I Was Almost Killed During the Ukraine War. Don’t Trust Any Ceasefire Talk

Is a Ceasefire in the Ukraine War a Good Idea?: Ask the average Ukrainian if they support a ceasefire in the current war that began with Russia invading their country in February 2022 and the immediate reaction will be their sharing a pronounced level of skepticism with you. 

A ceasefire is in and of itself neither good nor bad, they will tell you.

Its value or whether it is of benefit dramatically depends on some very important factors, my Ukrainian colleagues continue. It, first of all, has to be a ceasefire that the aggressor has intentions of honoring both in the letter and spirit of whatever document ends up being signed. Putin’s actions to date do not demonstrate any such inclinations.

I know these matters, as they touch close to home for me. In the 21 years I lived in Ukraine, there was rarely a day when the certainty among the average person about Russia’s actual plans to dismember and destroy Ukraine as a nation was more rather than less pronounced.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin’s history is a constantly repeating pattern,” said one of my close Ukrainian friends. “He uses all the tools of repression, deception and murder that he was taught in the KGB to remove any opposition.  But he uses them in the most crude and primitive way possible.  No one should be surprised either.”

“He was a failure as a KGB officer – a mediocrity frozen at the rank of Lt. Col.,” my friend continued.  “His only gifts are those of a person whose sociopathic nature makes it possible for him to betray his friends and attempt to deceive his enemies in any way possible.  He uses brute force, and he sees a hammer as his only weapon.  Therefore, every problem to him looks like a nail.”

What Past Ceasefires Brought to Ukraine

Those looking for confirmation need look no further than a recent Washington Post story detailing a February 2025 memo written by a think tank in Moscow.  The organization is also very close to the Federal Security Service (FSB).  (The FSB is an amalgamation of former KGB directorates charged with the mission of internal surveillance and repression is Putin’s alma mater.)

The document outlines how feigning to be interested in a peace plan is a deceptive tactic to be used to further Russia’s plans for Ukraine.

The authors show that Moscow has no desire for there to be a lasting peace between the two nations – one that would mean “hands off” Ukraine in the future.  Instead, the document reads: “In reality, the current Kyiv regime cannot be changed from inside the country. Its complete dismantling is needed,”

My Experience in the Ukraine War: I Nearly Died 

I had the unfortunate experience of almost dying in the February 2022 invasion. For years prior, I had written countless times about how Putin historically engaged in negotiations over a land grab of his neighbors. These were negotiations ostensibly designed to mediate a conflict, only to instead use them as a stepping stone to later carry out a larger incursion.

At the 2023 Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue Asia-Pacific Security conference that I attended, Moscow proposed the first of many attempts to impose an uneven peace deal on Ukraine.

  Acting as a Russian proxy, then-Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto called for a ceasefire that was criticized as setting up Ukraine for a second invasion as soon as everyone’s attention was diverted elsewhere.

“Before I was the Defence Minister,” said then-Ukraine Defense Minister Olekseii Reznikov at a subsequent news conference, “I was the Vice Prime Minister and the Minister for Integration of Temporarily Occupied Territories.  During this time twice a month I was or 10-12 hours a day in Minsk [post 2014 Crimea occupation] negotiating hours on end.  And what was the result? – A full-scale Russian invasion.”

“Our position is the first step in any negotiations will take place when the Russians have left every piece of Ukraine territory, when they have left all areas – including Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk.  Then when the war is over, we will sit at the table with our partners.  And we will discuss ‘peaceful coexistence’ along with the subjects of reparations and a war crimes tribunal.”

What’s Missing

Three months before, at the Munich Security Conference, then-Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was even more succinct about what was then – and what still is – missing from discussions about how the war should end and what has to accompany a cease fire.

“My personal endgame is very simple,” he said.  “I said it once two years ago — and I immediately became a star on Russian propagandists’ shows — when I said for me the end of the war will be when the Russian president, whatever his name will be, will pay a visit to Ukraine, will stand on his knees in front of the monument to the victims of Russian aggression and will beg for an apology.  For me this will be the end of the war.  Everything between here and then is a war – one way or the other.”

This may seem an uncompromising and resolute position. However, it accurately reflects how many see any less definitive peace plan as deeply flawed and only destined to be unsuccessful.

What else continues to be lacking is another point he made at the same event I attended where he made the above points.

Russian Military T-90 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

“I did not hear anyone talk [about this here in Munich] actually,” he said.  “Maybe I missed some meetings as there is a lot happening here — but I did not hear anyone going into details in trying to find a simple answer: What kind of Russia do we need to live in peace and how do we get there?  We have to start talking about that,” he said.

Until both of these issues are addressed head-on, what develops in Ukraine after the war is almost guaranteed to be something that no one – other than Putin himself – is happy with. 

About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson 

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw.  He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.