On the Eastern Front, together with my brothers-in-arms, we sit in a dugout, trench candles flickering as we warm our hands. Artillery fire rumbles in the distance like an approaching storm. My buddy, callsign John, exhales, shaking his head:
"Trump is back. He’ll fix everything and force those bloody Russians to negotiate."
His words ignite a debate we’ve had a hundred times before, and here we start arguing again. We are chasing peace, but what if there’s no justice in it? What if all we get is a ceasefire – a frozen conflict that will only delay the next invasion?
That stuck with me. Once I returned to Dnipro for some R&R”, (now almost a frontline city), I began to wonder more: not just as a soldier in this war, but as a student of public policy, a writer, an authentic Ukrainian voice in the West and a Ukrainian citizen. This article is about what we feel here in Ukraine on the ground - what our soldiers and officers are thinking, and the civilians, volunteers, reporters and politicians. Could there even be a just peace for Ukraine, realistically?
Just accept “peace”, they say
Russia’s main demand for “peace” is simple: Ukraine should reduce its military to some ridiculous number, give up its weapons, and change the Constitution to ensure that we stay a neutral state forever, giving up 4 regions which cover an approximate combined area of the entirety of the United Kingdom.
That seems quite “convincing” to me as a Ukrainian, if I model agreeing to this and then being attacked by Russia again. But in that scenario, we would have even less organized means to defend ourselves, therefore lose even more of our nation’s people, and potentially even our sovereignty. This sort of "peace" can only be considered as capitulation for Ukraine. Moreover, it is an open invitation for a future invasion – one that Russia will plan on its own terms, at its own chosen time and place. We need real security, not another meaningless signature on paper.
‘B-but, Russia will sign a peace deal with Ukraine and Ukraine will be safe that way. Russia will surely keep its word, as it always does, right? Right?’
Ukrainians no longer trust anything like documents that purport to be ‘security guarantees’. Russia has already invaded us multiple times after they had promised not to, which is why I’m now concerned. Ukraine isn’t even the only country to have been invaded that way. Things just do not work like that with Russia – they only adhere to their promises when feasible.
A look at the history of Russia’s wars can tell us a lot. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chechnya legally followed the process of claiming independence, just like Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and the Baltic states. But Russia didn’t like that. They thought Chechnya was an easy target and waged a brutal war against it. They lost, and in 1996, they signed a peace deal, recognizing Chechnya’s de facto independence.
Then, when they were ready – just three years later – they came back. Putin staged the infamous “Ryazan sugar” false-flag terror attacks with the help of the KGB-successor agency the FSB, killing hundreds of Russian citizens. He blamed the massacre on Chechens and launched the Second Chechen War. This time, Russia literally razed Grozny, the Chechen capital, wiping out the Chechen leadership and installing a puppet regime.
Just imagine: 25 years ago, Putin was already waging wars against sovereign nations. He is still on it. We‘ve just kept our eyes closed the whole time. Needless to say, history repeats itself in cycles, and in Ukraine, we face the same, potentially dangerous, “peace” deal now.
Whenever peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are held, the focus is always on territory. But that is a distraction from the real issue – security. Ukraine is not fighting for mere lines on a map; it is fighting for the right to exist without the constant threat of annihilation. The real issue is security.
Ukraine’s 1991 borders? It’s February 24, 2022, borders? Our dugout, which is today’s frontline?
After the First Chechen War, Chechnya had its full borders intact, and yet Russia still invaded again and won. Borders don’t stop wars. Borders don’t stop tanks. Only real, hardcore metal guns, blood and sweat will stop them. Ukraine needs more than lines on a map: it needs real security, actual deterrence, and the ability to defend itself. Ukraine needs the power to survive.
Russia historically does not honor its agreements—it only respects power. That’s why it violated the Helsinki Accords (1975), the Budapest Memorandum (1994), the Khasavyurt Accords (1996), the Minsk Agreements (2014, 2015), and countless others where they had promised to not invade.
The Minsk Agreements were our so-called “peace deal” with Russia in 2014 and 2015. Russia had promised to stop its invasion of Crimea and Donbas at the frontlines it had already seized. When that didn’t work out, it just used the ceasefire to gain more power for the next strike, in 2022. That’s why we can count on them violating any future agreement with Ukraine and other countries – they literally do that all the time. They will just need a good moment.
