Enduring Peace Starts Here

RKSL

The Frontline

Aug 13, 2025

Donald Trump is preparing to bring Vladimir Putin, an indicted war criminal, onto American soil under the false pretext of ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. This is not a peace initiative. It is a disgraceful display that gives the aggressor a platform, legitimizes his crimes, and shifts pressure onto the victim. It recasts mass atrocities, stolen land, and abducted children as points for negotiation, as if the survival of a sovereign, democratic nation were a matter of compromise.

That such a meeting is even being discussed is an insult to every principle of justice and security. It is preposterous that Russia’s demands, born of invasion and genocide, are given any place in diplomatic conversation. Even more absurd is the suggestion that Ukraine should be forced to define so-called red lines as if its independence, territorial integrity, and the lives of its people are matters for barter. Ukraine has been brutally and systematically attacked. The only legitimate discussion is not what Ukraine must give up, but what conditions and punishments Russia must face to end its aggression and ensure that it can never repeat it.

The red lines being referenced in Western discussions are not a negotiating baseline. They are the bare minimum rights guaranteed to any sovereign state under the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Accords. They have relatively successfully provided the basis for the extended post World War security architecture. A genuine peace process must begin from a foundation that removes the causes of this war, dismantles Russia’s ability to wage another, and liberates the nations still trapped inside its colonial empire.

For a sustainable peace to be secured, these essential measures must be enacted:

1. Decolonization of the Russian Federation – All colonized nations within Russia must be permited full independence. Chechnya, Erzya, Dagestan, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Sakha, Buryatia, Kalmykia, and others have been denied self-determination for generations. This is the morally necessary liberation of peoples whose languages, cultures, and political rights have been suppressed. Decolonization is essential for lasting peace and European stability.
2. Restoration of Lands Seized from Other Nations – Russia must return the Kuril Islands to Japan, Karelia to Finland, Königsberg to Germany, Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia, and Transnistria to Moldova.
3. Demilitarization of Russia – Russia must dismantle its strategic missile forces and eliminate long-range strike capabilities under international supervision. Nuclear weapons must be surrendered to an internationally controlled disarmament program. A rogue terrorist state must not be permitted to control weapons of mass destruction.
4. Removal of the Current Regime and Criminal Accountability – Vladimir Putin and his ruling elite must face prosecution for the crimes of aggression, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
5. Reparations to Ukraine and All Victims of Russian Imperialism -Russian sovereign reserves and frozen assets must be transferred to Ukraine to fund reconstruction, with a share provided to other nations harmed by Russian military aggression.
6. International Oversight of Russian Governance – Russia’s constitution, elections, and foreign policy must be placed under international monitoring for a generation to ensure compliance with peace terms and to prevent future aggression.
7. Protection of Indigenous Languages and Cultures – All indigenous nations within Russia must have their languages, traditions, and cultural institutions protected and funded, with enforcement by international bodies.

Ukrainian terms are hardly extreme. They match the scale of Russia’s crimes and are fully in line with the principles that secured Europe after 1945. They are designed to remove the conditions that make renewed aggression certain. They protect not only Ukraine, but the stability of the entire transatlantic alliance.

Some will say these demands are unrealistic and that Ukraine does not have the “cards.” They will claim they do not reflect the reality on the ground. The truth is that Russia has failed on every front. It did not take Ukraine in four days as it planned. Its losses are more than three times greater than Ukraine’s. Ukraine has not only stopped the invasion, it has pushed Russian forces back to a fraction of their initial drive. Ukraine has built the most modern and technologically advanced drone army in the world and has inflicted significant damage to Russia’s war machine deep within the country. Inside Russia, senior officials have admitted that the Russian economy cannot withstand this war and will collapse in the fall if it is not stopped.

Despite what some claim, Ukraine is not negotiating from weakness. It is negotiating from a position of moral authority, military innovation, and strategic resilience. Decolonizing the Russian Federation is not revenge for the genocide Russia is perpetrating. It is the moral and necessary step to dismantle an imperialist system that has launched war after war on its neighbors for centuries. It is legitimate decolonization, freeing the nations that have been occupied and silenced. Furthermore, it removes Russia’s capacity to commit these crimes again.

These must be the terms on which any discussion begins. Anything less will give Russia time to revert to historical form, recover and attack again. Peace that rewards aggression will inevitably fail. Only the peace that dismantles the machinery of war endures.