Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, calls for peace negotiations have been a constant sight in the Western media. The gist is always the same: The war is a bloody stalemate and total victory is impossible. To prevent further suffering and potential nuclear war, Kyiv must cede territory in exchange for peace. If it refuses, the West should force its hand.
Proponents of this view tend to share one thing in common, which is a lack of expertise on either country. Few regional specialists make the case for a peace deal, and for good reason: “Peace” and “deal” are just about the last words that could describe the likely outcome. What millions of Ukrainians will experience under Russian occupation is not peace but genocide. Any “deal,” meanwhile, will be shredded by Moscow at its earliest convenience.
Still, of all the pitfalls that would doom an agreement, one, in particular, stands out: A negotiated settlement is probably impossible. It is not that it won’t happen; it can’t happen.
A Security Guarantee
The first problem is the matter of ensuring Russia’s compliance. After all, we have seen this movie before—many times, in fact—and most Ukrainians are loath to endure another sequel.
Since Ukraine won independence in 1991, Russia has pledged to respect its territorial sovereignty on multiple occasions. Chief among these were the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the 1997 Russian-Ukrainian Treaty on Friendship.
Over the coming years, Moscow proceeded to trash these agreements. In 2003, it began construction on a causeway in the Kerch Strait in a brazen effort to extend control over an island belonging to Ukraine. Far more serious was its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in early 2014. At the time, Viktor Yanukovych, the would-be dictator backed by the Kremlin, had just fled to Russia along with most of the state treasury. With Ukraine bankrupt and its army a looted, emaciated shell, Russia took the opportunity to fulfill a longstanding imperialist goal.
One can understand, then, why Ukrainians will require more than a Russian handshake if they are to agree to a ceasefire, much less a final settlement. There is only one way to assuage their distrust, surveys show, and that is a guarantee from NATO or the U.S. to defend the country if Moscow invades again.
Then, after seizing Crimea, it made a bid for the country’s east and south. The first step was to manufacture an uprising, complete with paid protesters and fake organizations, in hopes of sparking a larger separatist rebellion. This failed, as the prospect of becoming Russia’s 86th federal subject seemed less than alluring to most of the local population.
Next, the Kremlin dispatched a collection of FSB officers and Russian Nazis to pose as native rebels. This too failed. So anemic was local support for secession that the ramshackle Ukrainian army, with the aid of improvised citizen battalions, pushed the Russian irregulars to the brink of defeat.
In a final act of desperation, Putin sent in the troops. The subsequent offensive managed to reverse the Ukrainian advances and force Kyiv to the negotiating table.
The result, in September 2014, was the first Minsk agreement, which mandated a ceasefire. Necessitating my use of the word “first” is that Moscow subsequently broke the ceasefire and captured additional territory, thus requiring a second Minsk agreement. Concluded in early 2015, Minsk II called for another ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the decentralization of power to Donetsk and Luhansk, and the holding of local elections under OSCE supervision, among other provisions.
Minsk II reads as if the whole matter could have been resolved by a simple devolution of power. In reality, it would have spelled the end of Ukrainian sovereignty in Donetsk and Luhansk. The new administrations that had just taken control there were comprised not of independent, homegrown separatists but Kremlin proxies installed by force of Moscow’s hand. Kyiv only agreed to this sham at the barrel of a Russian gun, one enabled by a disinterested France and Germany intent on wishing the problem away.
Minsk was a dead letter from the start. Russia saw it as a temporary stopping point toward its ultimate goal of rendering Ukraine a vassal state. Kyiv, for its part, had less and less incentive to comply as it rebuilt its military into a capable fighting force. Not that anyone can blame it for that; the only reason Minsk existed in the first place was because Russia, by occupying Crimea and invading Ukraine’s east, broke its own past pledges to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Even so, the bulk of the violations over the next seven years were Moscow’s doing. The last of these came in February 2022 when it launched a second, and far bigger, invasion.
