It’s high time to admit the obvious: Vladimir Putin does not want peace.
The Ukraine War Putin Won’t Stop
Peace negotiations with Russia’s illegitimate president are thus doomed to failure as long as he remains in power or as long as he isn’t compelled to make peace. The only reason to engage Putin at the negotiating table is to expose his mendacity and bad faith.
There are several reasons for Putin’s dedication to war and genocide in Ukraine.
First, he may actually believe that Russia is winning. Just how he could believe something this preposterous is another question.
After all, Russia will soon have lost a million soldiers. The Ukrainians have severely depleted its fleet of tanks and armored personnel carriers. Russia has lost about half the territories in seized at the outset of the war and is making tiny gains since. Russia has also lost control of the Black Sea to Ukraine, which is assiduously destroying its energy infrastructure.
The Russian economy is trapped in stagflation, and Russia itself has become a resource-exporting vassal state of China. NATO expansion, the supposed reason for the war, has extended to Sweden and Finland.
The list could easily be extended to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the war has been a disaster for Russia—and Ukraine, of course.
It may be that Putin’s toadies are providing him with sugar-coated information—a typical practice in dictatorships. Or it may be that he’s so beclouded with Russian imperialist ideology that he can’t see the objective reality.
Or, finally, he may be lying, in the hope that Russians will continue to sacrifice their lives for a lost cause.
Second, Putin cannot support any peace that falls short of Ukraine’s total capitulation. The Russian dictator has fully identified with the war: it is his and only his. As a result, for him to agree to peace now, when Ukraine still partially holds four provinces that Putin formally annexed in 2022, would be to agree to let Ukraine continue to “occupy” Russian territory. No Russian could view such a result as anything but defeat. And at what cost?
A million dead and wounded, and a collapsing economy. Russians may be willing to forgive or overlook such losses while fighting a war, but even their cultural predisposition to bow to authority won’t hold back their anger at and disgust with the man who caused such a mess. Ironically, Putin created this untenable situation by rushing to annex entire provinces before Russia had actually captured them.
The third reason is social. Ending the war means that a million or more hungry, battered, angry, and armed soldiers will be demobilized. They are unlikely to view Putin with anything but disdain. Some will accuse him of giving up too soon; others of starting a ruinous war. Russians will also be confronted with thousands of physically and psychologically mutilated men and women eager for payback.
The final reason is economic. Putin has constructed a flourishing war economy next to a stagnating, inflation-ridden consumer economy. Thousands of Russians are doing well thanks to the war. They would be among the first to suffer the deleterious consequences of peace.
Why Putin Won’t Stop the Ukraine War
In sum, Putin’s political, and possibly natural, life depends on the war. Peace would delegitimize him, invite challenges to his authority, and destabilize the country. Putin chose to go to war in 2022. Today, he can’t choose not to go to war.
Unless he is compelled to do so. The Trump administration could easily do so by supporting Ukraine and punishing Russia. The US president might start by recognizing that Russia started the war and that Putin—and not the South African president—is committing genocide.
About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
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Swamplaw Yankee
May 23, 2025 at 1:35 pm
This site has a bonus in this op-ed writer contribution. An accomplished scribe Motyl offers a very rare diaspora view of this current Yankee-Putin confrontation. As a real Ukrainian, now established in America, Motyl can clearly understand the lack of understanding inside America about the thousand year plus history of peasant russian genocide against Ukrainians.
The lack of comment about the re-start of this centuries long war in 2013-14 is concerning. That is, the world knows the fact that the USA green lighted Putin to steal the geopolitical advantage of the WEST in the Ukrainian control of the Crimea and Black/Azov Seas. More importantly, this Obama-Biden Democrat cabal unilaterally gifted, at no-coast, the giveaway TO the prime vile cold war enemy of the WEST, Putin, without full, open consultation with American Allies and the WEST!
The use of the sly unilateral scam by the USA inner beltway is well documented. The re-use of this unilateral scam is currently underway by the MAGA elite. The reality is that the POTUS may not even be aware of this unilateral scam. But, the unilateral shame show slimy slithers slowly with the Whackooff Weirdoes immoral body contact attempts with the master human trafficker, Putin.
Ad Rem: the lack of rigorous academic research into the blatant betrayal of the EU, Europe and NATO ( aka Allies) by the Obama-Biden-Democrat cabal in 2014 is scandalous.
