As peace in Ukraine struggles to be born after three-and-a-half years of war, necessity prompts each of the participants in different ways. For Ukraine to achieve its best possible outcome, it must find a diplomatic way to avoid outright military defeat. Russia, by contrast, does not feel compelled to end the war for military reasons, and, if it is to end it diplomatically, it must reach at least the key diplomatic goals it entered the war to achieve.
Russian President Vladimir Putin would clearly prefer to end the war diplomatically, rather than militarily. Despite accusations that he has shown no indication of wanting peace, the record shows that Putin pursued diplomacy at least twice: once just before the war, and once just after it began.
In December 2021, just weeks before the war, Putin attempted to solve Russia's security concerns with the U.S. and NATO by presenting each of them with a treaty proposal on security guarantees. As late as February 13, 2022, only days before the invasion, Putin was still talking to President Macron of France and Chancellor Scholz of Germany about resolving the crisis diplomatically, urging them to apply pressure on Kiev to keep the Minsk agreements alive.
After the war began, throughout March and April of 2022, Putin initiated bilateral talks in Istanbul. Oleksandr Chalyi, a member of Ukraine's negotiating team in Istanbul, says that Putin "demonstrated a genuine effort to find a realistic compromise and achieve peace." And again, in August 2025, at the summit with U.S. President Trump in Alaska, Putin again reiterated his willingness to compromise on some issues in order to achieve a negotiated settlement.
But, though Russia would prefer to achieve its goals diplomatically, it is prepared to win them militarily if necessary. As Putin has repeatedly said, Russia will not stop until Ukraine is neutral, NATO is blocked from expansion to Ukraine, and the population of Donbas is secure and able to enjoy full cultural and civic rights.
To stop the horrific loss of lives, both Russian and Ukrainian leaders will have to identify the best negotiated outcome they can achieve and compromise to achieve it. If Ukraine fails to compromise, its armed forces will eventually collapse, resulting in a much worse outcome; if Russia fails to compromise, it faces a long daunting path to victory, persistent isolation from the West, and the prospect of a renewed arms race.
What might this compromise involve? On NATO, now that the Trump administration has repeatedly declared that the door to NATO is closed to Ukraine, all that is actually required of Ukrainian leaders is a public acknowledgement of this fact. Second, Ukraine will have to formally give up the territory and people of Donbass, which Zelensky himself has already admitted Ukraine does not have the strength to reconquer militarily. This may be a de facto, rather than de jure recognition. Lastly, Ukraine will have to give up Crimea. Zelensky himself conceded as much, saying "We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back."
This is not only a military necessity but a cultural one as well. Crimea was part of Russia for centuries before being gifted to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and local surveys have long confirmed that most Crimeans consider themselves Russians. As Richard Sakwa, Professor Emeritus at the University of Kent, says in his book Frontline Ukraine, "It is clear that the majority of the Crimean population favored unification with Russia." While the accuracy of this result has been questioned, Sakwa notes that "even in perfect conditions a majority in Crimea would have voted for union with Russia."
Pragmatic necessity also requires that, in those parts of Ukraine that remain under Kievan control after the war, and where the population is still substantially Russian speaking, basic protections of civil, language, and religious rights must be provided. This will be necessary to bring Ukraine into compliance with existing European Union regulations, if Ukraine does not want to give up its EU aspirations.
But, while Russia appears to be in a stronger bargaining position, thanks to its successes on the battlefield, necessity will force some compromises on it as well.
After the failure of the Istanbul talks in April 2022, Russia's position has been that not only the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, but also Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are now irrevocably part of Russia. More recently, however, Moscow has shown more flexibility on these territorial demands. At the Anchorage summit, Putin apparently offered this compromise: if Ukraine withdraws from all of Donbas, then Russia would agree to freeze its advance into Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, leaving about a quarter of both under Ukrainian control. Again, this could be formalized de facto, rather than de jure. Pragmatism dictates this necessity because Ukraine is unlikely to give up the land it still controls and conquering and controlling it would be difficult and costly for Russia.
In Istanbul, Putin also set limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces, as a condition for peace. Pragmatic necessity, however, may force Russia to compromise, since it would be next to impossible to enforce such limits, or to prevent European countries from sending arms to Ukraine. This difficulty has only grown, now that Ukraine is producing more of its own advanced weapons. Moscow may be willing to abandon limits on the Ukrainian armed forces, as long as they do not deploy long-range weapons capable of striking deep inside Russia.
Finally, necessity may dictate the terms of security guarantees for Ukraine as well. In exchange for not having European troops deployed in Ukraine, Russia might be willing to accept more robust "NATO-like" security guarantees for it, especially if these were accompanied by a pan-European security framework that included both Russia and Ukraine.
Russia has long sought such a security framework, which would include Ukraine, and apply the principle of "indivisible security" to all European countries, thus finally transcending the bloc-based divisions that haunted Europe during the Cold War. To leave such thinking behind, however, Russia will need to provide robust security guarantees for Ukraine, and the West will have to do the same for Russia.
All these compromises can be achieved, if the parties are willing to negotiate in good faith and recognize that they have a common interest in lasting peace in Europe.
Nicolai N. Petro is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, and the author of The Tragedy of Ukraine (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2023). He is also a Senior Washington fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy.