Might Russia’s illegitimate president be ready to negotiate an end to the Russian war against Ukraine? One of America’s leading Russia experts, Thomas Graham, thinks so. Noting that both Russia and Ukraine are experiencing enormous human and economic losses that can only get worse, Graham argues that a window of opportunity currently exists for a peace deal brokered by the Trump administration.
Can the Ukraine War End? One Idea
F-16 in Sunset US Air Force Photo
Graham’s logic is persuasive, but his rationally grounded belief that Putin wants peace is, alas, unfounded. Not because a normal, rational Russian leader wouldn’t reach Graham’s conclusion regarding a peace deal, but because Putin isn’t a normal, rational Russian leader. To be sure, the United States would do well to take Graham’s advice and try to end the war. Miracles do happen. But no one should imagine that Putin wants peace. He could be forced to accept it, but there is no reason to believe he would want it voluntarily.
Graham’s argument boils down to the following. “Each day the war continues, the future looks grimmer.” True. Indeed, “the costs of war are steadily narrowing the political space for pursuing maximal objectives and increasing the value of a negotiated outcome. In these circumstances, intensive negotiations are urgently needed to seize the moment and end the conflict.” Also true.
Putin Isn’t Rational
Unfortunately, Putin does not make decisions regarding Ukraine on the basis of a rational cost-benefit analysis regarding what is good for his country and people. Had that been the case, he would never have invaded Ukraine in 2022 or continued with his “meat grinder” strategy of sacrificing close to 1.5 million Russian casualties for some Ukrainian mud and a host of devastated cities that no one in his right mind would want to live in.
Putin is driven by ideology and self-preservation. He fully believes that Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia that must be exterminated in a final solution. According to Graham, if the war “stopped today …, each side could claim victory. Mr. Zelensky could rightly claim to have preserved what is most precious to Ukrainians: their independence, sovereignty, and European ambitions. Mr. Putin could extol Russia’s success in thwarting the West’s effort to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia and in ‘liberating’ millions of Russians in Eastern Ukraine from what he portrays as a neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.”
A normal, rational leader would agree with Graham’s logic, and, unsurprisingly, Zelensky does, as do most Ukrainians. For Putin, however, stopping short of a total victory would be a strategic defeat for Russia at the hands of a would-be nation that refuses to acknowledge it is really Russian.
Accepting Graham’s logic would also destroy Putin, who knows full well that his political survival depends on total victory. Graham writes that “Both sides may believe that continued fighting can improve their bargaining position.” The Ukrainians may believe that. Putin doesn’t, because the very notion of a bargain implies Ukraine’s continued existence.
Mirage 2000 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
How To Get Putin To Stop
Can anything convince Putin to throw in the towel?
Yes, defeat. Think of Adolf Hitler. He and his ardent supporters fought until the very end, even as Berlin was being occupied by Allied troops and anything short of capitulation had become unimaginable—to normal, rational Germans.
A Ukrainian breakthrough on the front is possible, especially if Putin holds fast to his intent to mobilize half a million unmotivated and poorly trained Russians this fall. Their first response to Ukrainian drones may be to run rather than to die.
A coup d’etat in Russia is also possible, given that increasing numbers of Russian elites are concluding that Russia can’t win and that 1.5 million dead and wounded may just be enough.
Most likely to bring Putin to his knees is Ukraine’s progressive strangulation of Crimea. If Russian soldiers and civilians continue to flee the peninsula, it will effectively be lost to Russia. Such a historic catastrophe would strike a strategic blow against Russia and against Putin.
Weakened and humiliated by Putin’s incompetence and idiocy, Russian elites might just decide to end his political career and save what remains of their country by taking Graham’s advice.
About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl, Rutgers University
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
