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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Putin’s trip to the Kuril Islands once again highlighted the main problem of any future peace between Ukraine and Russia: there will be no peace treaty.
The Southern Kurils were occupied by the USSR after World War II. This is an unlawful occupation, and Russian jurisdiction over them is not recognized by virtually any country in the world, including Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, and China. It is precisely for this reason that a peace treaty between Japan and Russia has not been concluded, because it requires mutual agreement on borders and sovereignty.
This example shows why there cannot be any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Under the current political regime in Russia, it will not relinquish the occupied territories and will not recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty. Ukraine itself theoretically cannot renounce its territories, because that is expressly prohibited by the Constitution. Therefore, until the Russian occupation is fully ended, a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia is impossible. Since a peace treaty is unattainable, the maximal result diplomacy can achieve is an agreement on a temporary ceasefire and an armistice. Something akin to the end of the war on the Korean Peninsula or between Turkey and Cyprus. And that is exactly what Russia categorically rejects from the first day of its full-scale invasion. Lavrov confirmed this again literally today.
In other words, until there is a change in the political regime in Moscow, officially the war between Ukraine and Russia will not end. Since Putin does not lose optimism about achieving his strategic goals by military means, only two things can stop him: the convinced belief of Putin that the war goals have already been achieved, or the realization that they cannot be achieved with the current resources, and that engaging new ones is impossible due to their absence or prohibitively high cost.
As can be seen, the strategy of negotiations by the U.S. administration is aimed at the first factor. From the beginning of 2025, Americans have offered various concessions that, taken together, could be interpreted by Putin as a “victory.” The arsenal of proposals ranges from lifting sanctions to official recognition of Russian jurisdiction over Crimea — so broad that even total military victory and turning Ukraine into a large “DPR” would not give Russia what Trump offers simply for a ceasefire.
Instead, the strategy of Ukraine and our European allies boils down to pursuing the second factor. It is about stopping the enemy’s advance on the front line and escalating hostilities on Russian territory. Under such pressure, Putin must realize the impossibility of achieving his goals when the price of further aggression becomes unacceptable.
The problem is that both factors are subjective and operate exclusively in the head of one person in the Kremlin. Putin’s strategic aim remains the destruction of an independent Ukraine, and that is what he fights for. He considers it his own historical mission, so he does not reckon with the price Russia pays and continues to raise the stakes.
On the other hand, Russia finds it increasingly difficult to wage war at such intensity and to marshal the resources for it. In the resource confrontation with Europe as a whole, as is effectively happening right now, the RF’s chances are far from flawless, especially since it is gradually turning itself into a “great DPR,” and it is not certain that this process can be halted.
Finally, consider the quote from Sergei Lavrov: “At some point this war will end. We will still defend our truth. But how to live afterwards, I cannot yet imagine.” In other words, Russia’s top leadership actually fully understands that the issue is not only when this war ends. The question is when Russia itself will stop treating its catastrophe as a victory. Only then will the Kremlin have a real incentive to stop the war.
Source: Mykola Knyazhitsky / Facebook
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Путіна зупинять лише дві речі". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Gordon.
