As the war in Ukraine grinds into its fourth year, with Russian forces inching toward territorial gains in the Donbas and beyond, the specter of peace negotiations looms larger than ever. Driven by U.S. President Donald Trump’s impatience for a swift resolution, Western leaders are under mounting pressure to broker a deal. Yet several recent analyses, including from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), converge on a sobering truth: Russia under Vladimir Putin is not desperate for peace. It treats any armistice as an interlude for regrouping, a “continuation of war by other means.” A hasty or lopsided agreement risks not ending the conflict but igniting a prolonged “lukewarm war” of sabotage, subversion, and renewed aggression at catastrophic cost to Europe and the global order.

Russia’s resolve to fight on is unmistakable, rooted in a narrative of inevitable victory that saturates Kremlin-controlled media. Moscow’s unified messaging across outlets such as Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Izvestiya dismisses European tweaks to a proposed 28-point peace plan as cynical ploys to buy Ukraine time for rearmament. Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent foreign policy commentator, captures this mindset bluntly, arguing that halting hostilities would expose Russia to “coordinated political and diplomatic pressure” without meaningful leverage. Putin reinforced the point during a security council meeting, declaring that Russia is “ready for peace negotiations” but “satisfied with the current dynamics of the [special military operation], which are leading to the achievement of its goals by military means.”

If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejects Moscow’s terms, which implicitly include territorial concessions and demilitarization, Russian troops will press their offensive “deep into Ukraine.” Konstantin Kosachev, a Russian senator, claims that the West has “abandoned Ukraine,” leaving it unable to sustain the fight without unified support yet unwilling to negotiate from a position of weakness. Time, in this calculus, favors Moscow as it plays against both the Europeans and Kyiv. The Russian media chorus, guided by the Kremlin, signals not exhaustion but endurance. Russia is prepared to bleed resources and lives until its demands are met, framing any pause as a tactical feint rather than a strategic retreat.

This belligerence extends seamlessly into diplomacy, where Putin wields “peace” as a weapon to extract concessions he cannot secure outright on the battlefield. Dr. Bob Seely, a former British MP and author of The New Total War, dissects the leaked Russian peace proposals as a deliberate operation to bully Ukraine and fracture its alliances. Far from a genuine olive branch, the terms demand territorial cessions beyond current front lines, immediate elections amid wartime chaos, and the demobilization of Ukraine’s volunteer army. The aim is to destabilize Ukrainian society and leadership. Zelensky, Seely argues, faces an existential bind: ceding unconquered land would shatter domestic cohesion, while holding elections now would invite Russian meddling and empty the trenches, opening the way to devastating attacks.

Putin’s worldview compounds this impasse. Since 2021, he has rejected Ukrainian sovereignty as a fiction, treating its people as errant “east Slavs” to be “gathered” into a greater Russia. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s curt dismissal of revised proposals as a “nyet” (no) underscores the charade. For Putin, negotiations are not an off-ramp but a detour, a chance to unfreeze oligarch assets, lift sanctions, and rearm as a drone superpower while grinding through the Donbas and demolishing Ukraine’s energy grid to erode its will to resist. Seen in this light, peace talks offer him not reconciliation but impunity for his army’s atrocities, including rape, robbery, and wholesale destruction, and a path to reinsert Russia into the international fold without accountability.

The historical folly of such arrangements is starkly illuminated in The Economist, which challenges Benjamin Franklin’s quip that “there never was a good war or a bad peace” by insisting that an unjust peace is not only possible but pernicious. Trump’s rush to “peacemaking,” the article warns, disregards lessons from Versailles and Munich. Agreements that paper over aggression merely defer the reckoning and embolden revanchists like Putin. A deal that forces Ukraine to swallow territorial losses and enduring security vulnerabilities would not secure stability; it would sow the seeds for “the next war,” as unresolved grievances fuel future revanchism.

This danger has galvanized key allies. On November 22, 15 leaders from Canada, Europe, and Japan issued a joint plea to Trump for a “just and lasting peace,” diplomatic shorthand for rejecting capitulation disguised as compromise. Zelensky’s strategy of revising the 28-point plan to emphasize shared principles while drawing clear red lines buys time, but it hinges on Western unity that Trump could easily unravel.

Europe, often cast as a bystander, now stands at the epicenter of this maelstrom. CEPA’s analysis frames the conflict not as a distant proxy war but as a prelude to a “lukewarm war” on the continent itself. A premature settlement would fail to curb Putin’s imperial ambitions, which extend beyond Ukraine and seek to “reshape Europe in a Russia-friendly image” through hybrid threats: drone swarms that can close airports, sabotaged pipelines, manipulated migration waves, and criminal networks exporting chaos. This shadow warfare dwarfs Cold War-era meddling, including support for groups such as the Baader-Meinhof Gang or the IRA, infiltrating societies through vulnerable infrastructure in ways that demand constant vigilance.

Defeating Russia outright in Ukraine carries upfront costs, but they are still dwarfed by the alternative. NATO’s 40 percent share of global GDP translated into 4 to 5 percent defense spending would siphon roughly $520 billion annually from investments in other priorities, including efforts to counter China. Western aid to Ukraine so far totals around $450 billion, a fraction of what a militarized and destabilized Europe would require over decades. Sustained support for Kyiv is therefore both a fiscal and moral imperative, a necessary investment to shield Europe from a long war of attrition.

Taken together, these perspectives reveal a single, mounting peril. Putin’s war is total, blending battlefield brutality with diplomatic deceit and hybrid subversion, and a flawed peace would only amplify its reach. Russia’s media-orchestrated defiance signals no off-ramp short of Ukrainian capitulation. Its negotiation tactics mask a drive for subjugation. Hasty deals invite historical repetition, and Europe’s “lukewarm” future demands that half-measures be rejected rather than embraced.

Zelensky’s narrow path, cooperating with Trump without slipping into self-sabotage, must galvanize the West to condition any talks on ironclad security guarantees rather than territorial bribes. Otherwise, as these analyses suggest, the wrong peace will not end the war; it will export it, at a price Europe cannot afford. The path forward lies not in rushed handshakes or optics-driven summits but in resolute backing for Ukraine’s fight until Russia’s aggression is genuinely broken.