The Ukraine Deal on the Table Isn’t Peace

Russia has never honored a security agreement when violating it served its goals

Licensed by the author from Envato Elements

Today, I simultaneously published this article on both Medium and Substack. I generally try to avoid this so each audience has unique writings, but I felt this one was important.

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There’s a familiar smell in the air. It’s the smell of Trump promising peace.

God, I want peace for the Ukrainians. And I look forward to the day I can stop writing about war and pivot to writing about Ukraine’s reconstruction and their future role in Europe.

And this week, headlines are screaming optimism. Ukraine, the US, and Russia are (depending on which spokesperson you believe) “close,” “very close,” or “at a crucial juncture” for a peace deal that would end the war.

The White House says the final details are “delicate.”

But Russia says it will agree only if the terms match what Putin believes he heard during the Alaska summit with Trump.

That alone should alarm anyone with a memory longer than a house plant.

Ukraine has been here before. Twice. And Russia violated the agreement both times while Western leaders congratulated themselves on “achieving peace.”

What Kyiv sees today isn’t a diplomatic breakthrough. It’s the opening act of a trap.

The risk isn’t theoretical. It’s strategic, generational, and very real.

The Ghost of 2014 Is Standing in the Room

When analysts talk about Russia violating the Minsk agreements, it sounds antiseptic and technical. “Violated” is what you write on a traffic ticket. What Russia actually did was knife a peace deal on the table while the world watched.

Allow me to refresh your memory. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine using “little green men” for plausible deniability then built up the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) breakaway regions inside Ukrainian territory.

Russia claims the CIA funded the Euromaidan (that’s BS) where Ukrainians sought closer ties with Europe over Russia.

Then war started.

In September of 2014, Minsk I peace agreement collapsed within days. In 2015, Minsk II collapsed more politely, on paper, but on the ground it was a farce. Russia kept sending fighters, weapons, and officers over the border to the LPR and DPR. Ukrainian troops kept dying in trench lines that were never supposed to exist.

So, you’ll forgive Ukrainians for flinching when they hear the words “peace framework” followed by a Russian demand that the terms in Trump’s new plan match the “understanding” Putin believes he secured privately in Alaska.

Ukraine knows exactly how Russia treats agreements. Russia treats them like speed bumps.

There’s a dangerous pattern forming in Trump’s Ukraine policy: every time Russia growls, Trump pivots. Earlier this year, the administration flirted with a plan that froze the front lines, recognized Crimea as Russian, and tossed Ukraine into a security gray zone.

Just a reminder: Crimea is Ukraine. Full stop.

Now we’re back to that same logic dressed up in nicer adjectives.

Trump wants a “deal.”

Putin wants Ukraine.

Those two goals are dangerously compatible.

This is the same Donald Trump who has said, repeatedly, that he doesn’t believe in defending NATO states that “don’t pay.” Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia… countries that still support Ukraine and still fear Russia, are not going to impress a man who judges alliances like he judges real estate: square footage first, democracy second.

If Trump thinks he can trade Ukrainian territory for a photo op and a Nobel and then hand Putin a de facto veto over Ukraine’s military, he will do it. It fits his worldview neatly. Peace through paperwork. Deterrence through declarations. Guarantees through… hope.

It’s all very tidy until the BMPs start exploding again.

While Washington tries to “manage” the optics, Emmanuel Macron is talking like someone who lives closer to Moscow than Miami.

His warning was blunt: Ukraine needs real security guarantees, soldiers on the ground, because Russia cannot be trusted by ink alone.

Macron knows what happens after a bad peace deal. Europe lives next to Russia; America lives an ocean away. If this peace looks anything like the early drafts, Ukraine gets boxed into neutrality, the front lines freeze in Russia’s favor, and Putin gets breathing room.

And breathing room is the one thing Russia desperately needs to rebuild for the next war.

Ukraine destroys Russian supply hubs every week. Russia’s industrial base is straining. Missile stockpiles are volatile. The Black Sea Fleet shrinks every month. And Russia’s glide-bomb factories are operating 24/7 to keep pace with demand.

A bad peace agreement gives the Kremlin what its defense industry cannot: time.

Europe is terrified that the US will negotiate a deal that places Ukraine into a holding pen while Putin sharpens his knives.

That’s why Macron keeps shouting across the Atlantic: guarantees must be military, real, and enforceable.

“Paper guarantees” already failed in 2014. Ukraine died by paperwork once. It won’t survive a second time.

The Abu Dhabi Meetings: A Concerning Signal

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meeting Russian officials in Abu Dhabi. That alone isn’t strange; talking to adversaries is normal. The strange part is Russia’s foreign minister warning that Moscow will reject any plan that deviates from the “understanding” Trump reached with Putin in Alaska.

Let’s translate that from diplomatic language into human speech:

“Give Putin what he wants, or we’re out.”

Russia is trying to lock the US into a bilateral “promise” allegedly made during a private conversation. That is extortion with a handshake.

Russia wants Trump locked into its preferred terms before Ukraine arrives at the table. And the fact that Moscow is confident enough to say that publicly tells you everything about how they interpret Washington’s mood.

They believe they have leverage. They believe Trump wants a result more than a resolution. They believe this White House is eager to declare peace, even if the peace is fatal.

Ukraine sees that too.

Zelensky’s team says “minor details” are unresolved. But Zelensky himself is more cautious. He’s seen enough “minor details” turn into major catastrophes.

