After a short period of further hopes for a “breakthrough” in the Ukraine issue and discussions about how Vladimir Putin will reach Budapest, it has become clear that the Kremlin's charm is less and less effective on US President Donald Trump. Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not receive Tomahawks from him that would irritate Moscow, the tone of his meeting in Washington was not very promising, but the overall result of the telephone conversation on October 16 [Trumpa z Putinem] there were the first sanctions against Russia under the current administration and the strengthening of American pressure on China, whose leader Trump had scheduled a meeting with [odbyło się 30 października br.]. A portly man (a friend of Putin's daughter), Kirill Dmitriev, who was urgently sent to Washington, was received there with open skepticism, met with ridicule and malicious comments.
So on the one hand, we have Donald Trump – with his pursuit of peace as the basis for all cooperation. It must be admitted that this aspiration is not a game or intended to confuse partners: it is completely sincere and results from the character of the American president as an entrepreneur. Trump believes that humans were created for business, not to senselessly kill each other; that's why he always repeats how many soldiers die every day in Ukraine or how many lives his peacekeeping activities allegedly save in other regions of the world.
It was naive to think that an American leader could be “bought” by promises to mine rare earth metals in Russia or dig a senseless hole under the Bering Strait. Both of these issues can be discussed, but only after a truce has been established.
On the other hand, we have Vladimir Putin, who insists on “eliminating the root causes of the conflict” and is counting on further military successes – even though most analysts say that the conquest of Ukraine will take decades. To add credibility to its demands, the Kremlin continues to scare Europe with drones and the world with new types of nuclear weapons, while preparing the ground for expanding the secret mobilization of reservists by slightly and formally reducing the military budget.
Meanwhile the main obstacle remains Putin's own logic regarding the “root causes of the conflict” and the need to remove them.
Back to the future
Any dialogue – between intellectuals, businessmen or politicians – is only possible when the parties either share views on some common principles or can reach some agreement on these issues, deviating slightly from their points of view. In the case at hand, this seems fundamentally impossible because the Kremlin's demands confirm that it does not treat fundamental elements of international law as indisputable – and therefore, even if at first glance the conflict could be interpreted as a conflict between Russia and the West, it is in fact a confrontation between Moscow and the rest of the world.
The famous “root causes” (not to mention “NATO's approach to Russia's borders”) include: “the coup in Ukraine, provoked by the West, which led to the removal of political leaders who did not support the country's accession to NATO”; constant attempts by the West to militarize Ukraine and draw it into alliances and military blocs; “Kiev's violation of the Minsk agreements” and many others.
The Kremlin demands “ensuring the interests of our people in those territories … where people live for whom Russian is their native language and Russia is their homeland.” All this indicates that the issue of occupied territories, the border along the line of clashes, security guarantees for Kiev and, in general, most of the issues that Ukrainian and Western leaders are somehow ready to discuss, in principle, cannot ensure the kind of end to the conflict that Moscow would agree to.
Two things are obvious.
On the one hand, the Kremlin is referring to events and decisions that have long become irreversible. The result of the 2014 “revolution of dignity” was the escape of Viktor Yanukovych and the presidential elections in Ukraine, which legally brought Petro Poroshenko to power. Volodymyr Zelensky's victory in subsequent elections has created a line of continuity that cannot be questioned.
Even if we still consider the 2014 “coup” illegal, the government of any other country can only refuse to recognize the new authorities, but cannot demand their change. The problem of the “Minsk agreements” also does not seem relevant today: firstly, because Russia, strictly speaking, has never been a party to them, or even an official guarantor – and cannot justify its demands and actions by the actions of third countries; secondly, because even from the Kremlin's point of view, the Donbas “republics” first became independent states recognized by Russia, and then became part of the Russian Federation, and there is no longer any question of their special status within Ukraine.
Finally, the demands “not to include Ukraine in NATO” mean Moscow's willingness to determine the foreign policy course of an independent state, a full member of the international community, i.e. Moscow questions the very doctrine of sovereignty, to which the entire system of international law refers.
