I’ve watched the war in Ukraine outlast predictions, outlive attention spans, and outpace the West’s ability to hold a single narrative for more than a few news cycles.
Right now, it feels like a week’s worth of geopolitics is collapsing into a single day, and just as “trilateral talks” dominate the conversation, the media space is already being consumed by the next crisis, with talk of war on Iran’s doorstep.
That volatility matters, because peace processes do not survive on headlines alone, but they do survive on credibility.
Donald J. Trump says negotiations between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine could bring a ceasefire, yet, more pressing questions remain unanswered: does Putin want peace at all, or just a pause on his own terms? How credible are talks when Russia is tightening repression at home while bombing Ukrainian cities?
And can Washington credibly play honest broker when it is politically divided, domestically distracted, and dogged by allegations that cast a long shadow over intent?
These questions have moved from commentary to strategic urgency, especially as Russia continues to shell Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure unabated, even as the United States ramps up its own war rhetoric toward one of Putin’s key allies, Iran.
Russia can after all, in fact, end its invasion tomorrow, simply by withdrawing its forces and ceasing its attacks. Yet it does not, a reality that must shape any serious negotiation calculus you would think?
The Putin Equation: Peace or Power?
For many international observers, and especially those of us living in Ukraine, the insistence by Kremlin officials that Russia seeks “peace” rings hollow. Official statements have been vague and self-serving, often framed around terms that accept Russian territorial gains or deny Ukraine’s right to sovereignty in certain regions, conditions Kyiv and its allies categorically reject.
One must also remember that President Putin has annexed far more Ukrainian territory on paper than Russia actually controls. In September and October 2022, Moscow staged widely condemned “referendums” in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, then formally proclaimed their annexation at a ceremony in the Kremlin on 30 September 2022, writing them into Russia’s constitutional framework despite not having full military control of any of them at the time. Since then, Ukraine has continued to contest and, in some areas, reclaim territory, something I highlighted in my most recent analysis.
Most of Luhansk and Donetsk had been contested or only partially held by Russian forces even before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, while Russian forces never fully controlled Kherson or Zaporizhzhia oblasts at the point of annexation. This is a far cry from the promises of 2022, when the Kremlin sold a swift and cheap “Special Military Operation,” a campaign that has since protracted into a four-year war marked by catastrophic losses and widespread destruction.
The core strategic incentive for Putin is not peace, but the preservation and extension of influence, especially over Ukraine and the post-Soviet space. Complicating this posture is Putin’s tightening grip on Russia’s domestic political space. Over the past year, Russia has dramatically throttled Western social media platforms, restricted online speech, and intensified surveillance of digital communities. This is not merely censorship; it is political insulation, and a return to methods more familiar to the Soviet era from which much of Russia’s current leadership emerged.
Even figures once useful to the Kremlin are now feeling the pressure. Pavel Gubarev, the former self-declared “people’s governor” of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, now faces administrative proceedings in Moscow for allegedly “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces. The case, registered in Tagansky District Court, is just one more signal that dissent is no longer merely discouraged, it is actively criminalised.
🇷🇺 Pavel Gubarev, former self-declared “people’s governor” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, has had an administrative protocol drawn up against him in Moscow for allegedly discrediting the Russian Armed Forces under Article 20.3.3. The case was registered in Tagansky District… pic.twitter.com/7mJoLh19rJ
— Shaun Pinner (@olddog100ua) February 19, 2026
Information that might mobilise public opposition to the war is being increasingly suppressed, while state-controlled narratives portraying the conflict as existential and patriotic are amplified, a throwback that anyone old enough, like me, to remember the Soviet era will recognise immediately. This environment does not reflect a leadership preparing for compromise or accountability, it’s a regime that sees stability, not peace, as its priority, and a tightly controlled population as essential to maintaining that stability. To put it frankly, Putin wants the audience to his failures smaller and manageable.
Mobilisation and the Illusion of Control
One of the most striking developments over the past year has been the shifting discourse around mobilisation inside Russia. After the widely criticised partial mobilisation in September 2022, which triggered protests and a mass flight of draft-age men, the Kremlin has been cautious about repeating the exercise. During the weeks after the announcement, independent estimates suggested between roughly 300,000 and up to 700,000 Russians left the country to avoid conscription, many of them men of fighting age, while some broader estimates put total departures since the invasion at around 900,000 or more. More importantly, mobilisation itself is tangible proof of failure: proof that the war is not going to plan, not going the way it was sold to the public, a reality that, in today’s Russia, can earn you a prison sentence for saying out loud.
At face value, tighter control over information makes dissent harder to organise, but it also conceals the true scale of public frustration and war fatigue beneath the surface. That creates a dangerous paradox: a society that cannot freely express opposition may also be less resilient in the long run, potentially pushing the leadership to double down on nationalist mobilisation rather than seek a genuine exit from the war.
Trump’s “Diplomacy Without Diplomats” — Bold or Unmoored?
