Russia’s False Promises of Peace
As Putin’s cruel winter war drags on, renewed aid from the United States could tilt things decisively in Ukraine's favor.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE is stalled in almost every way. The front lines—despite the boasting of Russian propagandists and the obsessive map-measuring of some myopic commentators—are essentially static. The deep-strike campaigns on both sides are escalating in scale and sophistication, but not to the point that either side can break the other’s will or ability to keep fighting. Politically and diplomatically, President Donald Trump keeps spinning Russia, Ukraine, Europe, and the United States in circles without really moving them anywhere. This stalemate is a grim and depressing prospect.
But it’s also an opportunity.
The trilateral peace negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine, and the United States in Abu Dhabi, which opened on January 23, are scheduled to resume this week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the talks “constructive” and “productive,” which is diplomatic speak for “nothing doing.” But Russia is still demanding Ukraine cede the portion of the Donbas region it still controls—which includes the heavy military fortifications at Slovyansk and Kramatorsk—and Ukraine refuses to give it up. The issue of territory remains unresolved and possibly unresolvable. Russia continues to act, and even talk, in ways suggesting that it has no real interest in a peace agreement. And Trump continues to fuel speculation that, for one reason or another, he is doing the Kremlin’s bidding.
The public signals from Russia right now are schizophrenic: Sergei Ushakov, one of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s top aides, invited Zelensky to Moscow for peace talks and guaranteed his security, while Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Dmitry Medvedev bragged about a Russian “military victory” and ominously predicted that Zelensky “will not keep his head on his shoulders.”
Meanwhile, last Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that “we do not comment publicly on negotiations that are meant to be conducted in confidential silence”—but then quickly pooh-poohed U.S. claims that the peace agreement was “90 percent finalized.” He suggested that Russia’s essential position had not budged from Putin’s June 2024 proposal (which included a demand that Ukraine surrender, in their entirety, the four regions Russia had formally annexed in September 2022), or even from the terms offered in Istanbul in April 2022 (which would have left Ukraine essentially disarmed).
In the same remarks, Lavrov made it clear that Russia’s goals still included regime change in Kyiv. Proposed Western security guarantees for Ukraine amounted to “guarantees for the same Ukrainian regime that pursues a Russophobic, neo-Nazi policy,” Lavrov said. “If the goal is to preserve this regime in some part of the territory of former Ukraine and continue to use this regime as a springboard for creating threats to the Russian Federation, then, obviously, it’s very unlikely that such guarantees can ensure a stable peace.” It’s worth noting that this is not a new position: Lavrov had made an almost identical statement at a January 20 press conference, saying that any settlement intended to preserve “the current Nazi regime in what remains of the Ukrainian state” was “unacceptable” to the Kremlin.
Each of these men has reasons for toeing his own line, and none of them is necessarily a reliable guide to Russian policy. Whether Ushakov’s job is to reach a deal or merely to prolong the negotiations, he has every reason to keep the talks going, even if that means making faux-friendly noises toward Zelensky. Medvedev, once seen as the reformist, technocratic designated successor to Putin, has long ago morphed, willingly or not, into the regime’s designated tame pitbull. Lavrov, who is 75 and has been in his current role for more than two decades, has had little influence in shaping policy for more than a decade. At the same time, it’s extremely unlikely that any one of the three would be making statements that run counter to the preferences of the man who is really in charge.
WHICH BRINGS US to Putin himself. He has maintains that Russia intends to achieve “all the goals of the special military operation” by either diplomatic or military means. The stated goals of that operation have been formulated in a variety of ways, from protecting the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine (presumably by relentlessly bombing it) to Russian self-defense against NATO enlargement or American “biolabs” on Ukrainian territory or even the menace of gay liberation. But the objective of toppling the “Nazi” regime in Ukraine—Putin’s jargon for undoing Ukraine’s 2014 pro-Western revolution and bringing it under Russia’s heel—remains a constant.
Can there be meaningful peace negotiations when so much Russian rhetoric treats Ukrainian capitulation as non-negotiable?
