Article Summary and Key Points: Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine isn’t about influence or negotiations—it’s a battle to secure territories formally annexed into Russia’s constitution: Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Despite battlefield setbacks and global pressures, Russia remains committed to seizing full control of these lands.
-Putin cannot retreat or negotiate territorial compromise without fundamentally undermining Russia’s constitutional legitimacy.
-While Moscow might accept temporary setbacks or tactical retreats, it sees ultimate victory as permanent control of these annexed regions. For Putin, this war ends only when Russia’s newly drawn borders become irreversible political reality, no matter the human or economic costs.
Why Putin Won’t Stop Fighting: Inside Russia’s Territorial Obsession in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin is not waging war in Ukraine for vague geopolitical ambitions or as a bargaining chip for future negotiations. He is fighting to incorporate, by force if necessary, every inch of territory that Russia now claims as its own.
The Russian constitution, revised to formalize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, leaves no room for ambiguity – these lands are, in Russia’s view, already part of the Federation.
This is not a war for influence or leverage; it is a war for borders. No matter what happens on the battlefield, no matter what diplomatic overtures are made, Putin will keep fighting until his territorial objectives are fully realized. Everything else – Ukraine’s neutrality, NATO’s involvement, even Russia’s broader security demands – is negotiable. But securing these lands is not.
For two years, Western analysts have debated Russia’s objectives as if they were fluid, shifting with battlefield fortunes and political calculations. But there has been no ambiguity in how the Kremlin defines victory. It is not regime change in Kyiv. It is not the destruction of the Ukrainian state. It is not even Ukraine’s neutrality, though Moscow would welcome that outcome. Victory means securing every inch of the territories Russia now claims as part of the Federation. Anything less would constitute failure – not just for Putin, but for the legitimacy of the Russian state itself as now enshrined in law.
Moscow’s military campaigns have been designed with this objective in mind. The method has shifted, adapting to conditions on the battlefield, but the strategic objective has not. The failure of the initial push toward Kyiv in 2022 did not force Putin to abandon his war aims; it forced him to adapt. The decision to annex Ukrainian regions and incorporate them into the Russian Federation was not a symbolic gesture but a legal and strategic commitment, one that determines Russian policy in both war and peace. In effect, Moscow has backed itself into a corner where it can neither withdraw nor accept a frozen conflict that leaves parts of these regions under Ukrainian control. To do so would be to repudiate the constitutional order that Putin has spent his presidency constructing.
The wars of the past century offer numerous examples of belligerents recalibrating their goals as conflicts drag on. Russia itself has done this before, withdrawing from costly wars – such as the Soviet-Afghan War and the First Chechen War – when the price became too high. But this war is different. A territorial dispute that has been elevated to the level of constitutional doctrine is not something the Russian state can simply walk away from. This is not the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is not even the pullback from Kherson in 2022, which was a battlefield necessity rather than a strategic concession. Russia can afford tactical retreats, but it cannot afford to permanently cede what it now considers its own land.
If peace talks occur, they will be dictated by this reality. Moscow may negotiate on military posture, trade arrangements, prisoner exchanges, even security guarantees. But on territory, there is no room for compromise. The Kremlin is not interested in a temporary ceasefire that allows Ukraine to rebuild its military and contest these lands at a later date. Nor will it accept an armistice that creates a divided Donbas or a contested Kherson. The entire point of this war, from Moscow’s perspective, is to resolve the territorial question permanently. Every negotiation, every battlefield maneuver, every political overture is ultimately a means to that end.
Ukraine’s resistance, of course, has prevented Russia from achieving these aims quickly. But time, Putin believes, is on his side. He is wagering that he can outlast Kyiv, outmaneuver its Western backers, and wear down Ukrainian forces until the military reality on the ground makes further resistance futile. This is why the war grinds on, why offensives are launched even at high cost, and why Russian forces continue to push forward inch by inch despite the immense difficulties of modern warfare. It is not because Moscow is aimless or incapable of adjusting its approach. It is because the Kremlin sees no alternative but to continue prosecuting this war until its territorial objectives are secured.
There is a logic to this that Western policy makers often fail to grasp. Wars driven by abstract ideology or regime change are wars that can be abandoned if circumstances demand it. But wars over core territory—the kind of territory a state formally absorbs into its legal system – are different. The war over Crimea did not end in 2014 with an agreement; it ended when Russia took control of the peninsula and established a reality that Ukraine and much of the world could do little to reverse. Putin is applying the same principle now. So long as any part of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, or Kherson remains outside Moscow’s control, the war is unfinished.
If Russia’s forces gain full control of these regions, then – and only then – will the Kremlin have options. At that point, it can choose to solidify its gains through a peace agreement or impose a frozen conflict that leaves Ukraine weakened and unable to reclaim lost ground. But until that happens, Putin’s hands are tied. He has set the conditions of his own war. There is no path to a negotiated settlement that does not deliver him the territories that Russia’s constitution now insists are Russian. Any deal that does not guarantee this outcome is, from Moscow’s perspective, not a peace deal at all, but a prelude to another war.
For now, the Kremlin continues to advance, because it must. The war is not about maximalist fantasies of empire or the destruction of Ukraine. It is about finishing what Moscow started in 2022, securing every piece of land that Russian law now defines as part of the Federation. Everything else – the diplomatic overtures, the pauses, the negotiations, even battlefield setbacks – are temporary. The only permanent reality, the one that Putin is fighting to establish, is that these territories belong to Russia, and the war does not end until that fact is made irreversible.
Putin understands that wars are won not only through force but through time, attrition, and the imposition of new political realities. He does not need total victory, nor does he need Ukraine’s formal surrender. He needs only to secure what Russia now claims as its own and force the world to accept it, just as it eventually accepted the loss of Crimea. His war will continue until that outcome is achieved. And when it is, the world will look back and realize that this was never a war about NATO, democracy, or spheres of influence.
It was a war to redraw the borders of Russia – and one that will not stop until those borders are set in stone.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. Andrew is now a Contributing Editor to 19FortyFive, where he writes a daily column. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.
