As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, setting a deadline of June 2026 for a peace agreement. These U.S.-led negotiations, which began in Abu Dhabi and most recently saw a third round in Geneva that ended without a breakthrough, have sought a swift resolution that would include potential territorial concessions by Ukraine to satisfy Russian demands.
Many observers have rightfully welcomed the recent negotiations as a rare attempt to end more than 12 years of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. From the Ukrainian perspective, however, the proposed strategy carries the risk of reinforcing the persistent and problematic perception that Russia possesses a legitimate claim over certain communities living in Ukraine. That notion overlooks the intricate cultural, historical, and socio-economic complexities of these regions by primarily adopting a Russian-centric viewpoint and simplifying the issues to a binary “pro-Ukraine versus pro-Russia” framework. This article explores why restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty is essential to protecting the cultural rights and socio-economic interests of affected communities. Negotiations must ensure that temporary arrangements or ceasefire lines are not mistaken for permanent borders.
The Limitations of Identity-Based Peace Proposals in Ukraine
Current and past peace proposals involving alterations to Ukraine’s territorial boundaries (either in the form of territorial cession or factual recognition of a new status quo) commonly presume the presence of defined, impartial indicators—such as linguistic, historical, or ethnic factors—that purport to separate communities perceived as pro-Ukrainian from those regarded as pro-Russian. Basing major territorial concessions on these factors raises considerable legal concerns.
The most obvious problem is that international law categorically prohibits the acquisition of territory by force and affirms the principle of territorial integrity. Accordingly, territorial issues ought to be resolved within the framework of international law, thereby safeguarding rather than undermining established international norms.
However, other considerations, such as communities’ cultural and socio-economic interests, which have received less attention within the unhelpful pro-Russia/pro-Ukraine binary, are essential to an enduring solution, as explained below.
Following independence, Ukraine inherited a complex state shaped by the Soviet Union’s nationality policies and regional histories. The Soviet Union supported the autonomy and identity of ethnic groups when it served the empire’s territorial expansion, but oppressed them whenever they sought true independence.
President Vladimir Putin appears to have operated under the misguided belief that Ukraine’s shared history with Russia would eventually lead it to adopt a pan-Russian identity. This belief proved wrong. Groups with shared cultural and historical backgrounds may experience their interconnectedness differently and vary in how they approach that history. As a result, it is not uncommon for related groups to develop sharply divergent identities over time.
The principal, and often neglected, distinction between Ukraine and Russia lies in the evolution of attitudes to Soviet identity. The two states developed in very different ways following the Soviet Union’s collapse.
The vast majority of Ukraine’s population, representing diverse backgrounds, viewed the establishment of Ukrainian statehood in 1991 as a promising step toward a better future. Public polling reveals that a majority of the population belonging to national minorities, including the Russian minority—the largest in Ukraine—did not consider this transition threatening. By 2014, only 21 percent of Ukrainian nationals identified with the Soviet past, compared with 58 percent who identified with Ukraine. Notably, although support for a Soviet identity was more prevalent in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine—areas specifically referenced in Putin’s territorial claims—the majority of individuals in these regions still identified primarily with Ukraine and favored EU integration.
Russia encountered significant challenges in building a nation-state out of its former empire, which it lost twice within a century, first under the tsars and then under the Soviets. An initial decline in Soviet identification among Russian nationals was, however, later followed by a resurgence of this sentiment among nearly half of the population by 2021—a shift not entirely attributable to Putin’s revanchist policies, as some studies suggest—but which is likely to grow under Putin’s successful reversal of pro-Western sentiments in the country. The empire identity won over a nation-state.
In contrast, a defining feature of Ukraine’s modern politics has been its reliance on consensus-based governance, balancing between those Ukrainians who never accepted Soviet rulership and Soviet-influenced Ukrainians who wholeheartedly accepted independence, yet were ambivalent about the sources of nationhood. This balance mirrors the past preferences of the Ukrainian electorate generally, which has repeatedly rejected exclusionary nationalist rhetoric across a series of elections, albeit for different reasons. Notably, this view persisted among many even after Russia’s aggression in 2014, underscoring the Ukrainian people’s enduring hesitation to adopt narrow, ethnically, historically, or culturally defined concepts of nationhood. Both the West and Russia misinterpreted this pattern. Western experts often saw Ukraine’s statehood as weak and divided, while Russia significantly overestimated the extent to which Soviet-influenced Ukrainians supported integration into the broader cultural framework of the “Russian world.”
