EditThe perverse logic of appeasement: Russia escalates, the West concedes, Ukraine pays
Trump insists Putin is “serious about peace.” The evidence says otherwise
Russia does not bomb while negotiating because diplomacy failed. Russia bombs because diplomacy is underway, writes Sed Tkachuk.
Volodymyr (Sed) Tkachuk is a communications specialist and free-lance journalist, signing Sed Tkachuk. His other columns can be found here.
While diplomats were trading percentages – 90 percent agreed, 95 percent resolved – missiles and drones were doing what they have done for nearly four years: turning civilian infrastructure into leverage. That timing is not coincidental. It never is.
The latest Trump-Zelenskyy meeting at Mar-a-Lago fits neatly into a familiar carousel. Florida replaces the White House. Ornate dining rooms replace the Oval Office. The language shifts from confrontation to hospitality. Lunch menus appear. Cameras are ushered out. And somewhere between handshakes and optimism, Vladimir Putin is consulted – before and after – like a necessary axis around which everything must rotate.
We have seen versions of this meeting before. In 2019, the relationship was transactional and coercive. In 2023, it was cautious and managed. In 2024, it was tense but public. This time, it was cushioned. Cushioned by parallel diplomacy designed to reassure everyone except the one actor who does not need reassurance. Pope Leo XIV in New York with Secretary-General of the United Nations Guterres. NATO chief Rutte in Washington with Vance. European leaders patched in by phone. The choreography signals stability. The substance does not.
Trump’s rhetoric has become more polished, not more precise. “Makings of a deal.” “Closer than ever.” “Both sides want it to end.” These phrases glide past the central asymmetry of the war. Russia escalates militarily to improve its negotiating position. The West de-escalates pressure in the hope that negotiations will become possible. These are opposite logics. Only one side understands that contradiction – and exploits it.
Russia does not bomb while negotiating because diplomacy failed. Russia bombs because diplomacy is underway. Every blackout, every missile volley before or during talks is a reminder of who sets the tempo. While Western capitals debate sequencing and frameworks, Moscow adjusts facts on the ground. When the White House quietly lifts sanctions on foreign firms founded by Russian nationals that supply American and European electronics used in Russian missiles – ostensibly to “open space for diplomacy” – the message received in Moscow is not goodwill. It is confirmation.
Trump insists Putin is “serious about peace.” The evidence says otherwise. Russia rejects ceasefires, dismisses referendums unless they serve its interests, and continues to demand territory it has not been able to seize militarily. This is not compromise. It is pressure laundering.
The Trump–Zelenskyy–Putin triangle keeps returning to the same unresolved core: territory, security guarantees, and legitimacy. On each of these, the gap between Western assumptions and Ukrainian legal reality is growing wider.
The question of referendums and elections has become a diplomatic obsession. It should not be. Ukrainian law is not vague on this matter. It is restrictive by design. Not because Ukrainian lawmakers feared democracy, but because they understood geography. The legal framework governing elections and referendums was written with a clear-eyed view of Ukraine’s neighbours and their methods.
Under the Constitution of Ukraine, sovereignty and territorial integrity are not negotiable objects of popular sentiment during wartime. Article 157 explicitly prohibits constitutional changes that undermine territorial integrity, especially under martial law. Article 3 of the Law on National Referendum states clearly: issues aimed at violating state sovereignty, territorial integrity, or independence cannot be put to a nationwide vote. This is not a loophole. It is a safeguard.
The idea that Ukraine can or should “solve” Putin-favoured territorial concessions via referendum misunderstands both law and war. A referendum requires a minimum turnout threshold that is structurally impossible under current conditions. Over 30 percent of Ukrainian citizens are displaced internally or abroad. Millions remain registered to vote inside the country but cannot physically or safely do so. Even a nominally high turnout would fail to meet legal thresholds. Any such vote would be legally contestable, politically explosive, and constitutionally fragile.
More importantly, international peace agreements themselves cannot be decided by referendum. Ukrainian law assigns that responsibility to the president as Supreme Commander-in-Chief. That authority is not symbolic. It is functional. The president is not merely empowered to negotiate peace; he is obligated to do so. Parliament’s role comes after – through ratification of what was signed – not before. Introducing a referendum into this process is not democratic empowerment. It is abdication.
Those who insist on a referendum are effectively saying the president is incapable of bearing responsibility for the decision he is constitutionally required to make. That is not decentralisation of power. It is an erosion of state capacity in wartime.
Elections, which both Trump and Putin want, present an even starker problem. Ukraine’s Constitution allows for the suspension of elections under martial law. The Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law explicitly prohibits presidential, parliamentary, and local elections during its duration. This is not a political choice. It is statutory law. Changing it would require constitutional amendments – which are themselves forbidden during martial law.
Even if legal barriers were ignored, practical ones remain insurmountable. Voting is conducted at physical polling stations. Soldiers cannot abandon positions to cast ballots. Six million Ukrainians abroad can only vote through limited consular infrastructure. Online voting, often floated as a technological fix, is legally incompatible with the constitutional requirement of secret ballots and operationally indefensible during a cyber war with Russia. The Eurovision vote crashing national systems was a warning shot, not a joke.
Calls for elections during active warfare are not naïve. They are destabilising. And they benefit a narrow set of actors: those seeking to freeze current political dynamics or to open the door for populist or Kremlin-adjacent forces under the banner of “peace.”
This brings us back to the logic collision at the heart of the current diplomatic push. Russia escalates to improve leverage. The West reduces pressure to preserve talks. The result is predictable. Moscow advances militarily while presenting itself as a reasonable negotiating partner. Western leaders interpret Russia’s presence at the table as moderation. Ukraine absorbs the cost.
The framing of Putin as a rational stakeholder misunderstands the nature of the regime. As one blunt assessment puts it: Putin owns the bodies and souls of the population living on his land. He does not care when, where, why, or for what his subjects die. This is not rhetorical excess. It is an accurate description of a system that treats human life as expendable inventory.
Against this reality, the promise of “security guarantees” without NATO membership rings hollow. Paper guarantees did not stop the invasion in 2014. They did not stop it in 2022. They will not stop the next one. A demilitarised zone or “free economic zone” in Donbas is not a compromise; it is a rebranding of loss. Control deferred is control denied.
The cushioning of the Mar-a-Lago meeting – with papal diplomacy on one flank and Atlantic alliance choreography on the other – is designed to reassure Western audiences that process is under control. But process is not protection. Structure is not deterrence. And optimism does not substitute for pressure.
Ukraine is being asked to make irreversible decisions under reversible guarantees. To accept legal contortions in the name of flexibility. To validate a peace architecture that assumes Russia will behave differently tomorrow than it did yesterday. None of this is grounded in law, precedent, or experience.
If a deal emerges, it will not be legitimised by referendums held under fire or elections conducted amid blackouts. It will stand or fall on the willingness of the political class to own responsibility – and on the willingness of Ukraine’s partners to align pressure with reality.
The only question left is whether the people negotiating over lunch are willing to look that fact in the eye – and act accordingly.
Caption: A Ukrainian visits a grave on the Alley of Heroes at the military cemetery in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, 28 December 2025, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. Russian troops entered Ukraine on 24 February 2022, starting a conflict that has provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Updated: December 30, 2025 - 06:11
