Ukraine’s Clocks: Has the Peace Clock Begun to Tick?

A service member of pro-Russian troops walks near an apartment building destroyed in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 28, 2022. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Commentary

Though they “tick” at different rates, several notional clocks symbolizing intertwined military, diplomatic, and information warfare “lines of operation” run simultaneously in Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine. Real world actions and effects (destruction, death, perhaps rational mediation) speed or slow the clocks. At least one of these clocks may offer a route to a ceasefire and perhaps a grim peace.