In recent days, both Russia and Ukraine have expressed support for resuming negotiations over a prospective peace deal. While limited in detail, these are promising signals. But this can only be true if Brussels and Kyiv are prepared to make a joint offer based on reasonable terms. That might encourage Russia to abandon its unreasonable terms. One reason for Moscow’s intransigence is the belief that European governments are not interested in a peace settlement and will do everything possible to block one.

For a long time, Western advocates of indefinite war supported themselves with myths about Ukrainian victory. That is no longer possible. As Ukrainian opposition MP Oleksiy Honcharenko has stated, his country is not only “losing the war”, but does not even have the funds “to operate the country”.

Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure is not only devastating domestic industry, but also undermining whatever chance Ukraine may have of eventually joining the European Union — which Moscow has agreed to in principle.

But there are also the financial costs for European countries to consider. The World Bank estimates the cost of Ukrainian reconstruction at $588 billion. If the war continues, by next spring it will be even more. Given acute and growing budgetary constraints and public discontent, can European countries really guarantee that they will come up with sums like this? This is less likely when the favorite to win the French presidential elections next summer, Marine Le Pen, has already declared that if elected, she will end France’s contribution.

There will not be the “just” peace demanded by Western governments — but this has always been a realistic ideal. Instead, the goal should be to preserve the greater part of Ukraine as an independent state with a viable path to join the EU and the ability to deter any future Russian attack. If a settlement can achieve this, then it should be seen not as a Ukrainian defeat, but a victory.

But for any settlement to be reached, Ukraine must be denied Nato membership and given real grounds to expect EU membership. In this sense, it should be remembered that Russia’s desire to block Nato membership for Ukraine is not unreasonable.

At the close of the Cold War, Gorbachev was promised that Russia would receive the “firm security guarantee” that Nato would not expand eastwards. In 1991, Russia recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty following Ukraine’s declaration of independence.” This avoids conflating the declaration of sovereignty with independence. This stated that Ukraine “solemnly declares its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs”.

Ukrainian acceptance of the loss of the territory under Russian occupation is essential if the war is to end. Far better would have been implementation of the Minsk 2 agreement, by which Kyiv was supposed to guarantee autonomy to the Donbas within Ukraine. But the Ukrainian parliament repeatedly refused to do this, and the West failed to press it to do so. Ukraine will also have to guarantee the Russian language official minority status in Ukraine, along the lines of that enjoyed by the Swedish language in Finland, for example. This would be fully in accordance with the EU’s rules and norms.

All of this will be extremely painful for Ukraine, and for the country’s supporters in the West. But they should ask themselves whether the terms of a possible settlement will be even worse for Ukraine in six months’ time. And after another year of war, the Ukrainian economy may be wrecked completely. Is urging Ukraine toward probable destruction really what true friends should be doing?