Ukraine’s offensive derails secret efforts for partial cease-fire with Russia, officials say

KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine and Russia were set to send delegations to Doha this month to negotiate a landmark agreement halting strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides, diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions said, in what would have amounted to a partial cease-fire and offered a reprieve for both countries.

But the indirect talks, with the Qataris serving as mediators and meeting separately with the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region last week, according to the officials. The possible agreement and planned summit have not been previously reported.

For more than a year, Russia has pounded Ukraine’s power grid with a barrage of cruise missiles and drone strikes, causing irreparable damage to power stations and rolling blackouts across the country. Meanwhile, Ukraine has struck Russia’s oil facilities with long-range drone attacks that have set ablaze refineries, depots and reservoirs, reducing Moscow’s oil refining by an estimated 15% and raising gas prices around the world.

Some involved in the negotiations hoped they could lead to a more comprehensive agreement to end the war, according to the officials who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy.

The willingness to engage in the talks signaled something of a shift for both countries, at least for a limited cease-fire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Kyiv would consider a full cease-fire only if Russia first withdrew all of its troops from Ukrainian land, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine first cede four Ukrainian regions – including some territory that Russian forces aren’t occupying – that the Kremlin has declared as part of Russia.

Ukrainian and Russian officials haven’t met face to face for talks since the first months of the war, when delegations from both sides convened for secret talks in Istanbul. Those negotiations eventually fell apart. Later, the two sides agreed to a grain deal that led to Russia temporarily lifting a naval blockade, allowing Ukraine to transfer grain through the Black Sea. That, too, collapsed months later when Russia pulled out of the deal. Other attempts to establish humanitarian corridors have largely failed.

A diplomat briefed on the talks said Russian officials postponed their meeting with Qatari officials after Ukraine’s incursion into western Russia. Moscow’s delegation described it as “an escalation,” the diplomat said, adding that Kyiv did not warn Doha about its cross-border offensive.

Russia “didn’t call off the talks, they said give us time,” the diplomat said. Though Ukraine wanted to send its delegation to Doha anyway, the person said, Qatar declined because it did not see a one-sided meeting as beneficial. The small Arab country has positioned itself as a powerful mediator in recent years and has hosted ongoing talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

In response to questions from the Washington Post, the Ukrainian presidential office said in a statement that the summit in Doha was postponed “due to the situation in the Middle East,” but it would take place in a video conference format Aug. 22, after which Kyiv would consult with its partners about implementing what was discussed.

The Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment. The White House declined to comment for this story. The Biden administration has long said the timing and terms of a potential cease-fire agreement with Russia are for Ukraine alone to decide.

The diplomat briefed on the talks said Kyiv and Moscow had both signaled their readiness to accept the arrangement in the lead-up to the summit. But senior officials in Kyiv had mixed expectations about whether the negotiations could succeed, with some putting the odds at 20% and others anticipating even worse prospects, according to two people familiar with the talks, even if the Kursk assault had not happened. But the planned talks and potential agreement – now on hold – raise the stakes for Zelenskyy’s gamble.

One of the reasons Ukrainian officials doubted Russia’s sincerity is its extensive bombing campaign of Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks. More bombardment could leave civilians without power for hours each day during the frigid winter months.

“We have one chance to get through this winter, and that’s if the Russians won’t launch any new attacks on the grid,” an Ukrainian official who was briefed on the talks said.

Kyiv’s move to push into Russia, which has occupied roughly 20% of Ukraine, was intended in part to give Ukraine more leverage for any future negotiations, Ukrainian and Western officials have said.

Military analysts have expressed skepticism that Ukrainian forces can maintain control of the Russian territory. Moscow has also continued to make gains in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region and has not diverted troops from there to defend the new Ukrainian assault.

But while Kyiv might have improved its future negotiating position with the land grab, the likelihood of imminent peace talks appears diminished. Putin publicly vowed this week not to soften his position on negotiations because of the assault on Russian territory.

