As American, Ukrainian, and
Russian negotiating delegations were flying around the world in early December,
2025 to conduct various negotiating sessions, all the while without the presidents
of Russia and Ukraine meeting, it was difficult for bystanders to keep an eye
on the proverbial ball as it was being kicked around by offers and
counter-offers, and complicated by the high-profiled presence of the
businessman, Jared Kushner, who happened to be married to one of U.S. President
Trump’s daughters. Kushner was also highly visible in the negotiations on Gaza,
which almost certainly included real-estate development. To be sure, commercial
and investment deals can easily remain subterranean while the public discourse
stays on the political relations between nations, and even just the latter may
lack transparency. Democratic accountability in democratic republics as
concerning the conduct and results of foreign policy can be difficult. Especially
difficult to gauge was the hand being closely held by Russia’s President Putin.
I contend that his willingness to negotiate was consistently overestimated by
the West and Ukraine.
After a meeting at the Kremlin
with an American delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, who had
recently been caught coaching Kremlin officials on how to win over U.S.
President Trump, Putin arrived in India on December 4, 2025 while Ukrainian
officials were travelling to the U.S. to hold talks with an American delegation
on a proposal to end Russia’s invasion. How close the Russians and Ukrainians
were to deal was at the time unknown likely even to themselves. To an extent,
they may have been talking past each other and relying too much on surrogates,
some of which, the Europeans, were not even at the negotiating table on behalf
of Ukraine.
As a case in point on how
badly the negotiating was going, Putin’s statement, which he made in India,
that Russia would “liberate Donbas and Nororossiya in any case-by military or
other means” went along with his stated intention that Russia would finish the special
operation in Ukraine “when we achieve the goals set at the beginning of the
special operation, when we free these territories. That’s all.”[1]
To be sure, such determination and certainty can be taken as a negotiating
tactic, but the statements are consistent with Putin’s pattern of ignoring overtures
for peace. It is no accident that Putin could afford to do so because Russia was
“negotiating” throughout from a position of strength on the battlefield. The
law of political physics applied, Putin and Russia stood to gain little if
anything by unilaterally giving up the Ukrainian territory that, as U.S. President
had said, had been won. Lest it be assumed that Crimea and even Donbas regions
would be enough, it is highly significant that Putin “revived the term”
Novorossiya that referred historically “to territories toward the west during
the Russian empire.”[2] This
is just the sort of move that made Poland and the Balkans nervous, and legitimately
gave the E.U. a stake at the negotiating table. In short, Putin’s vision of renewing
the historical Russian Empire, which predates the U.S.S.R., gives his statements
made in India more substance than merely that of being negotiating rhetoric. A
historical vision with the political realism of a position of military strength
rendered Putin’s real stance rock solid.
Of course, Russia’s position
could change were the E.U. to begin in earnest to hold some of its own wayward
states back at the federal level and aid Ukraine militarily to an extent that
the balance of power between Russia and Ukraine could finally be swayed toward
Ukraine’s advantage, but the E.U. remained mired in its own state-centric federal
system as the American, Ukrainian, and Russian delegations were moving around
and talking in various, indirect combinations.
It is precisely in this
context that the following statement made by Ukraine’s President Zelensky as
Putin arrived in India can be criticized: “Our task now is to obtain full
information about what was said in Russia, what other reasons Putin found to
prolong the war and put pressure on Ukraine, on us, on our independence.”[3]
Putin was not finding reasons to prolong the war; rather, he stated that he
would not stop until his initial military goals have been accomplished. He had
no intention of giving up those goals in a negotiated peace.
To be sure, commercial deals
spearheaded by Jared Kushner, involving Russian rare earth minerals for instance,
could potentially lure Putin into accepting territory less than the whole of Donbas,
but such a political-commercial nexus would be a hard sell given Putin’s vision
of resurrecting the Russian Empire of old in Eastern Europe. At best, a
commercial mega-deal would likely serve as a resting stop for the Russian
dictator. Of course, political forecasting is such a plight that smart analysts
remain aloof from that occupation. The Europeans could surprise the world and
proffer Ukraine with a spurt of military assistance capable of pushing Russian
troops back in spite of Ukraine’s shortage of troops. Russia, whose territory was
already empire-scale, versus Ukraine, a kingdom-scale country, was never a fair
fight. This has been Putin’s advantage all along, and his statements in India are
consistent with it. The problem is that Zelensky’s statement seems to display a
lack of political realism regarding Putin’s strategy and objectives, given the Ukrainian
territory “won” by Putin without being dislodged by Ukraine and the European
Union. This doesn’t even count the possible commercial deals being quietly
negotiated by Jared Kushner on behalf of silent investors unknown to nearly
everyone, including Zelensky.
The invasion was occurring during, and even
abetting, the ascendence of militarized political realism at the expense of
international constraints on naked power-aggression. It seems that the
Europeans, including Zelensky, had not received this memo, and were still
expending Putin to give and take as if Ukraine and Russia could reach justice
as equals. It bears remembering Nietzsche’s point that justice is only
achievable between parties equal in power. That equality itself is an illusion is
a point made by Hume. At any rate, the disparity of military power between
Russia and Ukraine as 2025 was drawing to a close should dispel any idyllic
thoughts that Putin might give in on his initial military objectives not only
with respect to Ukraine, but also with the broader Novorossiya too. It bears
remembering that appeasement with Hitler didn’t work, and that that strategy gave
not only Britain, but also Germany time to militarize. The E.U.’s
self-inflicted handicap of the veto-power of its states, and the refusal of the
Europeans to make the necessary structural/procedural correction even in spite
of the anticipated enlargement, but also Russia’s ongoing aggression to the
east, can be viewed as tacit appeasement even though Trump’s enabling of Putin’s
government went far beyond appeasement. Indeed, the stance of the Trump
administration alone should have bolted the Europeans into reforming their own
federal system even though state officials quite obviously didn’t want to give
up (i.e., delegate) more power even for collective action to push back Russia’s
invasion in Eastern Europe. All of this only fortified Putin in staying the
course.
