Moscow will only accept a ceasefire that cements its gains and allows it to continue weakening Ukraine. Domestically, this may still create risks if the pro-war community opposes a halt to hostilities.
Interests
Russia’s ultimate objective is the complete subjugation of Ukraine, including by seizing territory vital to Ukrainian economic interests. It follows that Russia will only agree to a ceasefire that furthers this goal. As the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service notes in its 2026 annual report, ‘For Russia, any potential settlement must harm the interests of Ukraine and the countries supporting it. To this end, Russia continually attempts to use peace talks as a tool for manipulation, exploiting Western goodwill to justify new and broader demands.’
The desired shape of those broader demands was made clear in December 2021, when Russia presented its ‘draft treaties’ to NATO and the US proposing the removal of international security guarantees from much of Central and Eastern Europe.
Moscow will view a ceasefire in Ukraine as a tool to bring about the conditions for a final peace settlement on Russia’s terms. The Kremlin approaches peace negotiations with a very clear understanding of its interests. A ceasefire is an opportunity to pursue war aims by political means rather than a pause in hostilities. At the same time, peace talks that may accompany a ceasefire do not imply any readiness to compromise. These attitudes are deeply engrained in Russian political and military thinking and reflect the influence of Marxism-Leninism and its understanding of ‘peace’ as the victory of Communism.
As Moscow’s ‘peace’ proposals related to Ukraine have consistently shown since 2014, the Kremlin believes it must:
- Prevent in any form the deployment of armed forces from Western countries on Ukrainian territory.
- Limit Ukraine’s ability to rebuild its armed forces and place restrictions on their size. The Russian goal is two-fold: to prevent Ukraine from being able to recover territory seized by Russia and to ensure that Kyiv is permanently weakened and unable to resist Moscow’s demands.
- Agree the modalities of a ceasefire arrangement directly with Ukraine and not involve third parties. Moscow sees benefit in the Trump administration pressuring Ukraine to agree to a peace deal, but Russia will want to prevent US involvement in the ceasefire practicalities so that it can negotiate them to its advantage from a position of strength.
- Limit the role of international ‘peacekeepers’ to observers.
- Reject demands for Russia to withdraw military forces from the occupied territories.
- Lift restrictions on the operation of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and grant official status for the Russian language.
Since the start of the full-scale war in 2022, Moscow has insisted on the need for parliamentary and presidential elections in unoccupied Ukraine in the hope of bringing to power political forces that are better disposed to Russia or at least more mindful of its interests. In the fifth year of war, the Kremlin speaks less of ‘regime change’ in Kyiv, which is an indication that Moscow has quietly accepted that one of its key goals at the outset of the war is unachievable. As noted above, this does not mean that Russia will not try to destabilize Ukraine politically to undermine its cohesion and its ability to join the EU.
Russia also seeks to control Ukraine’s Black Sea export routes to place further economic pressure on the country. The capture of Mariupol, Berdyansk and other coastal territory since 2022 has allowed Moscow a partial stranglehold on Ukraine’s export infrastructure, including the deepwater port of Mykolaiv. Odesa and the western Black Sea coast currently remain beyond Russia’s control but are subject to regular missile and drone attacks. The Black Sea export corridor – established by Kyiv in August 2023 after Russia’s withdrawal from the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative – has been vital for Ukraine’s economic stability. In 2024, cargo turnover at the country’s three functioning deepwater ports doubled compared to 2022. In the case of a ceasefire, it is not clear whether Russia’s degraded Black Sea Fleet, which retreated to the eastern shores of the Black Sea, will re-emerge to threaten and disrupt the operation of the existing export corridor. Furthermore, in the event of a ceasefire, the possible re-opening of the border with Moldova could create additional vulnerabilities for the security of Odesa, including increased ‘grey zone’ activity. Russian-controlled Transnistria that forms the border with Ukraine would offer ample opportunities for troublemaking on Ukraine’s western flank.
Risks
The main risk for the Kremlin is that a ceasefire delays victory and Putin’s authority suffers because of raised expectations among the elites and the public of a swift and successful outcome of the war. Since December 2024, Putin has boasted that the Russian army holds the strategic initiative along the entire frontline. Yet, no operational breakthrough has been achieved, and, starting in mid-December 2025, the Ukrainian army has recovered previously captured territory, including the town of Kupyansk. Ukraine’s strategy rests heavily on slowing rather than completely stopping the advance of its numerically superior opponent. The logic is that as time passes, the purpose of the war will be increasingly questioned by both Russian elites and the broader public, as human and economic losses mount up in the absence of results to justify them.
