What cannot go on forever must end sometime. But a conflict with tangled and incremental beginnings may have an equally slow-moving conclusion.
Wars acquire tidy beginnings only in retrospect. A date becomes shorthand for a broad beginning, a border crossing supplies the defining image, and everything preceding it becomes background. Endings receive similar treatment: a signature, a handshake, a declaration that peace has arrived.
The Russia–Ukraine war may resist both conventions.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 was an unmistakable act of aggression. But it expanded a conflict already well underway, whose political foundations had been weakening for decades. Understanding that history does not excuse or minimize the invasion, of course.
It helps explain why ending the fighting requires more than reversing one decision.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Ukraine emerged independent. Its relationship with Russia remained entangled through family connections, industry, energy infrastructure and competing ideas about national identity. Even the Ukrainians themselves disagreed about their country’s direction.
Those disagreements were real. So was Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The unresolved question was whether Moscow would accept a neighboring Ukraine whose choices increasingly diverged from Russia’s preferences — especially if those neighbors drifted in the direction of Western powers.
For their part, Western governments contributed plenty of ambiguities. NATO declared in 2008 that Ukraine would eventually become a member, without admitting it or providing a timetable. Ukraine received a promise of future inclusion while remaining outside the alliance’s protection.
It was almost a deadline invitation for Vladimir Putin. One can question that policy without accepting Russia’s claim to determine another country’s alliances.
The immediate crisis developed around Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union. President Viktor Yanukovych’s abandonment of an association agreement in late 2013 triggered protests; his flight in February 2014 was followed by Russia’s seizure of Crimea and war in the Donbas.
The Minsk agreements subsequently tried to reconcile military disengagement with political arrangements for eastern Ukraine. Their implementation faltered, fighting persisted, and incompatible expectations hardened. By 2022, unresolved disputes had become the foundation for a much larger catastrophe.
Peace could emerge through a similarly uneven process.
We should resist expecting one comprehensive agreement to resolve every grievance, establish every border and restore confidence between governments whose citizens have endured years of destruction.
The first meaningful ending may be narrower and we may already be seeing the first signs of it: fewer attacks, a stabilized front, enforceable limits on particular weapons or targets. A broader settlement is as likely as not to follow soon.
Some disputes could remain unresolved for decades.
That would require judging progress by observable changes rather than ceremonial declarations.
President Donald Trump’s effort deserves consideration in that light. His disagreements with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attract attention, but they do not reveal the full direction of negotiations.
The framework described by David Ignatius in a recent Washington Post article suggests American negotiators are attempting something more ambitious: combining reconstruction, security commitments, economic incentives and territorial compromise into a bargain large enough to make concessions possible.
Its logic is persuasive. If territory alone produces deadlock, expand the discussion to include what each country could gain after the fighting stops.
Ukraine might accept an armistice leaving some territory under Russian occupation if its remaining territory becomes more secure and economically viable.
Russia might accept limits on its ambitions in exchange for conditional commercial opportunities and sanctions relief.
Neither would obtain everything it wanted.
The difficulty lies in making those benefits dependable. Reconstruction pledges require actual funding. Security guarantees require military planning and durable political support. Economic concessions require conditions that can be enforced.
The recent dispute over refinery attacks illustrates how easily incremental diplomacy can become unbalanced. Asking Ukraine to suspend an effective means of pressuring Russia might help stabilize energy markets. But Kyiv needs corresponding restraint or another tangible benefit.
Otherwise, a proposed confidence-building measure becomes a unilateral concession.
Equally, one failed initiative does not prove the entire diplomatic effort worthless. Negotiations often involve rejected proposals, tactical pauses and arrangements that need revision.
The relevant question is whether the process eventually changes behavior.
Trump’s challenge is to preserve enough pressure to make Russian cooperation worthwhile while offering a credible path away from continued war.
Zelensky’s challenge is to distinguish painful compromises that preserve Ukraine from concessions that invite another attack.
European governments must decide what responsibilities they will undertake, especially if peace depends on promises Washington cannot sustain alone.
And Putin must confront a choice between an achievable settlement and objectives requiring indefinite destruction.
When does that happen? Nobody can responsibly supply a date. Exhaustion can encourage negotiation, but exhausted countries can continue fighting when they fear the proposed peace.
The strongest indicators will be practical: sustained reductions in attacks, functioning monitoring arrangements, dependable defense commitments and benefits released as obligations are met.
There may be no single moment when outsiders agree the war has ended.
Instead, an unstable pause could become an armistice, then a more durable arrangement, while legal disputes remain open. Progress may look inadequate before it looks consequential.
The standard should be whether fewer people are dying and renewed war is becoming harder. A messy peace could still be a historic achievement.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)