When the history of the war in Ukraine is written, one question demanding extended treatment will be why diplomacy remained sidelined for so long. Conflicts involving major powers and their proxies have in recent decades (think of Korea, Vietnam, and the Balkans) finished mainly not in outright military victories but in negotiated settlements. Now, with reports of U.S. President Donald Trump reaching directly out to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, it is important to reassess why the long-standing insistence on diplomacy by Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was not met with more support. 

Tokayev’s early insistence on negotiations was instead met with scepticism. As the war ground on, Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive (planned and mandated by Western advisors) failed while Russia’s entrenchment in the occupied territories continued. The fact that a Trump–Putin call has taken place, bypassing European leaders, underscores the shift of view in Washington.

Kazakhstan’s foreign policy approach to the war in Ukraine has been dictated by its unique geopolitical position. As a founding member of both the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Kazakhstan’s economic and security ties to Russia are extensive. At the same time, its leadership has consistently pursued a multivector foreign policy, balancing engagement with China, the European Union, and the United States.

Tokayev’s refusal at the June 2022 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to recognize the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics signalled Kazakhstan’s commitment to sovereignty and neutrality. In November 2022, Kazakhstan began to reduce Moscow’s leverage over its energy sector by sending oil for export via the Caspian Sea, into pipelines in the South Caucasus, bypassing the established route through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium via southern Russia.

Had global policymakers taken Tokayev’s warnings more seriously in 2022 and 2023, certain escalations might have been mitigated. Kazakhstan was not alone in advocating for negotiations. Turkey brokered a grain shipment deal in 2022, and the Vatican attempted discreet backchannel diplomacy. However, Kazakhstan’s deep historical and economic ties to Russia gave its perspective unique weight.

Kazakhstan’s approach was pragmatic. Western states viewed engagement as legitimizing Russian aggression. From Central Asia, however, the view was that indefinite warfare would destabilize Eurasia and inflict mounting costs on all stakeholders, not least Moscow.

The West dismissed calls for diplomacy as naïve or as concessions to Moscow. Western leaders continued to believe military pressure, coupled with economic sanctions, was the only viable means of deterring Russian aggression. This may have been true if the military pressure had been an order of magnitude stronger from the beginning, rather than a slow drip of weapons systems that never had a chance of making a decisive difference.

The reluctance of Western leaders to consider early diplomacy was not entirely unfounded. The atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha and Mariupol made any engagement politically fraught. Ukraine, emboldened by Western military aid, had every reason to resist diplomatic settlements that would lock in its territorial losses.

Smaller states often possess a more acute awareness of the dangers of prolonged great-power conflicts than the great powers themselves. By advocating early in favor of negotiations, Tokayev was expressing a reality that major actors are only now reluctantly accepting: wars fought with ambiguous objectives and open-ended commitments ultimately end in exhaustion, not triumph.

To consider this does not elide the moral complexities of the conflict. Ukraine had every justification for its resistance against Russia’s imposition of its geopolitical vision by force of arms. Yet, both nations have endured heavy costs. 

To be clear, Kazakhstan was never in a position to dictate the terms of a settlement. Its influence was inherently limited. There was little reason to believe that Moscow would have entertained peace proposals from a neighboring post-Soviet nation in 2022. Yet, the significance of Tokayev’s stance lies not in direct leverage but in the alternative path he articulated.

European unity on the question, though resilient, has faced economic strain. Energy markets have suffered volatility, and defense expenditures have surged beyond pre-war projections. The cohesion of the Western alliance, though still intact, faces increasing pressures from political transitions, economic challenges, and shifting strategic priorities. Specifically, President Trump’s new appointees to policymaking positions in the Defense Department have long argued that America’s strategic focus must change.

Those appointees insist that this focus must go beyond the war in Ukraine to take into account the long-term competition with China and the maintenance of global stability. The fact that Trump and Putin are now engaging in direct discussions—likely without European leaders playing a central role—reflects a shifting geopolitical reality. 

Moving forward, there are lessons to draw from Kazakhstan’s approach. The first is that smaller yet strategically positioned nations like Kazakhstan should be taken more seriously in conflict resolution efforts. The assumption that their diplomatic initiatives are secondary to Western grand strategy may need to be re-examined. Second, policymakers must reconsider when diplomacy becomes politically viable.

In this altered environment, Kazakhstan’s argument about the inevitably of diplomacy is proven correct. That is not to argue that Kazakhstan’s position was flawless, or that the country had the power to unilaterally alter the course of the war. Rather, it means that the rest of the world has finally arrived at the negotiations that Tokayev had recognized as necessary years ago.