Accepting ‘Ugly Terms’: Is This the Only Path to End the Ukraine War?

There is a major blind spot afflicting many of the Western elite, in both the United States and Europe, regarding the drive to find a peaceful settlement of the Russia-Ukraine War. There is a widespread belief that with the right pressure on Russia or new support for Ukraine, that Moscow can be compelled to accede to a negotiated settlement palatable to Kyiv. However understandable such sentiments, such hopes are divorced from reality.

Time for Ugly Terms in the Ukraine War? 

There is no pressure the West can bring to bear on Russia and no military support that can be given to Ukraine which can produce any definition of a positive outcome for Ukraine.

The longer the West travels down the road of seeking the diplomatic and militarily unattainable, the greater the final cost of the failure for the Ukrainian people. The blunt, painfully evident truth is the war was lost long ago.

Trump, who has been trying to bring the war to an end since his inauguration, has become “increasingly frustrated,” White House Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, that neither side seems willing to make the concessions necessary to reach a mutually agreeable settlement. 

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. has reached the point “where concrete proposals” need to be quickly agreed upon by both sides, or the U.S. will “step back as mediators in this process.” Many establishment figures in Washington, and a host of voices in Europe, are aghast at such talk, accusing Trump of blaming Zelensky for the war and for failing to “put pressure on Putin.”

Yet what all these contrarian voices utterly fail to recognize is that the chance to cajole Russia into a less-than-maximalist concession to end or prevent the war – an outcome that could have been at least tolerable to Kyiv – was available in the past and categorically rejected. 

We now know that both German and French leaders, who helped craft the Minsk accords of 2015, never put any pressure on the Ukrainian government to implement the central requirement on the Russian side (the requirement to adjust their constitution to grant limited autonomy to the Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian people) – though Putin repeatedly argued for implementation of the accords in the years prior to 2022.

The (in)famous potential agreement in April 2022 to end the war when it was barely two months old at Istanbul was rejected by the West and by Zelensky. The last chance to negotiate an end on anything resembling advantageous to Ukraine was rejected in November 2022, when then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, argued that there would be no better time to seek a diplomatic end than when Russia was “really hurting bad”. According to the New York Times, however, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken shot down that idea.

Then came the disastrous 2023 Ukraine offensive that utterly failed to dent the Russian defenses in eastern Ukraine, and fatally weakened the Ukrainian military. At this point in the war, the logical, rational, and wisest course of action would have been to seek the best terms possible to end the war. With that massive offensive failure, there was no rational hope that the conditions would change in the future.

Russia withstood the best Ukraine and NATO support had to offer, and from the end of 2023 went on a general offensive, that continues to this day. The Russian military continues to get bigger, stronger, and more experienced. The defense industrial base in Russia is considerably more productive than the cumulative West. Ukraine cannot force-mobilize enough troops to even offset losses, let alone grow their force. They struggle to have even moderate industrial capacity to generate war material.

In short, there is clearly no military bases to believe that with more time, more supplies, more ammunition, the Ukraine side can reverse the tide of war. To ignore these painful realities is merely to subject the Ukrainian military and people to even greater losses in the future.  

As former NATO officer Col. Jacques Baud said on my show on Monday, Russia considers winning this war on their terms to be of an existential cultural basis, and will sacrifice whatever is necessary to end the war on terms they can live with – whether by negotiations or by force of arms.  There is no other path or outcome for Moscow. 

If no negotiated settlement is found now, the most likely result will be that Russia merely continues its war until it has defeated the Ukrainian Armed Forces and they are forced to surrender.

Trump appears to recognize military reality. It is why he has tried to get the sides to agree to an end-of-war negotiation that will stop the pointless dying, almost no matter the cost. Many in Europe remain blind to the balance of power that irrevocably favors the Russian side, and still believe that Trump should try to “force” Putin into concessions. They do not recognize that Trump possess no such leverage. 

No Easy Way to End the War for Ukraine and the West 

The hard truth is that Russia is well aware of its position of strength and is confident it can demand total compliance with its negotiating demands or it will simply win what it believes it needs on the battlefield. And Russia is right. As painful as that is to admit for us in the West, Russia can demand draconian terms, because it is able to militarily conquer Ukraine, even if it takes many more months. 

Msta-S in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

If Ukraine or Europe will not make the hard right call and take the ugly terms available, Trump should make good on his threat and walk away. The absence of American support may be the only thing left to open the eyes of the unbelieving. 

About the Author: Daniel L. Davis 

Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow & Military Expert for Defense Priorities, is a retired Army Lt. Col. with four combat deployments, and host of the Daniel Davis Deep Dive show on YouTube.