Ripe for Imperialist Resolution: Ukraine’s Mutually Hurting Stalemate with Russia

The Trump-Putin Summit fizzled. A nothing-burger. We anticipated this in the latest episode of The Un-Diplomatic Podcast, which was recorded the day before the summit.

But I have no patience for those who say we “rewarded” Putin by meeting with him. That’s a sure sign of someone clinging to the unipolar moment. Diplomacy is communication, not a gift, and in 2025, the symbolic capital of the US presidency isn’t worth a damn.

Despite the predictable failure of this particular meeting, I continue to believe that the war is ripe for a negotiated settlement. The only trouble will be that the nature of Western politics means the war cannot be ended on terms that provide justice for all.

The Roots of War

At the press conference, Putin offered the kind of statement that means something different to everyone:

in order to make the settlement lasting and long-term, we need to eliminate all of the primary causes of the conflict.

This, of course, is true. Durable peace requires getting to the root of a conflict. But what is that here?

Putin is the trigger puller, but we must have an account for not only the circumstances that make Putin possible but also what incentivizes him to behave like an imperialist asshole. I see the foundational causes of the conflict in a mix of: failing to undertake a green transition (relying instead on fossil fuels); a global economy that facilitates giant wealth transfers to oligarchs (which is why we’re still addicted to fossil fuels and the cause of Russia’s economic depression in the ‘90s); US primacy’s refusal to reciprocate Gorbachev’s military restraint moves at the end of the Cold War; and yes, NATO expansion.

Putin and the Russian military have a 19th century conception of geopolitics that is very much imperialist. It invites aggression for the West to know that Russia thinks this way and to nevertheless make moves over decades that transgress against what that mindset believes about what security is (land buffers, spheres of influence, zones of control). NATO expansion does not explain the timing of Putin’s decisions, but it was a favorable structuring condition.

Obviously not everyone agrees. European exceptionalists, who have a child-like understanding of war, do not think in terms of root causes in the first place. So their “durable solution” is Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, a military buildup in Europe, NATO security guarantees for an Ukraine that is already militarily occupied by Russia, and perhaps the overthrow of Putin. But this is simply a list that reverses things European elites don’t like. The Europeans who think this way are merely reacting to the surface level of reality, not the social and economic conditions that gave rise to that coarse, overmilitarized surface.

Meanwhile, Trump Special Envoy Steve Witkoff supposedly helped set this uneventful summit in motion by misrepresenting Russia’s demand for Ukraine to cede all of Donetsk and Luhansk in order to end the conflict. For Russia, what Putin means by “primary causes of the conflict” almost certainly means enjoying Ukraine as both Russian lebensraum and as a functional land buffer between Russia and Europe. In Putin’s calculus, that means controlling Ukraine the same way the US controls Pacific Island nations—I do not wish that on the Ukrainians.

Much is at stake in this debate about the sources of the war, because a failure to address the sources means that any peace will have hidden costs and be prone to reversal.

Nobody Wins

Enter the “mutually hurting stalemate” and “ripeness,” intertwined concepts in the peace intellectual tradition.

Conflicts are ripe for negotiated settlement when the opposing sides have reached a mutually hurting stalemate—a status quo that is neither positive sum nor zero sum but rather negative sum. The longer the situation persists, the more both sides pay a price. I’ve been arguing since 2023 that Ukraine and Russia reached the point of a mutually hurting stalemate less than a year into the war.

Now I have actual data that visualizes what that means:

Russia controls some 20% of Ukrainian territory at the moment, but the fundamental balance of territorial control has not changed much since the beginning of the war. That is a literal stalemate. I’m tempted to go on a tangent about the defense-dominant nature of drone warfare in Ukraine, but I’ll stay focused on the task, which is pointing out the mutually hurting stalemate. In effect, Ukraine succeeded in creating a mutual hurting stalemate the second it launched counter-offensives in late 2022.

That matters because the subsequent (and ongoing) circumstances of the Russia-Ukraine war have been “ripe” for—ie, objectively favorable to—a negotiated settlement. But for that to matter, both sides must accurately perceive the mutually hurting stalemate and not be nudged toward pathological misperceptions. As political scientist Kenneth Waltz once wrote:

statesmen can decide any fool thing they like. But they’re likely to be rewarded for those decisions that respond to structural incentives and punished for decisions that ignore structural constraints.

My disdain for preening warmonger politicians in Europe like Kaja Kallas is precisely that they encourage maximalism in a situation that does not allow for it. I understand wanting to deny Russia its goal of political control…but at the price of a bottomless Ukrainian grave? Imposing costs on Russia does not deny it political control over territory it occupies.

The ongoing negative-sum situation is the punishment invited by policymakers on both sides who refuse structural realities in favor of maximalist demands. Putin’s okay with that but we should not be.

The Bitter Fruit of Imperialist “Peace”

What has needed to change from the start, then, is an accommodation of Russia’s position that reflects the balance of forces clashing in Ukraine. Such a recalibration has been…elusive.

But there is a solution in sight that takes advantage of the mutually hurting stalemate. It’s just a brittle solution that likely calls on still more sacrifices of Ukraine and risks falling apart once Trump leaves office: A much rumored concession of Donetsk and/or Luhansk combined with a stationing of either US or NATO forces in Ukraine (the “Korea model”).

The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin told Trump he might be ok with a permanent garrison of US forces in Ukraine, effectively establishing a demilitarized zone that perpetuates an eternal Cold War-style equilibrium. Near-term it buys time; long-term, that’s a total nightmare that will accelerate Europe’s descent into fascism. It seems unlikely that Ukraine would make the territorial concession of Donetsk or Luhansk required to make this deal work, but the Trump administration would almost certainly leave Ukraine no choice—the imperialist imposition of peace.

But one thing that the Korea experience makes obvious is that rogue militaries and political leaders on either side can sabotage stability at any time, bringing on grand existential crises that amount to playing Russian roulette. If Ukraine wished to undermine an imperial peace, it could quite easily.

There’s also the wrinkle coming out of the summit that now Trump thinks he can get a peace settlement without first achieving the ceasefire. Trump posted on Truth Social that:

It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.

Trump wants to do a deal, and my guess is that Putin wants him to concede something (like Donetsk and Luhansk) that is worth more than just a ceasefire—something that is only sellable politically if you can claim peace. So Trump say’s let’s skip a ceasefire and go straight to peace.

The situation is horrific enough that anything capable of halting the bloodletting for a while is worth entertaining…but we shouldn’t mistake whatever that is for peace. If you’re not capable of inducing a ceasefire, it’s implausible that you’ll be able to secure something called durable peace.