Somehow It's Never the Right Time for Diplomacy

The longer that it takes to get the process started, the longer it will be before the war is brought to an end.

Rajan Menon makes the case against negotiations between Ukraine and Russia:

Russia and Ukraine may eventually hold talks on a political settlement. But now is not the time to initiate them.

One of the problems with waiting to negotiate until you are in a position of strength is that you can end up losing ground and being forced to negotiate from a weaker position than the one you were in before. Counseling delay makes sense only if your side is reasonably confident that it will not suffer additional reverses in the near future. It would still be wiser to begin preparing for negotiations and putting out feelers to the Russians now to see what kind of deal might be possible. Negotiations will likely be a long process, so they need to begin well before either side is ready to come to terms. The longer that it takes to get the process started, the longer it will be before the war is brought to an end.