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Ukraine is desperate. Kyiv has submitted a proposal to Moscow through an intermediary to halt strikes on civilian targets and commercial shipping across the Black Sea — an implicit acknowledgment that the war is entering its final phase and Ukraine is losing the maritime dimension of it. The proposal seeks a mutual suspension of attacks on shipping and port facilities. Russia has not responded. Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko was blunt: “We have not received any formal proposals.” Translation: Russia sees no reason to accept terms from a weakening opponent.
The numbers tell the story. Ukrainian grain export volumes have collapsed 76 percent year-on-year in August as Russian strikes against commercial vessels forced shipowners to halt port calls across the southern Odesa region. Meanwhile, Ukrainian strikes on Novorossiysk forced Russia to suspend operations across all three of the port’s commercial terminals, compressing Russian grain export quotas as well. Both sides are bleeding economically through the Black Sea corridor, but Ukraine is bleeding faster.
This is what endgame looks like — not a dramatic battlefield collapse, but an incremental exhaustion of options. Ukraine’s independent maritime route is now under sustained attack and effectively strangled. Turkey has formally urged both sides to declare a Black Sea moratorium. The diplomatic architecture for an off-ramp is being quietly assembled. The question is whether Washington will allow Kyiv to take it — or continue pushing a proxy war whose costs fall primarily on Ukrainians.
2 comments
Let’s hope it’s finally the end!
Mr. Putin is requiring a long-term peace treaty and is not interested in any ceasefire. Zelenskiy has less than two years to launder the 90 billion euros the ‘coalition of the willing’ gave him so he can’t make peace as still get the money. He seems willing to sacrifice the former Russian oblasts to keep the grift going. Kharkiv, Dneipetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia which Putin will welcome into the Russian Federation to join Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk as lost sheep returned to the fold.