Maybe they’ll use hybrid warfare, like the “little green men” who seized Crimea and Donbas in 2014.
Maybe they’ll use cyberattacks to shut down the entire country’s infrastructure, like they did against Estonia in 2007.
Maybe they’ll cut undersea internet cables, sabotage infrastructure, or try assassinating Rheinmetall's CEO.
Or just roll tanks into another country, like they did in Georgia in 2008.
It doesn’t matter how – the only thing that matters is when.
In Ukraine, we now view the Russian Federation as a permanent enemy state that will always want to destroy our independence. The Russian people overwhelmingly support their government's wars, and a temporary ceasefire will not change that. Until it is defeated as an empire, Russia will keep finding ways to wage war.
Within a ceasefire, I believe they will regroup and attack again - with so much more firepower. A centralized militarist dictatorship like Russia has far more opportunities to prepare for the next war, compared to Ukraine’s young liberal democracy – and one in an extremely challenging economic state. I personally believe we must press Russia now, with everything we have, despite the cost, – because if we don’t do the job now, then our kids will be stuck in this endless warfare, too.
Can there be justice at all?
My president calls for a just peace, but I don’t believe one is possible – no matter how much Zelenskyy genuinely wants the best for Ukrainians.
We will still be in danger. Borders, reparations, war crimes trials – none of these matter if Ukraine is left vulnerable to the next attack and the attacker still remains strong. Without real security, nothing else matters.
I think of my friend, callsign Wolf. In 2022, he fought fiercely and was gravely injured in combat – he can barely see, hear, or walk. His body is still filled with shrapnel. His best friends died in the battle that left him like this. He has spent a long time thinking about suicide.
I also think of my friend Roksolana, a widow in her 20s. She was happily married to Captain Orest Rys, who was killed in battle in 2024 on the Eastern Front. In one of our last meetings, Orest said, “To me, protecting independence is like breathing. I want to walk down the street in my country and know that I’m safe, that no Russian will come to kill my family.” Roksolana is still grieving and is doing her best to help those still fighting for independence.
Is justice possible for them? I think not.
But we owe them a Ukraine and a world where they know their sacrifices actually made a difference, that they had secured Ukraine’s freedom for ages to come. We owe them a country where they no longer live under the constant shadow of the next war. We owe them a world where no Russian military exercise will ever again turn into an invasion, where no sovereign capital will wake up to the sound of enemy tanks at its gates.
And while we struggle to find some justice in perhaps half-baked solutions at best – whether Ukraine should join an alliance of some kind – Russia will still be there. It will not collapse, like Nazi Germany. It would not be occupied, re-educated, or forced to confront its past. It will not fix itself. The root cause of these wars – Russia – will not change. This is the discussion that the world is not ready for: we need to dismantle the Russian Empire. Since that debate isn’t popular anywhere, there is no peace deal on the table for Ukrainians: only ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the Axis of Evil might be learning a lesson: international law and order is optional, and "never again" is just a fancy slogan with no substance. Russia is forcibly trafficking women from their African colonies to work in Russian arms factories, building more Shahed suicide drones 12 hours a day, 7 days a week – for food rations.
This is not the end of the war. This is just the beginning of the next one.
All in our hands
I wish I could write an article only about Ukraine and the path to a just peace, as if it was some minor conflict. But it is not. This article is about the future of Europe, about a much bigger confrontation against Russia – hybrid and conventional – that we are not ready for.
It’s all in our hands now: on our dirty fingers, dirt trapped under our nails, loading a warhead onto a kamikaze drone.
John straps on his heavy armor, steps out of the dugout, and carefully places a drone, loaded with an improvised explosive device, onto the launch pad. Another pair of hands puts their Zippo hand warmer aside, and pushes the throttle stick up. The drone hums to life, lifts off into the sky – off to fight a war that some still believe can be stopped with words, deep concerns, territory concessions, and “just accept peace” roundtables.
But someone has to fight for justice for Ukrainians, even if we think that justice is impossible. No one else will do it for us. So we fight, not just for survival, but to ensure that justice is achieved and not erased by time, complacency, or political convenience. We still give our best and the heavy battles still rage on, shaping the future of Ukraine and beyond.