Donald Trump continues to exert strong pressure on Kyiv in an attempt to push Ukraine toward concluding a peace agreement. Living in the frontline city of Sloviansk, philosopher and public figure Nikolai Karpitsky writes that from Ukraine the situation looks as if the goal of the negotiations is not to achieve peace, but to ensure that Kyiv, Moscow, and Brussels do not fall out with Trump.
Translation into English of a publication on the Estonian portal Postimees 05.03.2026 https://rus.postimees.ee/8427168/nikolay-karpickiy-vzglyad-na-mirnye-peregovory-iz-ukrainy-esli-putaete-voynu-s-konfliktom-to-mozhete-kapitulyaciyu-prinyat-za-mir
Translation into English of a publication on the Estonian portal Postimees 05.03.2026 https://rus.postimees.ee/8427168/nikolay-karpickiy-vzglyad-na-mirnye-peregovory-iz-ukrainy-esli-putaete-voynu-s-konfliktom-to-mozhete-kapitulyaciyu-prinyat-za-mir
Many people in the West morally support Ukraine. However, from a distance it is difficult to grasp the essence of what is happening in Ukraine. Only when you look the war in the eye can you understand the scale and the irrationality of the evil that Russia has brought with it. Evil that can be rationally explained is less frightening – for example, when the causes of war are sought in political conflicts, territorial disputes, or economic interests.
But this path leads to the false conclusion that one can reach an agreement with the aggressor by making concessions. Politicians in the West, the East, and the “Global South” often repeat as a mantra: let peace come to Ukraine even at the cost of territorial concessions – as long as people stop dying. This is also the position of U.S. President Donald Trump, who is trying to conclude a “peace deal.”
However, in Ukraine there are few supporters of such an outcome, because we are not fighting for territory but for the people who live on it and simply want to live their normal lives with all their everyday problems.
Ukrainians Pay for Every Day of Negotiations with Their Lives, Suffering, and Destruction
Trump could have provided Ukraine with enough weapons to deprive Moscow of any illusions about a quick victory on the battlefield and thus force it to sign a peace agreement. But the U.S. president preferred gradual political pressure. Since Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons, lacks sufficient resources for a counteroffensive, and is in a weaker position, the main pressure is being exerted on it.
Does Donald Trump understand that Ukrainians are already paying for these negotiations? As soon as delegations began negotiations in January 2026, Russia intensified strikes on civilian facilities and residential neighborhoods, seeking to freeze the country by destroying its energy infrastructure.
However, at the end of January, something resembling a miracle occurred: Trump stated that he had asked Vladimir Putin not to strike Ukraine’s energy system for a week because of the cold weather. It sounded like fantasy – and it proved to be fantasy. At the height of the cold spell, Russia launched a massive strike on Kyiv, leaving the city without electricity and heating.
Afterward, Trump said that this was exactly how it had been agreed: the moratorium began during a thaw and ended at the height of the frost.
From Ukraine, it looks as though the United States together with Russia is putting pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, forcing him to agree to completely unacceptable terms of capitulation.
War or Conflict
Although Donald Trump speaks about the Ukrainian-Russian war, in his efforts to achieve peace in Ukraine, he is trying to use the same tools that might apply to conflicts such as those between Pakistan and Afghanistan or Thailand and Cambodia. The American president believes that it is always possible to make a mutually beneficial deal with the conflicting parties so that they will lay down their arms and begin trading with each other, earning “a lot of money.” However, for Ukraine this is not a territorial conflict like those between the countries mentioned above, but a real, long, and bloody war for survival.
An armed conflict is a way of resolving disagreements between political actors through the use of weapons and military equipment. It is appropriate to speak of a conflict when there is a dispute that allows resolution through mutual concessions. But if one side’s goal is the elimination of the other side, then this is no longer a conflict but a war of destruction.
The official doctrine of Russia is the elimination of Ukrainian statehood and the absorption of the Ukrainian nation into the Russian community. Therefore, from the Ukrainian perspective, calling Russia’s war against Ukraine a conflict is as mistaken as calling the Holocaust a conflict between Jews and the Nazis.
Donald Trump believes that arms supplies to Ukraine make it harder to push the parties toward mutual concessions. Vladimir Putin is also interested in the West continuing to perceive the war against Ukraine as a conflict, since this directly affects the scale and nature of military assistance to Kyiv. That is why Kremlin propaganda seeks to create the false impression among Western audiences that the issue concerns disputed territories and political disagreements rather than an intention to destroy Ukraine as a country with its own culture.
Western media and political leaders do not hesitate to use the term “war” when assessing what is happening in Ukraine. However, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi consistently refers to the war in Ukraine as a conflict, and many Indian media outlets follow the same terminology.