One can understand, then, why Ukrainians will require more than a Russian handshake if they are to agree to a ceasefire, much less a final settlement. According to a recent opinion poll by the Carnegie Endowment,
Many Ukrainians may be open to negotiations in theory, but they overwhelmingly did not trust Russia to negotiate in good faith. Most Ukrainians (86 percent) believed that there is a medium or high risk that Russia will attack again even if there is a signed peace treaty, and even more (91 percent) believed that Russia’s motive to enter negotiations is to take time to prepare for a new attack.
There is only one way to assuage their distrust, surveys show, and that is a guarantee from NATO or the U.S. to defend the country if Moscow invades again.
If a security guarantee is a deal-breaker for the West, so too is it for Moscow—and not because it would infringe on its “legitimate security interests.” Rather, it would fatally undermine Russia’s ultimate goal, which is to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity.
Not wanting to appear obtuse, some commentators do include a security guarantee in their peace proposals. The Economist recommends skipping the negotiations altogether and simply accepting Ukraine into NATO now, with a commitment to defend it up to the current line of control.
The obvious rejoinder is: What happens the day after, when Russia, its army already fighting a war of conquest, decides to test that commitment? One of two things will happen, in fact: Either NATO will go to war and invite a nuclear apocalypse, or it will balk, obliterating its credibility and spelling the de facto end of the alliance.
NATO is not ready to risk a nuclear confrontation with Moscow over Ukraine—certainly not with Russian troops inside the country. It all but confirmed so at its July 2024 summit, which ended with a sheepish pledge to admit Kyiv at some point in the future “when Allies agree and conditions are met”—which is diplomacy-speak for “don’t hold your breath.”
Make no mistake: NATO membership for Ukraine is necessary. It is also possible—but only after Russia has been defeated and its forces expelled from the country.
Russia’s Genocidal Dream
If a security guarantee is a deal-breaker for the West, so too is it for Moscow—and not because it would infringe on its “legitimate security interests.” Rather, it would fatally undermine Russia’s ultimate goal, which is to destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity.
The fact that genocide is Moscow’s guiding objective is not my own opinion; it is Russia’s. On any given day, its state media is awash with genocidal rhetoric from top officials and state propagandists—only most of it is in Russian and so is rarely picked up by the Western press.
Not all of it is in Russian, though—as when Putin declared that Ukrainians are momentarily deluded Russians whose nation and state have no right to exist. His 2021 missive, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” is a statement of his personal mission to eliminate Ukrainian nationhood for good. What’s more, it is right there on the Kremlin’s website—in English—for everyone to see.
Yet, the essay has gone largely ignored in the West with a strained obliviousness that rivals the reception of Mein Kampf in the 1930s. All the while, Western commentators continue writing think pieces that are premised on the notion that Russia might possibly be content with a bit of Ukrainian land.
As I have noted previously, the existence of an independent Ukraine is incompatible with Russia’s founding myth, which regards Kyiv as the ancient seat of Russian state- and nationhood. Ukraine, according to this view, is where Russia began. As a result, the very presence of a separate Ukrainian identity, not to mention a Ukrainian nation-state, is nothing less than an attack on Russia’s conception of itself. If Ukraine exists, Russia does not.
Putin has bought into this idea completely, reporting by the Financial Times and Verstka has shown—so much so that he convinced himself that he could conquer Ukraine in a few days with just 190,000 troops. If Ukrainians are Russians at heart, he figured, they would surely greet his forces with enthusiasm or, at the very least, indifference.
The conviction that Ukraine is inherently Russian is why Moscow cannot be satisfied with only part of the country; it needs all of it. It is also why anything remotely resembling a Western security guarantee is out of the question as far as Russia is concerned.
It was this issue, above all, that doomed the April 2022 peace negotiations. Document drafts which have since been made public show that Ukraine was willing to agree to terms if the West would defend it from a future Russian attack. (Needless to say, the relevant Western governments were not consulted on this provision beforehand.) Then, at the last minute, Moscow submitted a new draft which would have allowed it to veto any Western decision to intervene. This was a nonstarter for Kyiv, and so the talks collapsed.