The diplomat familiar with the talks said that Qatar has been discussing the arrangement for an energy strike moratorium with Kyiv and Moscow for the past two months. The official said the two sides agreed to a summit in Doha with just minor details left to be worked out.

“After Kursk, the Russians balked,” another person familiar with the talks said.

A Russian academic with close ties to senior Russian diplomats signaled that Putin would not be in the mood to make a deal after the Kursk offensive.

“You know our Russian leadership usually does not make any compromises under pressure,” the person said.

The academic added that Russia might be more willing to consider an energy infrastructure deal as a way to lure Kyiv to broader cease-fire talks.

Otherwise, he said, Moscow could be less motivated since it believed it could inflict more damage on Ukrainian energy infrastructure than Kyiv was able to on Russian oil refineries.

Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid have been a brutally effective tactic. Daily life for Ukrainians who live far from the front line has been disrupted by blackouts that can last hours. The outages have also severely hurt an economy already crippled by war. Some people who have moved abroad cite the power instability as a chief reason.

Ukrainian officials have expressed concern about how the country will survive the winter if Russia’s bombardment continues. Because of Russian airstrikes, Ukraine has lost around nine gigawatts of the 18 gigawatts needed for peak consumption this winter – far too much to recover in a short period of time. Officials say electricity could be limited to five to seven hours a day – or less – during the frigid months.

“Everything has to be weighed – our potential and the possible damage to our economy versus how much more damage could we cause them and their economy,” the Ukrainian official briefed on the planned Qatar summit said. “But energy is definitely critical for us. We sometimes forget about the economy here, but we’re facing free fall if there’s no light and heat in the winter.”

The Ukrainians preferred that a potential deal to halt energy infrastructure strikes could be reached in a similar way to the grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations in 2022 that led to Russia temporarily lifting a naval blockade, allowing Ukraine to transfer grain through the Black Sea.

Moscow then pulled out of the agreement last year, claiming only 3 percent of the grain went to the neediest nations despite U.N. figures showing the majority of the exports from the deal went to developing countries. However, Kyiv has continued to successfully move cargo out of its Black Sea ports with Ankara’s support.

A second Ukrainian official familiar with the potential agreement said that for an energy strike ban, “we talk with partners to be sure that the deal will work, not one-to-one with Russia, as it was.”

Kyiv has lobbied countries to support its 10-point peace plan, which includes a full Russian withdrawal. At a two-day summit in Switzerland in June that was organized by Ukraine, more than 80 countries’ delegations signed onto a joint statement that promoted prisoner exchanges, nuclear safety and food security.

Progress on other issues, such as energy security, was discussed in smaller working groups. Shortly after the summit, Qatar proposed the idea of an energy cease-fire and started discussing a potential plan with both sides, officials said. Ukrainian officials were receptive, they said, because they considered the talks as falling under Kyiv’s peace plan initiative and intended to involve partners in the energy security working group.

Ukraine did not invite a Russian delegation to the peace summit in June, but Zelenskyy has said Moscow will be invited to the next one, which expected to be held this fall. Some Ukrainian officials and Western diplomats have viewed that step as a sign that Kyiv is now more open to considering negotiations with Russia.

Other Ukrainian officials have quickly pointed out that Ukraine has always been receptive to talks but demand that those discussions respect Ukraine’s full territorial integrity.

Some Russian analysts said Ukraine’s daring seizure of Russian territory in the Kursk region could hand Ukraine a powerful bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Russia, if the Ukrainian troops succeed in building fortifications to defend their position before a full-scale Russian counterattack.

“Putin has said many times that any peace agreement should take into account the facts on the ground and that Russia will not leave the territory it has taken,” said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst.

Ukraine is trying “to break this formula and gain Russian territory to exchange,” he said.

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Hudson reported from Washington and Belton from London. David L. Stern in Kyiv and Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.