With Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Riyadh in late March, diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine entered a new stage.
The two sides, however, are not meeting in person. Instead, in an effort to mediate a cease-fire and lay the foundations for long-term peace, U.S. negotiators are using so-called shuttle diplomacy, by holding separate meetings with both Russia and Ukraine.
It is strategy that, diplomats say, is remarkably similar to the negotiations that brought the Bosnian War to a close 30 years ago.
The Dayton peace accords, finalized in November 1995 at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, were the result of frantic US shuttle diplomacy with the Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian leaders.
How Shuttle Diplomacy Worked
The meetings in the Saudi capital on March 23-25 to end the war, which is now in its fourth year, somewhat resemble the events around Dayton, says Christopher Hill, the former US ambassador to Serbia and North Macedonia.
As the deputy to Richard Holbrooke, the chief US negotiator and "architect" of the Dayton accords, Hill was closely involved in the peace process.
"We found that when they got together, they would just give speeches about their disagreements and why they are right and the other side is wrong. So we found shuttle diplomacy a much more effective tool," Hill explains.
In the effort to achieve peace, US diplomats conducted meetings in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo, as well as in Geneva. The goal, Hill says, was to get a real sense of what each side were looking for and then try to narrow it down. “And then, finally, toward the end of [the] Dayton [process], we started to get [them] together in the same room,” Hill recalls.
This method, Hill says, was used numerous times by Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state under President Richard Nixon, as well as by Middle East negotiators. “But I think it was rather successful with Bosnia,” he adds.
The Dayton accords were finally signed in Paris on December 14, 1995, and marked the end of a conflict that left 100,000 people dead, 2 million displaced, and the young country of Bosnia in ruins.
Mate Granic, who was the deputy chief negotiator for Croatian President Franjo Tudjman during the time of Dayton, says shuttle diplomacy is useful when the various positions are far apart.
"Ukraine seeks a just peace, while Russia has made it clear that it does not even want to discuss the occupied territories. Moscow also refuses to allow NATO peacekeeping forces or further military aid to Ukraine," Granic says. "Given this, shuttle diplomacy is the logical starting point."
A participant in the Dayton process, Nebojsa Vujovic, a member of the delegation led by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, says the current US tactics with Ukraine and Russia could possibly bring them closer together -- just as Richard Holbrooke managed in the 1990s.
The Bosnian War: From Death And Destruction To Dayton
"The fact that [US President Donald] Trump and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin are speaking by phone, as well as Trump and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, while the US envoy visits Kyiv and Moscow and reports back to Trump, means that shuttle diplomacy is currently bringing things to a point where an initial cease-fire agreement might emerge," says Vujovic.
After the conclusion of the Saudi talks last week, the United States announced separate agreements with Russia and Ukraine on efforts to stop strikes on energy facilities in both countries and on prohibiting the use of force in the Black Sea.
Lessons From Dayton
Holbrooke once called Dayton an "imperfect peace." The agreement created two entities -- Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- three constituent peoples, one district, 10 cantons, and a three-member presidency. Despite attempts in 2006 and 2009 to amend the Dayton accords -- an annex to which serves as the country’s constitution -- no substantial changes have been implemented.
Reflecting on the Dayton process three decades later and what lessons could be learned for future negotiations, including those between Ukraine and Russia, Hill emphasizes that continued engagement is important.
"I think that's going to be necessary. You can't just say, 'Well, that problem's over. We'll go on to the next one,'" Hill says.
Could there, in the future, be a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy? Hill thinks that's unlikely.
"I think Putin has assured [us] that there will be enmity between Ukraine and Russia for many generations," Hill says. "And so I would not try to put them together [so] that somehow they will feel that they are brothers or something, because that's not going to happen."
While Bosnia remains burdened by divisions and dysfunctionality, it has experienced nearly three decades of peace -- making Dayton one of the more successful peace agreements in modern history.
Dayton's success, according to Croatian negotiator Granic, was that it was a compromise with solid-enough foundations. “But, of course, further work and negotiations are [still] needed,” he adds.
Former Serbian diplomat Vujovic agrees. “It established a peace that has lasted for almost 30 years. Dayton...prevented destruction and loss of life, and, at the same time, created two entities that have remained stable, enabling some form of coexistence,” he says.
While the 1995 agreement had its flaws, Hill emphasizes that the United States didn't impose anything on anyone. “We were mediators," he says. "We were trying to get things that both sides -- actually, three sides -- could live with. That was hard to do.”
Ultimately, wars do end, Hill notes, and when you look at how they conclude, diplomacy usually plays a role.
"How big a role is yet to be determined. I think there's a logic to ending this war. You know, certainly Ukraine has been destroyed, but I think, in many respects, Russia has suffered profound damage, and not just from drones, but in terms of how its perceived in the world," he says
"I don't think anyone's going to look at Russians the same. It has to end. But how it ends is hard to say."