While some analysts rightly highlight the genuine challenges Ukraine faces in managing its diverse communities or criticize memory wars, these issues primarily stem from the country’s ongoing efforts to shape its national identity. The limitations of international law, which do not allow for capturing this complexity under the territorial meaning of sovereignty and a narrow notion of what constitutes a national minority, similarly contribute to Ukraine’s challenges in nation-building. As long as Ukraine’s expert community and civil society remain active, vigilant, and self-aware of these challenges, there is hope for comprehensive and inclusive politics.
Russia, however, has clearly adopted aggressive policies to maintain control over the former republics immediately after the Soviet Union’s collapse. In the case of Ukraine, after a period of “gray zone” relations, Russia under Putin has sought to eliminate political pluralism and reinforce its authority by promoting a unified, state-endorsed Russian identity. Currently, Russia ruthlessly implements Russification policies in the occupied regions to further this objective, although such policies do not resonate well with the majority of the Ukrainian population, with which Russia claims historical and cultural links.
Thus, the idea of the “Russian world”—intended to serve as a shared cultural narrative and a rationale for redrawing borders—has not found support among large segments of the population in major Ukrainian cities and regions, including in the southeastern and northeastern parts of the country that are often proposed as territorial concessions. That should come as no surprise, given the hybrid identities of these regions. For example, in the Donbas, a coal-rich region that became a major industrial center under the Soviet Union, pre-existing local identities, languages, and patterns of life had been transformed by migrants from other Soviet republics, resulting in a multicultural society unified by industry and by Russian as the common language of communication, yet not a native language for many. Outside observers often miss this nuance, resulting in conflation between the use of Russian as a lingua franca and Russian identity.
Crimea presents a slightly distinct case, given that Soviet policies dramatically altered its population, starting with the expulsion of Crimean Tatars during World War II and the encouragement of ethnic Russians to settle in Crimea afterwards. Following Ukraine’s independence, after a turbulent period of relations with the Russian national minority on the peninsula in the early 1990s, which was not without the Kremlin’s support, Ukraine resolved the issue. Tellingly, before the 2014 annexation, the main “pro-Russian force” within the Crimean parliament held only three out of 100 seats. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of the returned Crimean Tatars see a way to secure their rights and self-determination within a democratic, independent Ukraine. Thus, it would be a mistake to treat Crimea’s population as the subject of a separate legal case, ignoring that while Russian presence in Crimea is historical, it is part of the Kremlin’s large-scale, orchestrated migration of the 1940s and 1960s, with a more recent case after the annexation in 2014 and onward.
The permanent transfer of occupied territories under the auspices of a revanchist Russian imperial order will fail to win substantial local public support because it ignores the cultural rights of these diverse communities. Moreover, Russia’s brutal military aggression has only intensified opposition to Russia within Ukraine, even among those who otherwise might have shared some historical or cultural identity with it. The genuine accommodation of the overlapping interests of the populations of the Donbas and Crimea can occur only under Ukraine’s independent, democratic, and sovereign governance.
Manipulation of Socio-Economic Grievances
Alongside insufficient consideration of the intricate cultural and historical factors in recent peace initiatives, another critical issue is the overlooked socio-economic well-being of the occupied regions. Approaches suggesting keeping the occupied territories under Russia’s control often misconstrue the legitimate material concerns and vulnerabilities of the Donbas population—historical and current—as an unqualified endorsement of future alignment with Russia.
Prior to independence, the Donbas was an industrial region, contributing a large share of the Soviet Union’s anthracite and steel, which was essential for the Soviet military. At the same time, deep dissatisfaction with Moscow-centric governance of the old industrial region was one reason its coal and mine workers supported Ukraine’s independence in the 1990s. During the first years of independence, however, the Donbas experienced poorly controlled deindustrialization, witnessing outflow of working-age people, low birth rates, and relatively high infant mortality. Naturally, some people in the region feared that EU integration would sideline them economically, diminish the Russian market for the region’s industry, and increase the cost of Russian gas on which many steel industries partly relied. Yet their narratives and stories about how to respond to these fears, some genuine, some based on economic misconceptions, differ from those suggested by Russia. Although there was some suspicion toward the post-Maidan administration among certain groups of the population, this sentiment did not manifest in widespread secessionist attitudes. No wonder the so-called leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk republics in 2014, as they acknowledged on a number of occasions, did not represent locals and were supplied by Moscow. Additionally, some shared skepticism about potential economic growth under Russian governance, citing concerns about Russia’s management of its coal production sector and economy overall.