The New York Times article “Trump Bets on Diplomacy, Without Diplomats” captures something both audacious and deeply problematic. It highlights Trump’s tendency to pursue direct negotiations, bypassing the professional diplomatic corps, a strategy that can, in rare cases, break deadlocks, but more often risks missteps, miscalculations, and a dangerous ignorance of nuance.
Diplomacy does not exist to inflate bureaucracy, it exists to temper political impulse with expertise. When seasoned diplomats are sidelined, proposals that sound bold can quickly reveal themselves as naive or disconnected from reality. We are already seeing signs of this, including the role of intermediaries like Steve Witkoff and the blurred lines between political outreach and personal business interests involving figures such as Kirill Dmitriev.
In the Ukrainian context, there is no consensus on even the most basic prerequisites for peace. Ukraine insists on sovereignty, territorial integrity, and credible security guarantees. Russia insists on terms that echo its maximalist aims.
As Russian political analyst Kirill Rogov has observed:
“When the war ends, Russians will first say ‘thank you’ to the authorities, then ask: what was it all for?”
That looming question — and the fear of accountability it brings — is precisely why Putin needs something he can sell as a “victory.”
This is why it is so telling that a war launched in 2022 with Kyiv as the prize is now, in 2026, reduced to bartering over Donetsk Oblast, territory Russia still does not even fully control, with commercial incentives and political shortcuts being dangled through a Trump-led process. It does not signal Russian strength but signals strategic failure dressed up as negotiation while open to bribery and personal enrichment, something that’s echoed around the entirety of these peace talks.
The absent alignment on even the basic architecture of talks, “diplomacy without diplomats” risks becoming diplomacy without foundations.
Domestic Politics and the Credibility Question
Overlaying all of this is the turbulent backdrop of Trump’s own political and legal battles. Allegations concerning his business and political relationships have inevitably seeped into the debate over U.S. credibility as a mediator. While allegations are not verdicts, and political warfare is a constant in Washington, appearances still matter in international negotiations.
Recent commentary from members of Congress and senior political figures has only intensified that scrutiny at a moment when global stakes are rising. Highly publicised statements and renewed focus on documents and investigations linked to the Epstein case, in which the former president’s name has been publicly referenced, have reinforced the sense that American politics is entering another period of institutional distraction. Whether grounded in ongoing legal processes or political combat, these controversies have become part of the public landscape and are now shaping perceptions of focus, coherence, and credibility in U.S. foreign policy.
Foreign leaders, whether allies like Kyiv or adversaries like Moscow, monitor this closely. When U.S. leadership appears divided, distracted, or mired in domestic controversy, adversaries and their intelligence services look for ways to exploit that perception for strategic advantage. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, has built his political career on reading and leveraging exactly these kinds of moments in Western politics.
Historically, foreign intelligence services do not need to invent weaknesses; they identify fissures and amplify them, not only to influence public opinion, but to shape decision-making, timing, and negotiations. Through information operations, selective leaks, and narrative pressure, the appearance of disarray in Washington can become a strategic tool, used to test responses, push favourable storylines, or drive wedges between allies.
In a conflict as high-stakes as the war in Ukraine, the perception of U.S. weakness or distraction, regardless of its accuracy, becomes a strategic factor in its own right. A unified, credible diplomatic posture is not just preferable; it is essential to deter exploitation by hostile intelligence services and to maintain the confidence of allies who rely on predictable American leadership.
Critics of the trilateral concept argue that it is already compromised by the optics of transactional politics: an American president under pressure, pushing talks that could reshape Europe’s security order without clear, coordinated input from allies or Ukraine itself. That risks weakening allied cohesion and eroding Western leverage, something, frankly, Washington has been doing a worrying amount of on its own in recent months.
Pressure on Kyiv: A Test of Partnership?
Another point of contention is the pressure being applied to President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s leadership. Allies always encourage flexibility, but timing and context matter. Russia continues to bomb Ukrainian cities while calls for urgency in negotiations grow louder.
Any credible negotiation must acknowledge that reality, not as rhetoric, but as a structural constraint. On the ground, the war is not de-escalating, if anything, it is intensifying, as aggressors so often do when they sense weakness and have no real intention of stopping.
Conclusion: A Credibility Deficit, Not a Peace Deficit
The problem is not that peace is impossible. It is possible, Russia could stop tomorrow, but, peace requires clarity of purpose, respect for sovereignty, and a strategy grounded in reality, not shortcuts or a quick fix.
Putin does not even recognise President Zelensky as a legitimate head of state. He oversold a war he is now struggling to justify, and his imperial “Soviet” project is visibly failing. The question is whether he can admit that, or whether he will continue to demand a trophy to mask defeat.
Russia remains disinclined toward any peace that costs it strategic leverage. U.S. proposals, however ambitious, risk being seen as compromised both domestically and internationally. A Ukraine, bearing the full weight of this war, deserves a negotiation framework that reflects its sacrifices, not one built on political expediency.
The real deficit is not peace, it is the foundations these talks are being built on, and until that is fixed, no diplomatic gambit, however dramatic, is likely to end this war.
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