As the USA MSM + world academia pretends amnesia, the glib + covert giveaway to the vile cold war enemy of the Ukrainian Land mass by the Obama-Biden Democrat cabal is totally unresearched, therefore, undocumented. Where is the Beef ( Research)? Is there no journalist willing to completely best by a million percentage the long-ago, lukewarm Watergate scoop?
At the very least, the MSM + academia can document exactly what the Obama-Biden Democrat Cabal shared with each intelligence structure of each Allied state. What exactly did POTUS Obama send to the Allies about his vile intent to be a traitor, to betray the WEST? Let’s see the exact texts! Foe example: What did the USA send to Canada about the Obama-Biden intent to betray Ukraine to the Commie enemy: Putin?
The reality is that Putin was ecstatic about this unheralded gift of betrayal from the Democrat Cabal. Forget Benedict Arnold, Lucky Putin had Obama-Biden 100% selling out the WEST.
Documentation of this 2014 betrayal is important! WHY? Maybe there was one Western country who had notice and tried to stop the Obama-Biden cabal betrayal of everyone. Who was that one country of perhaps leader? The MSM still refuses, in 2025, to facilitate this answer. Or, horror of horrors, did each state intelligence service approve of this cabal of traitors? What was each state’s intelligence structure exact advise transmitted to the elected state elite? Where are the missing USA facts?
The Obama-Biden approval immediately started Putin’s military human trafficking machine. In 2014, Putin sent “little green groomers” in to Ukraine, Crimea, to “HARVEST” Ukrainian children for the orc muscovite elite. This is well known peasant russian tradition that Obama-Biden green lighted. Putin immediately started the fast air lift of child victims to very needy russian language “teachers”. That is a code word for what exactly: pedophiles.
That is, the USA greenlighted the return of russia of 2014 to old imperial russia. The imperial Czar sent peasant russian bi-annual sex trade caravans into the Ukrainian hinterland to “harvest” Ukrainian children for deviant peasant russian needs and Czar’s cash flow. After deflowering “Lolita” the peasant russians would profit from cash from the Muslim sex traders waiting in Crimea in Caffa. The deviant peasant russian pedophiles then dragged the muslim gold back to their wives and children, so safe in Imperial Moscow. For over a thousand years of glorious imperial Russia.
Already, one hears the Democrat comrade hardcore , putting on their NAZI helmets, parting the palm leaves, and screaming, with histrionic political force, “I know nut think”.
Already, one hears the opposite side stating, that Obama loved the “Lolita” Nabokov scenario, as this ensured that racist peasant russians would not have the ancient genetic interest to molest little negro or oriental children. Hmmmm?
Putin must continue as the head of this massive peasant russian human trafficking of children. Every russian soldier dreams of getting his share of Obama approved free, no-cost, free table top dancing: russian language style of course. The whole russian culture depends on this ancient unspoken genetic need that is so freely supplied by their very own adored, loved human traffic head, Putin. Altered child ID documents all included, comrade! That is the economy, the pro-democrat MSM studiously ignores.
The last ad rem: The Chief Magistrate of the MAGA elite, POTUS Trump declares in public that the immediate pre-payment by Putin of $10.000.000 in gold bullion to each and every kidnap Ukrainian victim as compensation and reparation must be transmitted and received before any other interference to this war is even discussed to. That is, no coded agit-prop about the word peace or slimy slithering unilateral shame shows.
With the payment by Putin of $10,000,000 in gold bullion of compensation and reparation to the first 100,000 Ukrainian human traffic victims, the world will see changes. Putin will not be able to pay the gold bullion to next 100,000 Ukrainian victims! Why? Because the women of the orc muscovite elite will feel the cost of this free russian language “teacher” scam. The women of the orc muscovite elite will feel the cost + demand the release of all Ukrainian children and torture victims.
So, only ONE clear public statement from POTUS Trump does the trick to stop this war!.. The world mystery: Can the POTUS Trump manage to overcome himself to stop the war? Can the MAGA POTUS forcefully demand the gold bullion from Putin for compensation and reparation of the human trafficked Ukrainians?
One prays that POTUS Trump does not crumble on this one task! That suddenly, MAGA Trump succumbs to the vile Obama-Biden Democrat cabal scam: Let the 11 years of victimization of Ukrainians be a Free, No-cost, Giveaway Gift directly from me, POTUS Trump, to my close buddie, Putin.
The tangible leader of the WEST would not do that immortal vile deed, would he? -30-