As a result, creating new borders for the Donbas region along the lines of conflict would randomly split a territory whose people have already endured significant and involuntary hardship under Russian occupation. Similarly, handing over full control of the Donbas region to Russia—as some proposals suggest—would not only pose major military obstacles but also worsen the socioeconomic problems for the hundreds of thousands of people who have lived under Russian control since 2014. Ukraine has yet to develop a plan to rebuild the war-torn Donbas region. Yet, it is clear that Russia did nothing but systematically dismantle what was left of Donbas’s former economic prosperity.
Similarly, Crimea—allegedly the most subsidized region under Russian control—has suffered devastating human and economic costs from its annexation. Moscow’s promises to increase salaries and pensions, build better roads, and boost tourism culminated in extensive militarization of the region and a high cost of living, transforming it into a major military base. It undoubtedly benefited Russian citizens who relocated after the annexation to serve this militarization and change the demographics. Yet, the local population hardly benefited economically from this transformation, an issue often ignored by experts who focus on the Russians’ abstract attachment to Crimea as the most serious consideration in territorial debates. Not to mention that Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, and those residents, including Russians, who take a pro-Ukrainian position, continue to face severe repression, fear, forced displacement, loss of rights, and persecution for dissent. The idea of the permanent transformation of Crimea means abandonment and isolation for them.
Beyond Technical Legitimacy
In recent years, political scientists, historians, and journalists have begun to shed light on previously overlooked perspectives on the unique characteristics of Ukraine’s political project that emerged following the Soviet Union’s collapse (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, and here). Establishing the legitimacy of Ukraine’s territorial claims has consistently proven challenging, however. The debate often remains confined to strictly technical arguments that focus on the lack of alternatives, despite the significant limitations of this approach and its dramatic and long-lasting effects on people.
Meanwhile, Russia has historically exploited the diverse composition of post-Soviet states to impede their independent development and minimize international condemnation of its own actions in former republics, presenting itself as a source of solution, rather than aggression. Between 2014 and 2022, this strategy succeeded in part because Western policymakers and legal experts shared many of Moscow’s perspectives on Ukraine, viewing the state through the lens of a “nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking” west and a “Russia-friendly, Russian-speaking” south and east. Following the 2022 large-scale invasion, however, Russia’s arguments appeared far less credible and were largely rejected by the West. While this shift in attitude and policy was favorable to Ukraine (owing to its weaker bargaining position vis-à-vis Russia and a history of misconceptions that had led to flawed policies), it also produced two unforeseen effects. First, it contributed to diminished support from the Global South, where such categorical dismissal is often associated with Western arrogance and neglects Ukraine’s legitimate considerations. Second, it left the door open for Russia to revive identity-based assertions and manipulate socioeconomic grievances. The reemergence of these simplistic dichotomies in peace negotiations highlights the need for a more comprehensive strategy—one that upholds established legal principles while also strengthening the broader legitimacy of Ukraine’s territorial claims.
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Ukraine faces significant pressures, including shifting positions from key allies and the loss of life and suffering of its people, regardless of their ethnic or political identities. However, the pull to reach temporary arrangements or ceasefire lines should not compromise Ukraine’s sovereignty claims, territorial integrity, or the rights of the people themselves in the territories under discussion.
At the very least, policymakers developing peace proposals should avoid relying on reductive pro-Ukraine/pro-Russia binaries as foundational frameworks for peace solutions. This approach misleadingly implies two separate and autonomous groups that are expected to negotiate a workable territorial compromise without accounting for the interests of communities to maintain their diverse language, political, and cultural identity—rights that have been systematically violated in the occupied regions through forced Russification. These rights can only be meaningfully protected within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and under its legitimate authority.
Any peace negotiations must reinforce non-recognition of Russia’s unlawful annexations and affirm that restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty is essential to protecting the cultural rights and socio-economic interests of affected communities. Anything less will bring only the illusion of peace that will not last.