His potential trip to Washington to “complete final steps” is being framed as a diplomatic triumph. In Kyiv, it feels more like walking into a negotiation where one partner is tired, one partner is hostile, and the third partner has a gun under the table.

Zelensky cannot accept a deal that amputates Ukraine’s sovereignty.

So the Kremlin’s strategy is simple: Make the US carry the scalpel.

If Trump forces Ukraine to concede territory or military power, Russia gets the strategic depth it lost. If Zelensky refuses, Trump can blame Kyiv for “rejecting peace.” Either outcome is useful to Moscow.

Russia Wants a Pause, Not Peace

Let’s consider Russia’s position:

The war is costly.

The losses are exhausting.

The equipment burn rate is catastrophic.

Ukraine’s drone and missile strikes hit deeper every month.

And Russia’s airbases, oil refineries, and depots are burning like seasonal traditions.

If you’re Putin, and your economy is collapsing, you need one thing: relief, preferably disguised as diplomacy, an off ramp, or a victory.

A formal ceasefire doesn’t stabilize the battlefield. It locks in Russia’s territorial gains and turns occupied land into a negotiating asset.

With the lines frozen, Moscow can rotate in fresh units, rebuild battered brigades, and reposition forces without the pressure of daily Ukrainian strikes. A pause also gives Russia time to replenish missile stockpiles and push its glide-bomb factories back into overdrive, restoring the very tools it has been using to hammer Ukrainian cities.

The moment the shooting slows, China and Iran can increase their support with far less scrutiny, moving components, drones, and raw materials into Russia’s industrial bloodstream while calling it “postwar assistance.”

Moscow can then treat any Ukrainian attempt to disrupt these build-ups as a violation of the ceasefire, weaponizing the agreement itself. And once Russia has pulled itself together, fortified its positions, and restocked everything from artillery to Shaheds, it will be ready for round two, while insisting Ukraine “provoked” the need for it.

If Ukraine fires in self-defense, Russia gets a propaganda victory. If Ukraine holds back, Russia gets time to reload. In either case, a ceasefire hands the Kremlin exactly what it needs: space and time.

Every ceasefire Russia ever signed has included this same blueprint.

Minsk I: Russia regrouped, rearmed, then attacked. Minsk II: Russia regrouped, rearmed, then attacked again. A 2025 “peace plan”: Russia will regroup, rearm, and attack a third time.

The Kremlin doesn’t do peace. The Kremlin does pause, pivot, and push.

If Ukraine Falls, Europe is Next

Let’s say Ukraine signs a deal forced by American pressure.

Let’s say Trump calls it “the greatest peace agreement in history” and tells Europe to stop whining.

Let’s say Russia gets everything it wants in the short term.

If Moscow secures Ukraine’s neutrality, the next move is predictable. Putin will probe NATO’s eastern flank. Not with tanks at first (Russia learned from 2022), but with hybrid pressure.

Sabotage. Cyberattacks. Border provocations. “Little green men” without insignia. Cargo trains “accidentally” derailing in Latvia. Energy blackmail in Estonia. Drone swarms over Lithuania’s ports. Every tool Russia used against Ukraine in 2014, deployed against NATO in 2026.

Then comes the test: Does the United States defend a Baltic state that Trump considers “a burden”?

The Kremlin is betting the answer is no.

If they’re right, NATO fractures. If NATO fractures, Europe re-enters a 1930s security environment. If Europe re-enters that environment, global deterrence collapses.

It’s a scenario mapped by every major Western intelligence agency over the past decade.

A bad peace agreement in Ukraine is not the end of the war. It’s the prelude to the next one: bigger and bloodier.

Skepticism here isn’t pessimism, and it isn’t anti-peace. Ukraine wants the war to end. Europe wants stability returned to its borders and wants to stop managing a crisis that should never have existed in the first place.

Everyone at the table wants an off-ramp. But peace only works when the aggressor is restrained, the victim is strengthened, and the guarantors are actually willing to enforce what they sign.

Right now, none of those conditions exist.

Russia senses momentum and believes time favors its strategy. Ukraine feels boxed in by military pressure and diplomatic fatigue. Washington, for all its talk of resolve, looks increasingly impatient. Europe is worried about energy, borders, and the political fallout of getting this wrong. That combination has never produced a durable peace; it has only produced broken agreements and future wars.

And Moscow has a long record of treating signatures as disposable.

The Budapest Memorandum didn’t stop the seizure of Crimea. The Minsk agreements didn’t prevent eight years of trench warfare. Ceasefires in Georgia were ignored the moment they stopped being useful. Noninterference pledges in Moldova, deconfliction lines in Syria, chemical weapons commitments, INF missile limits… every one of them was violated… by Russia.

Russia has never honored a security agreement when violating it served its goals.

So, when the Kremlin now signals it is ready to respect whatever terms emerge from Geneva, it’s asking the world to ignore decades of behavior. That’s forgetting history on purpose.

The problem with this moment isn’t negotiation. Negotiation is necessary. The problem is the imbalance.

Russia wants to negotiate because it’s war is untenable in its current form.

Ukraine wants to negotiate because it is bleeding.

Trump wants to negotiate because he wants the Nobel.

Europe wants to negotiate because war fatigue is real.

But Russia is the only actor here that views “peace” as a weapon.

A peace built on concessions is a loaded gun pointed at the next European border.

Ukraine deserves better. Europe deserves better. And frankly, the American people deserve better than a photo op that lights the fuse on the next global conflict.

History is speaking loudly.

The question is whether anyone in Washington is listening.

Слава Україні!

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