Russian actions, in this instance, fully match Putin’s rhetoric and suggest that the peace talks are little more than a stalling tactic. This winter has seen a horrifying escalation of Russia’s war on Ukraine’s civilians, with relentless missile and drone attacks that deliberately target not only residential areas but power facilities—leaving millions to suffer a brutal winter without heat, and, due to frozen pipes, without water.1 This campaign of terror is clearly meant to compensate for Russian failures on the ground—not just as sadistic revenge against a population that refuses to be conquered, but as a calculated strategy to break its resistance. Judging by the Ukrainians’ incredible resourcefulness and resiliency in coping with the blackouts, this diabolical calculus won’t work: The residents of Kyiv threw a dance party on the frozen Dnipro River last month.
The “energy ceasefire” touted by Trump as a concession from Putin—a supposed weeklong break from strikes at power facilities as a respite in a time of extreme weather conditions—turned out be another cynical ploy: The “ceasefire” was more like three days—and the Russians decided that it applied only to Kyiv. On Sunday, Russian drones struck a shuttle bus taking miners home from a work shift in southern Ukraine, killing twelve people and injuring at least fifteen—while another bombing targeted a maternity hospital, injuring at least six people.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to have his Russia-friendly moments, praising Putin’s “very nice” supposed agreement to pause energy-infrastructure strikes and tentatively inviting Putin to join his “Board of Peace” (which has already welcomed Putin’s ally and fellow dictator Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus). As we now know, a photo of Putin and Trump from their summit in Anchorage last summer is on proud display in the White House’s Palm Room.
With the renewed focus on the Jeffrey Epstein files, and with evidence of the late sex-offender financier’s contacts with Russia—including Russians with intelligence connections—the theory that Putin may have some uniquely damaging kompromat on Trump may have gotten another boost. Yet other aspects of Trump’s policies are difficult to square with the idea that Trump is scared to cross Putin—including not only the removal of Putin client Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela but the U.S. seizure last month of a Russian-flagged tanker illicitly transporting Venezuelan oil. (The Russian Foreign Ministry deplored the act as “a gross violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international maritime law.”) The French Navy seized another such tanker late last month. And the United States is now pitching Venezuelan oil to India as a replacement for Russian imports. Anything that hurts Russia’s oil exports also hurts its war effort—and, when hurting Russia’s interests serves some other goals of Trump’s, such as installing a more amenable government in Venezuela and seizing control over its oil, he has no problem hurting Russia’s interests.
That doesn’t change the fact that over the past year, Trump’s pursuit of “peace” in Ukraine has effectively enabled Russia’s war. The likely motives are many: Trump’s ego-driven quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, his interest in business deals with Russia, even a half-baked strategy of decoupling Russia and China. The Trump/Putin “bromance,” based on Trump’s well-known admiration for authoritarian strongmen, has been a factor as well. But despite that photo in the Palm Room, it seems evident that the bromance has waned, perhaps because the strongman isn’t looking so strong these days: He can’t even protect his oil tankers. Over the past year, Russian troops in Ukraine have advanced, on average, at the rate of about 45 feet a day, while suffering massive losses. They still haven’t captured Pokrovsk, weeks after its imminent fall was in the news—while repeated claims by Russia’s top brass to have taken the town of Kupyansk have become a joke.
Despite this snail-paced and costly progression, Putin likely counts on breaking down Ukraine’s defenses by spring, through a combination of grinding pressure on the front lines and morale-breaking terror from the skies. His intentions may be based on deceptively optimistic reports from his generals—but that doesn’t make his tactics any less harrowing.
The United States does not have to stand by. With Russia limping and the Trump administration chastened by its domestic political troubles, the time is ripe for both Democrats and pro-Ukraine Republicans in Congress to seize the initiative and push for meaningful assistance to Ukraine—above all, more air defense systems and more long-range weapons—so that the pressure is on Russia to accept a just peace.
In a harrowing story rife with grim symbolism, a 90-year-old Ukrainian Holocaust survivor, Yevhenia Bezfamilny, froze to death in her Kyiv apartment, killed by Russia’s de facto fascist regime 85 years after her parents were killed by the Nazis in the massacre at Babyn Yar.
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What are the chances that Democrats win decisively enough next year to pass veto-proof legislation giving Ukraine what it needs? And can Ukraine hold out that long?