An impossible compromise
Ukraine and Russia are locked in a grinding stalemate. Neither can accomplish a decisive military triumph any time soon, and neither can accept the political terms the another demands.
Russian forces make incremental advances, but at the expense of staggering losses. Latest data on Russian casualties from the Ukrainian General Staff and the Ukrainian open-source mapping task DeepState propose that between January and December 2025, Russia lost about 96 troops per square kilometer taken. With about 5,000 square km of Donetsk Oblast inactive under Ukrainian control, Russia would request to sacrifice close to half a million servicemen to occupy the remainder. According to a fresh estimation by the Institute for the survey of War, at the current rate of advance, Russian forces would capture the remainder of Donetsk only by August 2027. And even that would not end the war, since Russia besides aims to seize the remaining Ukrainian-held parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts, territories it has already claimed in its constitution. More fundamentally, it bears repeating that this war has never been about territory; Russia’s stated goals, encapsulated in the dictum “de-Nazification, demilitarization and neutrality”, point to a single strategical end – Ukraine’s subjugation.
Russia’s advanced military casualty rates, frequently exceeding 1,000 per day, have not yet constrained its ability to make fresh forces, given that it continues to recruit around 30,000 to 40,000 troops each month. Its yearly artillery shell production reached nearly four times that of NATO countries combined. It has besides demonstrated crucial adaptive capacity by adopting at scale Ukraine’s first drone-warfare tactics while introducing its own tactical and technological innovations. Moscow’s calculus is that it can simply outlast Ukraine in manpower, materiel and resolve. This mindset was evident in May 2025, during the first direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations in nearly 3 years, erstwhile Kremlin negotiator Vladimir Medinsky invoked the 18th century Northern War: “We fought with Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?” As long as the Kremlin sees possible for further gains, it has small incentive to halt hostilities or negociate in good faith.
Kyiv is equally determined to fight on, despite sustaining dense casualties and slow but steady failure of territory. Regardless of the political force exerted, the “peace proposals” advanced by president Trump and his squad – whether the earlier 28-point plan or the most fresh 20-point version – are doomed to fail, due to the fact that they are built on a faulty premise that Ukraine can be compelled to accept Russia’s demands. Neither president Zelensky nor any plausible successor can concede occupied territories without facing home upheaval. A fresh poll among Ukrainians showed overwhelming opposition to the concessions demanded by Moscow, including legal designation of the occupied territories as Russian (84.5 per cent deemed as unacceptable), simplification of Ukraine’s army (83.3 per cent), or granting the Russian language authoritative position (78.4 per cent). More than half of respondents said they would protest in the streets if the government agreed to terms that they saw as unacceptable.
While surviving and working in Ukraine between 2015 and 2023, I saw firsthand how even limited steps to implement the Minsk Agreements in the years preceding the full-scale invasion sparked political infighting and violent street protests. Those agreements were widely viewed as a Russian trap, which Kyiv could afford neither reject outright nor realistically fulfill. In today’s wartime, the stakes are existential. Forcing a defeatist settlement on Kyiv would destabilize Ukraine from within and leave it even more susceptible to future Russian attacks.
Ceasefire over political issues
The strategical choice facing Ukraine present is between fighting an indefinite war with an uncertain result or fighting for a ceasefire that preserves its sovereignty and inherent claim to its occupied territories. In either case, as dire as it sounds, Ukrainians have no option but to fight on, at least in the short term.
A ceasefire in Ukraine is attainable only if both sides scope a mutually hurting stalemate, a situation where neither side believes they can win militarily and erstwhile the costs of continuing conflict are perceived to outweigh the possible military gains. Scholars and experts have described the war in Ukraine this way before. However, in the method sense, this word does not yet apply, due to the fact that while Ukraine is fighting at its limits, Russia is not. In another words, although the situation on the ground resembles a stalemate and is mutually painful, it has not yet reached the point where Moscow feels compelled to negociate seriously.
When president Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine in March, he weakened not only Kyiv’s but besides his own negotiating leverage with Russia. Putin has since masterfully played Trump against both Ukrainians and Europeans while escalating his war effort.
Another thought that gained traction since early 2025 is the deployment of an global peacekeeping force or European “reassurance” force following a ceasefire. If conceived as a separation force, this plan is both unrealistic and strategically flawed.
Russia explicitly rejects specified deployment. The US has ruled out its participation, and any key European states, including Germany, Italy, and Spain, have besides signaled reluctance to contribute troops. Furthermore, as analysts have noted, if a western force is deployed without a political mandate to respond decisively, it risks losing credibility; and if it does intervene forcefully, it risks direct entanglement in a wider war with Russia.
Ukrainian leadership must besides be wary of agreeing to a deployment of an global separation force along the frontline. Any specified deployment risks entrenching a permanent division line that could yet shift global opinion towards accepting Russia’s fait accompli and thereby weaken prospects for restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
A self-regulating ceasefire
Ukrainians are facing a situation where their options run from bad to worse. A ceasefire without political preconditions or external force deployment is most likely the most feasible and the least damaging script for Kyiv right now.
A useful historical precedent exists in the long, if imperfect, ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan that held from 1994 to 2020. That ceasefire was mostly maintained by the parties themselves and relied on a balance of forces alternatively than external enforcement. In 2005, British expert Oksana Antonenko introduced a word “self-regulating ceasefire” to describe this unique characteristic of the Karabakh conflict.
Azerbaijan in 1994 confronted conditions akin to those Ukraine faces today. It had lost nearly one-fifth of its territory. 1 in 8 of its population was displaced. Ammunition was moving short, and desertion was rampant. Yet the ceasefire agreed that year was not imposed by defeat nor achieved as a concession.
The months preceding the ceasefire were the bloodiest phase of the conflict, marked by the largest battles of the war, on a scale comparable to medium-sized battles in WWII. Both sides reached a point of exhaustion. Azerbaijan was in no position to reclaim its lost territories, yet neither Armenia, despite its territorial advantage, could compel Azerbaijan to formally concede Mountainous Karabakh. Baku further rejected the deployment of Russian troops as a buffer, fearing it would cement the territorial division. The ceasefire thus emerged from a mutually hurting stalemate, not military defeat. In the years that followed, despite occasional flareups, both sides mostly observed the ceasefire themselves without external peacekeepers, a permanent monitoring force or even crucial confidence-building measures on the ground. The comparative calm provided Azerbaijan with a much-needed reprieve, which over time allowed it to rebuild its capabilities and yet reclaim its occupied territories.
Applying a akin script in Ukraine carries its own risks. Critics will inform that a ceasefire without external safety guarantees – whether in the form of a military intervention or NATO membership – could let Russia to regroup and prepare for future attacks. While specified assurances would be ideal, they stay improbable. And even if granted, Ukraine should callback the bitter lesson of the 1994 Budapest memorandum, erstwhile Kyiv gave up its atomic arsenal for empty assurances of territorial integrity. This is precisely why Ukraine must reject demands for forced neutrality and limits on the size and capability of its armed forces. The only reliable warrant against a renewed Russian invasion is simply a perpetually strong and western-supplied Ukrainian military.
Another likely criticism is that, unlike Azerbaijan facing a smaller Armenia, Ukraine confronts a far larger and more formidable Russia, making it improbable that it could always accomplish military advantage. Critics may besides express reservations that modeling a ceasefire on the Armenian-Azerbaijani example could introduce a negative dynamic from the outset, embedding the perception that no negotiated settlement is possible and that the pause would be utilized solely to prepare for a future war.
These dilemmas merit serious consideration and underscore that there is no copycat solution. Ukrainians may benefit from applicable historical lessons but will yet request to devise their own strategy. The balance of power between Kyiv and Moscow will hinge mostly on how Ukraine builds its defence in close coordination with Brussels and Washington – issues that go beyond the scope of this article. In any case, the persistence of political disagreements following the ceasefire does not regulation out the anticipation that future negotiations could yield mutually acceptable outcomes. The key point I want to convey from referencing fresh historical episodes is that Ukraine must preserve the full spectrum of options, including the right to usage force to reclaim its occupied territories if later negotiations fail.
Conclusion
A ceasefire devoid of political component is the only realistic option, which would shield Ukraine from both the possible of an open-ended war and a coerced “peace” that crops its territory and limits its sovereignty. The thought of a self-regulating ceasefire, proposed in this article, underscores that external assurances are secondary to Ukraine’s own defensive capabilities. Achieving specified a ceasefire will depend as much on the courage of Ukrainian troops and resilience of its people as it will on the US and EU getting their acts together and helping Ukraine negociate from a position of strength.
Correspondingly, the argument for self-reliance does not diminish the importance of continued western support, peculiarly in terms of preserving the sanctions government against Russia and ensuring steady and predictable military and economical assistance to Ukraine. Helping Ukraine defend itself is not a wasteful prolongation of the conflict, as any populist or pro-Russian narratives claim. It is the only credible way towards creating conditions under which cessation of hostilities becomes a political and militarily necessity for the Kremlin.
Tabib Huseynov is simply a policy analyst and investigator based in Baku, Azerbaijan. He worked with various global and humanitarian organizations in Ukraine between 2015 and 2023, including serving as the Deputy Head of Mission safety at the OSCE peculiar Monitoring Mission in Ukraine in 2019-2022.
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