In early 2026, before the start of the war in Iran, Ukrainian strategists also believed that Russia’s deteriorating economic situation might stoke disaffection with the war. Given that the Russian government was contemplating a 10 per cent cut to spending in this year’s budget (with the exception of defence and social support), this was not an unrealistic assumption. After all, in February, oil revenues were 44 per cent lower compared to the same month a year earlier. Yet recent events in the Middle East were a boon to Russia, driving the oil price to over $100 per barrel and leaving many analysts to conclude that even a quick end to the Iran conflict would still mean several months of elevated prices while markets stabilized.
While the additional budget revenues promise to make it less difficult for Putin to continue fighting, the prospect of a ceasefire as a means to more easily achieve his political goals in Ukraine may still be attractive. However, the benefits must be weighed against the following risks:
- The ceasefire agreement is insufficiently precise, and there are different interpretations of the requirements for its implementation. The Minsk-2 Agreement signed in 2015 is an excellent example of this danger. In such circumstances, the war might simply continue but at a lower intensity.
- Undefeated, Ukraine elects new leaders who do not bend to Moscow’s demands and Kyiv uses the ceasefire to rebuild societal and military capacity to continue resisting the imposition of a final peace settlement on Russian terms. In any case, as long as Putin remains in power, it is hard to see how final peace terms will be reached.
- Touting a ceasefire as ‘peace’, the Trump administration loses interest in Ukraine and dashes Moscow’s hopes that the US will compel Kyiv to accept a peace settlement favourable to Russia. By the end of 2025, the Kremlin had seen that the White House was either unwilling or unable to force Zelenskyy to surrender.
- Russian elites and the public increasingly recognize that the war in Ukraine is not winnable and that Putin’s strategy was flawed. This gradually leads to the loss of the galvanizing factor that has ensured regime stability in Russia since 2022 and places pressure on the Kremlin to find an alternative way to encourage cohesion and discipline within the system, including increased repression of dissent. If taken to an extreme, this could destabilize the elites because of fears that the elites themselves will be targeted.
- Enthusiastic supporters of the war centred around the ‘Z’ social media community become a politically important constituency. Such actors could rally veterans and their families, the families of soldiers killed or injured in Ukraine and other nationalist forces who believe that by agreeing to a ceasefire Putin is showing weakness and dishonouring their sacrifices.
- Presented as victory by the Kremlin, a ceasefire will force Moscow to consider starting another conflict to maintain elite and societal cohesion, perhaps in the Baltic Sea area or with another neighbouring country. This will prevent the need to demobilize large parts of the Russian ground forces that are deployed in Ukraine and justify continued prioritization of defence spending.
- A ceasefire will lead to more problems related to veterans returning from the front, including increased crime levels. Since 2024, the Russian authorities have begun preparing rehabilitation centres for returnees, including inpatient facilities and sanatoriums where the wounded can convalesce. However, these can only cope with small numbers and availability is likely to fall far below demand.
- A ceasefire that does not quickly lead to a peace settlement will force Russia to maintain its dependency on China as a market for its hydrocarbon exports and as a source of machine tools and other industrial goods that it previously imported from Western countries. There are signs that this relationship may have reached its limits. A peace settlement will almost certainly lead to a relaxation of US sanctions and possibly some European ones.
- Moscow loses influence in its immediate neighbourhood and beyond as other countries see the unfinished war in Ukraine as an indication of Russian weakness. The changes underway in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan after Baku’s capture of Nagorny Karabakh are a clear example of how the balance of power in the region has changed as a result of Moscow’s attention and resources shifting to Ukraine.
- The relaxation of sanctions is delayed by difficulties related to achieving ceasefire milestones.
Implications
In view of the serious potential danger to Putin’s authority – posed by perceptions of his inability to deliver a victory that he promised and the dramatic cost paid – the Kremlin would have every incentive to seek the political cover it needs at home by pressuring Ukraine and its allies to agree at a minimum to the following conditions:
- Ukraine gives up the remaining territory it controls in Donetsk region and accepts the rest of the frontline as the new de facto border.
- Ukraine formally renounces its ambition to join NATO. There will be no NATO military presence or NATO exercises on Ukrainian territory.
- Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine will take place within 100 days of the ceasefire agreement entering into force.
- Sanctions are gradually relaxed.
All four conditions were part of the 28-point plan negotiated between Russia and the US in the summer of 2025.
These commitments would reinforce the message to the Russian public that the main aims of the war had been achieved even if other issues remained unresolved. These would include formal recognition of the territorial division, arrangements for the legalization of the Russian Orthodox Church and the re-establishment of economic links.
However, this defensive posture would be only part of the picture. Moscow would draw on its considerable experience of ‘freezing’ conflicts elsewhere (see Chapter 5) in the former Soviet space to cement its advantage and satisfy its interests. As Russians like to say, there is nothing more permanent than the temporary. In this case, this means that the Kremlin must lock into a ceasefire all its basic requirements for a peace settlement.
