Ukraine, Peace and the Forgotten Security Organisation

The date 19 November 2024 saw the appalling milestone reached of 1,000 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war appears as far from ending as ever, with Putin’s aggression matched by Ukraine’s determined resistance, and neither side seemingly able to make a decisive breakthrough.

Yet the dynamics are shifting, driven largely by the prospect of a new US administration under president-elect Donald Trump, who has claimed that he could end the war 'within 24 hours'. Recent weeks have seen intensified attacks by Russia on Ukraine and the first reported use by Ukraine of US- and UK-supplied longer-range munitions to strike targets within Russia. The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden appears determined to deliver increased support to Ukraine before it leaves office, given the uncertainty about what Trump will actually do when he enters it.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has put on the best face that he can for the coming change of leadership in Washington. But he knows full well the extent of his country’s reliance on the US and will be concerned about Trump’s apparent belief that he can do business directly with Putin. Meanwhile a recent Gallup survey has suggested that just over a half of Ukrainians would like their country to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.

It remains likelier that the war will end later rather than sooner. But the international community needs to consider now what measures might be needed to underpin and stabilise a ceasefire or more comprehensive peace agreement, should one emerge earlier than expected.

Diplomatic Challenge of the Century

Negotiating a peace agreement will present a highly complex political and diplomatic challenge, not just because it is hard to identify an overlap between Putin’s and Ukraine’s objectives, but also because other countries’ interests are involved too, including on one side, Belarus as a close partner of Russia, and, on the other, NATO allies concerned about further Russian aggression.

Negotiations will therefore require the involvement of key international partners in addition to Ukraine and Russia. The format could be ad hoc, as has happened before, though the ‘Normandy Format’, established in 2014, involving France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, is a discouraging precedent. Success now would require a different constellation of players, including or at least with the blessing of the US, potentially under a United Nations Security Council mandate.

Any peace deal is likely to be acceptable to Ukraine only if accompanied by credible security assurances from Western partners to deter and protect against future Russian aggression. This might involve a coalition of willing partners or the whole of NATO. To be credible and effective, assurance would require the presence of some Western troops on the ground in Ukraine, additional air defence and other protective measures, and pre-positioning of infrastructure and equipment to enable rapid reinforcement in the event of future Russian attack.

Arrangements would also be needed to deconflict and stabilise the line of ceasefire and separation between Ukrainian and Russian forces, including effective transparency, monitoring, verification and other confidence and security building measures (CSBMs). There are other unresolved bilateral issues to address too, including the return of displaced citizens and prisoners of war, and the status of minority populations.

Enter the OSCE?

One organisation with experience in such areas is the OSCE, whose low visibility in much of the West makes it an almost forgotten security organisation. But the OSCE’s 57 participating states span the Euro-Atlantic area and Central Asia, making it the world’s biggest cooperative security endeavour. This wide membership makes it an unwieldy forum for negotiating a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. But it might be a good one for negotiating and implementing measures needed to underpin and stabilise a peace deal.

Finland has the unenviable job of being OSCE Chair in 2025. It is a good choice, 50 years on from the signing of the organisation’s foundational Helsinki Final Act, which proclaimed a set of principles, including sovereignty, the inviolability of frontiers and refrainment from the threat or use of force, which, tragically, are even more important now than they were then.

As Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said at the OSCE Permanent Council on 19 September 2024: ‘… [t]he principles and commitments of the OSCE have not lost their relevance. If one participating member state violates against those, it does not make the rules void’ … ‘we must respond to current challenges. The security situation in Europe is more unpredictable than at any other time since the end of the Cold War.’

Finland’s first task as Chair is to keep the OSCE show on the road in the face of persistent Russian disruption. Even if Ukraine must be its top priority, the OSCE is also playing a useful role in reducing tensions and building trust in other places too, including through its field operations in parts of the Western Balkans and Central Asia. This role needs to continue.

But the OSCE can do more than simply stay on the road.

Much in the OSCE’s area of expertise is relevant to the challenges of implementing a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, including in border monitoring, protecting national minority rights, supporting democratisation and proper election processes, and the military transparency and other CSBMs of the Vienna Document.

In addition to a possible monitoring and stabilisation role on the Ukraine/Russia line of contact, the OSCE could be invited to verify any agreed arms limitations, monitor elections, support post-conflict rehabilitation of women and children, protect minorities, secure weapons stockpiles and address diversion risks, and help with demining and small arms and light weapons destruction.

The OSCE’s relevance was recognised in the 2014–15 Minsk Agreements, which envisaged it taking on a significant role in monitoring and verifying a ceasefire and border zones. That said, the failure of those agreements and collapse of the earlier OSCE Special Monitoring Mission are a reminder of the risks involved.

What’s in it for the Parties?

If the current Russian regime appears to set little store by values or inconvenient international obligations, it does understand the language of interests and realpolitik. So how might a role for the OSCE meet Russian interests?

First, enhanced transparency, verification, monitoring and risk reduction measures along the Ukraine/Russia and potentially NATO/Russia borders and lines of contact stand to benefit Russia at least as much as Ukraine or its partners. Following Finland’s accession to the alliance, Russia now has a much longer land border with NATO, and is in greater proximity to significant allied forces. Such transparency and risk reduction measures could extend to the air, maritime and cyber as well as land domains. Second, since the OSCE operates by consensus, Russian consent is required, and Moscow can veto anything it disagrees with.

The latter point presents a challenge, but also similar protection, for Ukraine and its Western supporters, who enjoy the same rights. Ultimately, stabilisation measures are going to work only if they meet the interests of all states involved.

What of the US? On the face of it, as a values-based multilateral organisation increasingly looking to voluntary funding solutions, the OSCE does not tick Trump’s boxes. Yet the OSCE represents a low-cost way of giving the US a voice and role on security in an area that extends way beyond Atlantic shores to the very borders of China.

The evolution of this war, deepening Russia’s political and practical military cooperation with China, North Korea and Iran, has underlined both the inter-connectedness of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific arenas and interdependence between Russia and countries of greatest security concern to the US. That should matter to Washington.

Mission Impossible?

Ukraine and its partners need to think hard about how to make any future agreements stick when the earlier Minsk Agreements have failed. It may have been impossible for the OSCE to deliver the level of monitoring and assurance asked of it in 2014–15, and it is sensible to ask whether the organisation could cope with a potentially even larger remit in the future. The answer would lie in part in a significantly increased investment of both political will and practical resourcing.

The OSCE’s most important role so far could be as part of peace arrangements for Ukraine. Indeed, for the OSCE to have much future relevance anywhere, it needs to be part of the solution there.

Stabilising an eventual peace for Ukraine may prove to be as big a challenge as ending the war. But it is right to try.

© Peter Jones, 2024, published by RUSI with permission of the author

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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