Similar to the situation in Potsdam after the Second World War, the only viable option now is to negotiate the conditions for Ukraine’s defeat. There remains an opportunity to prevent further loss of life, writes Stefan Moore.
European officials are currently in a state of alarm. They rush to revise Trump’s 28-point peace proposal, which they perceive as favoring Russia, aiming to grant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a voice equal to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Such thinking is unrealistic. Regardless of whether Zelensky and his U.S./NATO backers, who have invested hundreds of billions into this conflict, accept it, Russia stands as the clear victor in this devastating 14-year struggle that began with Ukraine’s civil war in 2014 and escalated when Russia intervened in 2022.
Moscow will ultimately dictate the terms when the conflict comes to an end. Echoing the Potsdam Agreement at the close of WWII, negotiating terms of defeat is now the only feasible course.
Such terms will entail Ukraine ceding all or most of the four eastern oblasts—Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—representing about a third of its land and population; a binding ban on joining NATO, which Russia correctly regards as an adversarial coalition; scaling back its military (with the size subject to negotiation); and the denazification of its armed forces and government structures.
For those who view these conditions as unacceptable surrender, a deeper look at history is warranted.
Despite promises made to Russia after the Cold War that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” (as documented), the alliance steadily advanced to Russia’s borders, from Poland to the Baltic states, and in 2008 extended membership invitations to Ukraine and Georgia. The grave risks of this expansion were clearly noted by top U.S. diplomats at the time.
In 2008, William Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, warned in a cable revealed by WikiLeaks that Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership could ignite conflict with Russia within Ukraine—a forecast that has since been realized.
George Kennan, the architect behind America’s Soviet containment strategy, foresaw as early as 1997 that expanding NATO would be “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.”
These warnings were ignored, and the West proceeded with efforts to undermine Russia in every possible way.
The Coup
The violent coup in Kiev, February 2014. (Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
In 2014, the U.S. played a key role in orchestrating a coup (shown here, here, and here) that toppled Ukraine’s legitimately elected, Russia-friendly President Victor Yanukovych and installed a Western-aligned government. Portrayed by Western media as a popular democratic uprising, this event paved the way for civil conflict between Ukraine’s pro-European west and its eastern areas with closer Russian ties.
The primary victims were the ethnic Russian populations in eastern Ukraine who opposed the coup and sought autonomy. Ukraine’s military and fiercely anti-Russian, neo-Nazi battalions responded with military action.
An attempt to resolve the crisis was made through the Minsk Accords, brokered by France and Germany with U.N. involvement.
The agreement called for granting autonomous status to the ethnic Russian Donetsk and Lugansk regions within a federated Ukraine and stipulated that Ukraine would not join NATO, an alliance Russia views as threatening its very existence.
To understand Russia’s adamant stance, imagine if Mexico or Canada joined a defense pact with Russia that permitted nuclear missile deployments just across the U.S. border. The lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrate this perfectly.
Had Western powers acted sincerely to uphold Minsk, history might have unfolded differently. Instead, European governments actively undermined the accords.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Francois Hollande later publicly conceded that Minsk was a stalling tactic, intended to provide NATO the chance to arm Ukraine for a confrontation they were determined to pursue to the last Ukrainian soldier.
Feb. 12, 2015: Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the Normandy format talks in Minsk, Belarus. (Kremlin)
Between Minsk in 2015 and Russia’s invasion in 2022, thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine had been killed by Ukrainian forces. Russian language education was banned, Russian Orthodox churches were targeted, and Russian-language media faced harsh restrictions. The U.N. Human Rights Office (OHCHR) reports that 3,106 civilians died in Donbass between 2014 and the end of 2021.
The Istanbul Denial
Despite the Minsk setback and just two months after the start of the Russian invasion, another chance to end hostilities was underway in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine.
The proposed terms mirrored those of Minsk, but as Ukraine was on the verge of signing, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kiev representing NATO interests, urging Zelensky to abandon negotiations. The U.S. and Europe pledged to supply Ukraine with all necessary arms to continue the fight against Russia.
Hence, four years later, we find ourselves still embroiled in conflict. Putin, having been deceived twice, has lost faith in Western leadership and no longer entertains their diplomatic maneuvers. On the battlefield, Russia proceeds at a deliberate pace, currently prevailing in a protracted war of attrition that now overwhelmingly favors Moscow.
Despite harsh rhetoric from Europe, Ukraine’s supply of trained fighters is nearly depleted, U.S. stocks of ground combat weapons for Ukraine are running low, and Europe’s financial support is drying up. Meanwhile, mounting corruption scandals have engulfed Zelensky’s inner circle, prompting the resignation of his chief of staff today.
The fall of Andriy Yermak – Zelensky’s fixer, enforcer, gatekeeper, and indispensable ally, isn’t a “corruption scandal.” It’s Washington slapping the table. NABU, the U.S.-trained attack dog of Ukrainian politics, didn’t raid the Presidential Office by accident. It raided to… pic.twitter.com/6k8cYOJ6I0
— THE ISLANDER (@IslanderWORLD) November 28, 2025
The tragedy lies in the fact that the death toll exceeding one million—mostly young Russian and Ukrainian men caught in brutal trench warfare—the displacement of more than 7 million Ukrainian refugees unlikely to return, as well as the widespread devastation of Ukraine’s infrastructure, could all have been prevented.
The claim that the West intervened in Ukraine to defend democracy in Europe’s most corrupt and neo-Nazi-infiltrated nation is as implausible as it is deceptive. This conflict has consistently been driven by the U.S./NATO coalition’s objective to diminish Russian power, unseat Putin, and restore Western dominance over Russia reminiscent of the 1990s, with Ukraine positioned as a reluctant proxy.
The neoconservatives in Washington and Brussels, intoxicated with triumphalism following the Soviet collapse, made a grave error in believing they could reshape the post-Cold War geopolitical landscape, including Eurasia, to suit their ambitions without dire fallout.
Ultimately, Ukraine will face defeat, though there will be no clear victors.
Both Ukraine and Russia will require extensive time to heal from the immense human and economic damage inflicted by this catastrophic conflict; Europe’s economy lies in ruins, facing near-zero or negative growth, energy costs thrice their previous levels following the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline, and widespread corporate relocations offshore.
The U.S. similarly is left with little to show beyond domestic unrest over the war, soaring national debt, and growing international isolation.
As always, the greatest beneficiaries remain the global defense contractors, whose profits have surged since the outbreak of war in Ukraine and Israel’s genocidal conflict in Gaza.
Original article: consortiumnews.com
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