The same term, “conflict,” is used by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as by leaders of several countries of the so-called “Global South,” the heads of state of Central Asia, and Moscow’s military allies – Belarus, Iran, and North Korea.
The question of terminology in international politics is not merely a matter of word choice but a reflection of a country’s official position. Using the word “conflict” allows governments to avoid a clear assessment of Russia as the aggressor and to demonstrate a false neutrality – a stance above the fray. Perhaps in this way political leaders seek to distance themselves from accusations of providing military assistance or cooperating with Russia in ways that help Vladimir Putin finance the war.
The vote at the United Nations General Assembly on February 24, marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, clearly showed which countries regard the war as a conflict: 12 countries voted against the resolution, and 51 abstained. Among them were all the supposedly neutral states mentioned above.
Unfortunately, the United States was also among them. The 107 countries that voted in support of Ukraine made it clear to Vladimir Putin that they consider Russia an aggressor waging a full-scale war. Putin himself avoids calling the war in Ukraine either a war or a conflict.
For Putin, Ukraine Is Simply a Military Trophy
For Ukrainians, it is unacceptable to call a war for survival a conflict, because the very desire to survive cannot be a matter of dispute or compromise. For Vladimir Putin, the term “conflict” is also unacceptable, but for a different reason: a conflict presupposes the existence of at least two subjects, whereas he fundamentally refuses to recognize the subjectivity of Ukraine.
After all, a hunter does not consider prey to be a subject and therefore does not perceive hunting as a conflict between himself and the prey. Putin uses the concept of a “military conflict” only when threatening war against NATO countries.
From Putin’s point of view, the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian authorities lack subjectivity, and therefore negotiations about peace with them make no sense. He allows only the imitation of negotiations with a Ukrainian delegation. A direct meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy would destroy the entire structure of Russian propaganda, which is based on denying Ukraine’s subjectivity.
For the same reason, Russia does not want to provide peace guarantees to Ukraine in the event of signing an agreement to end the war – because guarantees can only be given to a subject. But for Putin, Ukraine is simply a military trophy.
At the same time, Putin is also unwilling to use the term “war,” since the word frightens Russian citizens who have spent their lives believing they live in a peaceful country. Moreover, acknowledging that the war in Ukraine is indeed a war would entail responsibility for its consequences. Therefore, the Kremlin leader resorts to the euphemism “special military operation.” One of the few world leaders who appears to understand this is China’s leader Xi Jinping, who likewise uses euphemisms such as “the Ukraine crisis” or “the situation in Ukraine.”
The Goal of the War: The Destruction of Ukrainian Identity
Any recognition of Ukraine’s subjectivity contradicts the goal of the war that Vladimir Putin formulated on the very first day of the invasion and has never renounced. To describe this goal, the term “denazification” was chosen, but it was given a fundamentally new meaning: the elimination of Ukrainian identity and, as its key element, Ukrainian statehood.
Such ideas are also voiced in the public sphere, including in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, and are then implemented in the occupied territories. There, a person may be arrested and tortured simply for using the Ukrainian language. In Russia itself, anyone who transfers even a small sum to a Ukrainian charity helping civilians can be convicted as a “sponsor of terrorism.” Since the Russian authorities deny the Ukrainian people’s political subjectivity and their right to exist, from their perspective such actions are crimes.
The phrase “special military operation” is used to mask the true goals and nature of the war. In reality, Russia is waging a full-scale war, carrying out mass acts of terror against the civilian population of Ukraine – bombing residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, and committing torture and killings in the occupied territories.
However, at the trilateral negotiations initiated by Donald Trump, the humanitarian dimension of the war is hardly discussed at all: there is no discussion of stopping attacks on civilians or protecting the rights of people in the occupied territories, above all the right to life.
From Ukraine, it looks as though the purpose of the negotiations is not to achieve peace but to ensure that Kyiv, Moscow, and Brussels do not quarrel with Trump. As a result, the negotiations are not substantive but resemble a kind of “business game.” The participants carefully discuss the technical details of a peace agreement in a hypothetical situation – if Vladimir Putin were to express a desire to end the war.
Undoubtedly, Ukraine desperately needs a truce to address many internal tasks, including those related to defense. But what it certainly does not need is an imitation of peace negotiations at a moment when Russia is preparing a spring–summer offensive against Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which would open the way for an advance deeper into the country across the steppe zone, where defense is difficult.
And the Ukrainian people have no choice: if the Russian army stops fighting, there will be peace. If the Armed Forces of Ukraine stop fighting, Ukraine will cease to exist.