In other words, even this part of Russia's demands implies a refusal to recognize Ukraine as an independent state and proposes that Western powers divide it into spheres of influence, formally or informally, based on Putin's historical fantasies and an outdated approach to world politics, based on Soviet maxims known to Putin and people like Sergei Lavrov since their student days. It would be completely naive to expect that Kyiv and its allies would agree to this.
On the other hand, Moscow continues to insist on ensuring “the rights of our people” — most likely in territory it is prepared to recognize as Ukrainian even after (and in the event of) the end of the conflict. Will it be able to provide it itself in the occupied territories, in the sense and on such a scale as it deems appropriate?
This includes both the famous “denazification” and the granting of the status of an official language to the Russian language, and even the cessation of “persecution” of the structures of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and many other claims. However, international law does not place demands on any country regarding language or religious policy, as this is an internal matter of sovereign states. We can only talk about respecting the rights of foreigners, and not about “our people”, whose affiliation is determined completely arbitrarily. Even the Russian constitution as amended by Putin stipulates in art. 61 section 2 that “the Russian Federation guarantees its citizens protection and patronage beyond its borders”, without mentioning any other basis for such “patronage”.
By demanding that Kiev change its policy in the religious sphere, the Kremlin actually wants to return to the old days, once again forgetting about its own constitution, which in Art. 14 defines the Russian Federation as a secular state in which religious associations are separated from the state, which excludes the protection of their interests from foreign policy priorities.
In other words, for various reasons, all of Putin's demagoguery regarding the “protection of the rights of Russian speakers” has nothing to do with the norms of international law and cannot constitute a basis for making demands on the authorities of other countries.
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Compromise is impossible
All this basically makes it impossible to talk about the possibility of a compromise that would lead to an end to the conflict that has been going on for over 10 years. All that Kiev and its Western allies are willing to discuss comes down to defining new borders and demarcation lines. Even this issue is extremely complex, because any international recognition of new demarcation lines would confirm the possibility of changing state borders by force, which has not happened since the end of World War II. The last 80 years have been marked by the creation of new states as a result of secession, but not the transfer of territories from one country to another. If we add to this the “root causes” invented by Putin, achieving a mutually acceptable solution to the conflict is simply impossible.
We do not know whether the Kremlin's goal was to turn the war in Ukraine into a kind of permanent state – this cannot be ruled out, since such a situation provides Putin with the opportunity to manage the country in conditions of an actual state of emergency – but it is difficult to assume that Kiev and its allies are ready to seriously discuss this entire “wish list” of Putin. The current pause in Donald Trump's attempts to accelerate the peace process is primarily due to the emerging understanding not that Putin's demands are unacceptable but irrational. It will not decrease depending on how far Russian troops can advance (currently, the Kremlin is actively disseminating information about further military successes), how many new soldiers the authorities will be able to mobilize into the Russian army (by changing the regulations on reservists or other methods), and what new nuclear missiles will be introduced into the armed forces (the Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov recently spoke so enthusiastically about the prospects).
This is why I currently see no real possibility of resuming productive consultations between Moscow and Western capitals – and the saddest thing is that by repeating the theses about the “root causes of the conflict”, Putin is astonishingly persistent in sending a signal to his partners that in any changed circumstances he will remain essentially unable to reach an agreement. At a time when it is widely believed that the West is gradually losing its global dominance, the last thing it should do is undermine the foundations of international law that still frame the current world order. The Kremlin, as has long become clear, views the war in Ukraine as a conflict that should destroy this order — but the more clearly the West understands this, the less willing it will be to agree to Moscow's terms.
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Unfortunately, in recent days we have received further confirmation that Putin's political orientations are incompatible with the modern world and its legal foundations. This is why lasting peace on Russia's borders is unattainable any time soon – and sooner or later Trump, who still cannot understand why the war is still not over, will have to acknowledge this fact…
I’m Ashley Davis as an editor, I’m committed to upholding the highest standards of integrity and accuracy in every piece we publish. My work is driven by curiosity, a passion for truth, and a belief that journalism plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse. I strive to tell stories that not only inform but also inspire action and conversation.
