As the West struggles to define its strategy in Ukraine, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have long insisted that the only path to a “just and lasting peace” is to support Ukraine until Russia unconditionally admits defeat. They dismiss calls for a negotiated settlement as naive, dangerous and futile, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not relent unless stopped by force of arms — Ukrainian or otherwise.
More than two years into the conflict, Western leaders remain unfazed in their commitment to Russian military defeat, even as the fighting tilts decidedly in Moscow’s favor. The West’s continued lack of interest in feeling out the Kremlin’s terms for ending the war was jarring even in 2022, considering Russia’s massive advantage in all relevant indicators of military power. It is all the more boggling today in light of Ukraine’s substantially worse and rapidly deteriorating position.
This persistent belief that there was never a diplomatic path to peace in Ukraine is inconsistent with the facts and functions as a self-imposed constraint forcing Western governments to double down on unsustainable and counterproductive war aims.
The 2022 invasion began with a grievous setback for Moscow as Ukraine, buoyed by Western support, doggedly resisted Russian forces outside the capital city of Kyiv. Reeling from the consequences of these initial miscalculations, Russian officials signaled their willingness to entertain steep concessions as part of a negotiated settlement with Kyiv. The two sides entered negotiations that moved to Turkey later that spring and yielded something approximating a draft agreement by April 2022.
Though the talks ultimately did not yield a final treaty, there are clear signs that they were progressing in that direction. There were serious points of contention, as can be expected in negotiations between two actively warring countries, but there was also remarkable convergence in key areas.
Russian negotiators reportedly insisted on concrete limits to Ukraine’s peacetime military, including specific caps on troop numbers and the maximum ranges of Ukrainian missiles. The Ukrainian delegation argued that the caps should be higher but did not oppose these limitations in principle, making it possible for the two sides to meet in the middle. These concessions, though seemingly steep in a vacuum, must be weighed against the remarkable terms on which Russia was apparently willing to end this war.
At the heart of the draft treaty was a provision stipulating permanent neutral status for Ukraine. In exchange for renouncing any intention of ever joining NATO or hosting NATO forces on its territory, Ukraine was to receive robust multilateral security guarantees from a coalition of the willing, including Israel, Turkey, Canada and the U.S.
Not only did this arrangement leave the door open for Ukraine to join the EU, but it allegedly called on Russia to confirm its “intention to facilitate Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.” This marked a stunning reversal of Russia’s quest to block Kyiv’s European aspirations, laying the groundwork for Ukraine’s eventual integration into a common Western political, cultural and economic bloc.
The Istanbul talks did not try to reach consensus regarding the territories seized by Russia after February 2022, leaving that question for Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to decide in a planned summit. But Ukrainian negotiators managed to secure a substantial concession from their Russian counterparts on a closely adjacent issue: the two sides agreed to hold consultations on Crimea’s status for the next 10 to 15 years, despite Russia’s longstanding insistence that its control over the peninsula, annexed in 2014, is not up for discussion.
These terms, if adopted, would have constituted a victory for Ukraine and its Western partners. For the first time in its history, Ukraine would have been free to integrate with the West on its own terms as a sovereign, independent state, imitating the successful postwar experiences of Austria and Finland.
There is, of course, no guarantee that the Istanbul communique would have been finalized as a treaty if the talks had continued, or that Moscow would have fully honored the treaty’s provisions. But it was in Ukrainian and Western interests to take that chance, if only because the alternative is much more grim.
Given the high stakes for Ukraine, why did it pull out of the negotiations? In part, the massive setbacks suffered by Russian forces in the early months of the war likely left Kyiv to conclude it could defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that no concessions would be necessary. This miscalculation was exacerbated by the belief that the Western sanctions regime would, as President Biden said, immediately turn the Russian ruble into “rubble” and shatter Russia’s economy, and that the U.S. and other Western leaders would, as promised, support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”
Ukrainian and Western perceptions of Russian weakness have since proven to be tragically premature. Yet the same maximalist set of war aims that led Kyiv to leave the table in 2022 still underpin the erroneous idea that a negotiated settlement between Kyiv and Moscow is not possible. This framing of the conflict has handicapped the imagination of political leaders and policymakers, leaving them to cast what now looks to be the best-case scenario of a frozen conflict as a victory.
The good news is that, although Moscow’s bargaining position would certainly be less accommodating today than it was in 2022, the Kremlin has suggested that it still sees the Istanbul communique as the basis for productive peace talks.
The White House cannot turn back the clock to April 2022, but it can and should get serious about laying the groundwork, in close consultation with Kyiv and European allies, for expediting a negotiated end to this war. This doesn’t mean cutting off Ukraine — to the contrary, Western support is an important source of leverage in future talks. It will, however, require Western and Ukrainian leaders to make hard choices now as the only way to avert worse outcomes later.
Mark Episkopos is a research fellow in Quincy Institute’s Eurasia program.