europe to prepare for a war with Russia, or the United Kingdom, France and Germany have successively signed security agreements with Ukraine.

These mean that the West is not willing to understand Russia's security anxieties and encourage both sides to solve the problem through dialogue and trust-building. However, the two-year process of the Ukraine crisis has proven that lasting peace is only possible through dialogue and political settlement, and the dawn of it is still not in sight.

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