Ukraine Is Incapable of Abiding By the Terms
In sum, one reason a deal is impossible is the issue of a Western security guarantee. For Russia and the West, it is dead on arrival, yet Ukraine will not sign anything without it.
But let us imagine that, by some miracle, the three parties reach an accord that is acceptable to all. Unfortunately, this would not be the end of the matter, as one of two things, and perhaps both, would follow.
First, Zelensky would probably lose power. His replacement would demand major revisions to the deal if not scrap it altogether. While public opposition has abated in recent months, a decisive majority of Ukrainians continue to reject any proposal that surrenders territory to Russia—even if it means “the war will last longer and there will be threats to the preservation of independence.”
Barring a lasting shift in public opinion, the chances that a future Ukrainian leader follows through on a deal, while possible, are quite low.
If Europe and the U.S. tried to force Ukraine’s hand by cutting off arms shipments, it would not simply give up the fight. Instead, it would continue its struggle to liberate the country—and by means its erstwhile partners might find rather unpalatable.
But there exists a far more serious obstacle than that. If the Ukrainian government agreed to a settlement, a critical mass of active-duty soldiers would simply refuse to lay down their arms and would be joined by more than a few veterans.
According to the Carnegie poll, seven percent of Ukrainians report a willingness to engage in armed protest if the government signs a deal. That figure rises to fifteen percent among veteran and active-duty soldiers. The share that would actually follow on such talk is likely smaller than what the survey suggests. Either way, however, the makings of an armed rebellion are in place. If mass protests prove insufficient to compel a change in course by the government, many Ukrainians would conceivably join an insurgency in the east.
Such scenarios are hypothetical, of course. They will probably not materialize, as the only event that might bring them about—a peace deal—is itself unlikely to happen.
The Only Viable Option
The foregoing covers only some of the obstacles to a peace agreement. There are other impediments, too. Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, discusses some of these in a piece from earlier this year.
Let us stop with the endless parade of op-eds for a negotiated settlement. It is not going to happen—not for the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever. Urging “peace” is tantamount to organizing a petition for fewer cloudy days; it is not something in anyone’s power to bring about.
However resistant Kyiv might appear to a deal, it is tempting to presume that the West can use its influence to make it come to terms—perhaps, in the worst case, by threatening to cut off military support. But the chances that it would succeed are minuscule. If Europe and the U.S. were to cut off arms shipments, Ukraine would not simply give up the fight. Instead, it would continue its struggle to liberate the country—and by means its erstwhile partners might find rather unpalatable.
By suspending aid, the West would lose any leverage it has over where and how Ukraine fights. Possibilities once thought inconceivable would suddenly become very, very real. Sabotage attacks which cripple the import of Russian gas to Europe, targeted assassinations of Russian diplomats in Western capitals, and the revival of Ukraine’s nuclear program are just some of the alternatives that come to mind.
Don’t think it can happen? It can, and probably will.
So, what to do?
First, let us stop with the endless parade of op-eds for a negotiated settlement. It is not going to happen—not for the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever. Urging “peace” is tantamount to organizing a petition for fewer cloudy days; it is not something in anyone’s power to bring about.
Unless and until Ukraine declares its readiness for a deal, just give it what it needs to win—and the latitude to use it. Not only is it the right thing to do; it is all the West can do, at least if it wants any say in how the country goes about preserving its existence.
what i find amazing is that the west expects Ukraine to single-handedly take down russia -- to oppose which NATO was in fact conceived. do you really think after Ukraine wins we will need NATO? or we would ask for permission to reinstate our nuclear program? like, literally - _why_ would we?
ps.
all the west's hand wringing over possible nuclear attack looks extremely hypocritic -- taking into account the support (and arms) it provides to Israel which uses it to attack russian bases in Middle East -- with no nuclear attacks so far.
Ukraine lacks the resources, manpower, willpower, or military competence to keep fighting successfully. Russia can't keep it up forever but they don't have to. It's a no win situation ending in surrender, partition, and an accelerated Weimar period for Ukraine or total occupation/vassalization after the front collapses