The Blind Spot in the Calls for ‘Peace’ in Ukraine

Russian realities point to an increasingly militarized society

Vladimir Putin in Beijing in May 2024. (Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru/Creative Commons 4.0 International)

Earlier this month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban embarked on a peace mission in a bid to end the Russo-Ukrainian War. He made stops in Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing, Washington, and Mar-a-Lago, the summer residence of Donald Trump. On July 18, Orban released a 10-point statement summarizing his initiative. While he assailed the "pro-war" policy of the Biden Administration, he made no mention of Russia's behavior. On July 10, a group of eight international relations scholars and former diplomats published a letter in the Financial Times entitled "Seize peace in Ukraine before it’s too late." Also not mentioning Russian behavior, they called for a "negotiated peace" and for Ukraine to accept "some territorial concessions." (Trump has said repeatedly that he could end the war in "24 hours," which given Putin's inflexible stance likely means Ukraine losing vast swaths of its territory.)

Neither the letter nor Orban's statement made any mention of Russia's stated goal of dismantling Ukraine as an independent state. Russian officials have said publicly that ceding territory would not be enough. Kremlin official Dmitry Medvedev, who used to be Russia's president and prime minister, had this to say about Ukraine earlier this month: "Even after signing the papers and accepting defeat, the remaining radicals, after regrouping their forces, will sooner or later return to power, inspired by Russia's Western enemies. And then the time will come to finally crush the reptile."

Since day one of the war, Putin has not wavered from his terms for Ukraine's capitulation, which would render Ukraine a vassal state of Russia, as Belarus is. He most recently reiterated the terms in June. He wants full military withdrawal from the four eastern and southern Ukrainian territories Moscow only partially controls and abandonment of its efforts to join NATO.

Amid a devastating war, It is a comforting thought that "some" territorial concessions (the letter-writers do not spell out what they mean by "some") would bring it to an end. However, history illustrates that territorial concessions have not stopped Moscow. In February 2015, Kyiv adopted the Minsk agreements, which provided for a cease-fire and effectively froze Russian control over Crimea and Donbas. Ukrainians had little choice but to accept these terms due to the tattered state of their military; the agreement failed to prevent Russia from launching a full-scale invasion in 2022.

These calls for peace come amid what France-based Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya called "a significant decline in interest regarding Russia's internal affairs."  On X, she noted that Western analysts are devising ideas about Russia without regard to its internal politics: "the thinking is: let them live as they wish, but we will devise our strategies based on the risks associated with an unpredictable Russia." 

There is less information than ever about the internal affairs of Russia due to the wartime censorship and the imprisonment of journalists. Additionally, since the death of warlord and mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, there has been very little elite politics visible inside Russia. However, recent evidence points to an increasingly militarized society.