The Russia-Ukraine war needs to and can be brought to a quick end
By Katim S Touray, PhD
In October 2022, President Zelenskyy signed a decree banning any negotiations with Russia to prevent Russia using separatists as backchannels to negotiate an end to the war. Russia strongly objected to the decree, which also said that it is impossible to have negotiations with President Putin of Russia. Russia also said that the decree meant that they would have to wait for a replacement of Zelenskyy to negotiate with Ukraine for an end to the war.
Zelenskyy, under pressure from his Western allies, have agreed to holding direct talks with Russia. Russia initially rebuffed his offer, calling it “empty words”, and added that he lacked legitimacy to engage in negotiations with Russia. Russia has since changed its position and President Putin is now willing to send his representatives to negotiate directly with Zelenskyy. Despite these positive developments, Russia maintained that Zelenskyy has “legitimacy problems” because of Ukraine’s 2022 decree banning negotiations with Russia, and for this reason, it should be repealed to pave the way for the start of negotiations to end the war.
President Zelenskyy has had more pressure piled on him, following the declaration on 13th February, 2025, by US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth that Ukraine should abandon its aspirations of joining Nato, and its bid to recover all of its territories occupied by Russia. Shortly after, President Trump said that he had agreed with President Putin to start negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war, but would not say what role, if any, Ukraine would play in negotiations.
The fifth step in the peace process will be to conduct a referendum, as well as parliamentary and presidential elections in Ukraine and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea. The referendum and elections will have international observers deployed in Ukraine and Russian-occupied territories to ensure that the results would be a fair and accurate representation of the views of Ukrainians.
The referendum will ask voters two questions: first, if they want Russia to retain territory it occupies and claims, and second, if they want to give up Ukraine’s aspiration for membership of Nato. Given that the referendum would be happening under the cloud of Russia’s illegal invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory, the questions should be carefully phrased to avoid forcing voters to make a choice under duress. In that case, any treaty based on the outcome of the referendum would, in its entirety, be void under international law, specifically, the provisions of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Article 73 of the Constitution of Ukraine requires that an “all-Ukrainian” referendum will resolve the issues of changing Ukraine’s territory. Despite Russia’s annexation and occupation of Ukrainian territory (including Crimea), residents of these territories are still considered Ukrainian under Ukrainian and international law. As such, voters in these territories occupied and annexed by Russia must participate in the referendum for its results to be valid under the provisions of Ukraine’s Constitution.
Although the idea of a conducting a referendum in Russia occupied and annexed territories might be a tough proposition for Russia to accept, the advantage is that the outcome of the referendum would have legitimacy in Ukraine and internationally. It would also provide the Ukrainian government a legitimate basis for negotiating an end to the war, and Ukraine’s boundary with Russia. In the event the Ukrainians vote to accept to give up their lands, Russia would then have an internationally recognised jurisdiction over these territories.
The proposed referendum would be a big risk because a “No” vote on either of the two questions would deny the Ukrainian government the mandate to give up on Nato membership, and make territorial concessions to Russia, and hence, could derail the peace process. The FA should thus be framed to provide for the peace talks to include medium- to short-term pathways to settling the issue of territorial concessions in the event Ukrainian voters reject the proposal to cede Ukrainian territories to Russia.
Indications are that Ukrainians are now more willing to make territorial concessions to Russia in exchange for peace, and less enthused about Nato membership. Thus, the percentage of Ukrainians who support making territorial concessions to Russia increased threefold from 10% in May 2022, to 32% in October 2024. In the same vein, support for Ukraine’s membership of NATO declined from a peak of 82% of Ukrainians in February 2023 to 75% in September 2024. Against this background, it can be expected that more Ukrainians will be willing to accept territorial concessions to Russia and give up NATO membership if that would bring them peace.
Ukraine will also organise parliamentary and presidential elections, along with the referendum. Following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Zelenskyy declared Martial Law which, under Ukrainian law can be and since then, has been extended every 90 days. As noted earlier, the Constitution of Ukraine provides that both the sitting President and (with some caveats) members of Parliament can continue to serve in office if their terms end during Martial Law, until a new President and new Parliament are elected. For this reason, parliamentary and presidential elections could not be held at the end of Zelenskyy’s first term in office in May 2024, and as such, fresh presidential and parliamentary elections should be held along with the referendum in Ukraine and Russian-occupied territories no more than 90 days after the signing of the FA and the lifting of Martial Law.
Although Zelenskyy has a right to contest the presidential elections, he should not exercise this right because percentage of Ukrainians who trust him decreased from 90% in May 22, to 52% in December 2024. Furthermore, by Zelenskyy not running again for office, Ukraine would be provided new leadership to negotiate peace with Russia, and help it rebuild and recover from the devastating war.
Phase III: Peace talks
Phase III will start with the sixth step of the peace process which would be the holding of Peace Talks between Ukraine and Russia, with support from the EU, UN, the US and other stakeholders. Although the US is now taking the lead in the initial negotiations with Russia, the Peace Talks should be mediated by the EU which 70% of Ukrainians want to mediate, instead of the US which 49% of Ukrainians want to mediate the negotiations.
Issues that will be discussed in the Peace Talks would have been spelt out in the FA and should include (i) the fate of Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation and Russian territories under Ukrainian occupation, (ii) Ukraine’s membership of Nato, including incentives and security guarantees to Ukraine should it give up its bid to join Nato, (iii) peacekeeping (including the composition, size, mandate and rules of engagement of peacekeeping troops, the size and location of a Demilitarised Zone [DMZ], as well as the formation and composition of a Joint Ceasefire Commission to manage the ceasefire), (iv) reconstruction of, and reparations for Ukraine, as well as sources of funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction, (v) accountability for war crimes, and (vi) the lifting of sanctions on Russia and Russian companies and officials, including President Putin.
The peace talks will hopefully end with the signing of a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia, and which will provide a framework and roadmap for its implementation, and a permanent end to hostilities. Furthermore, arrangements should be made to ensure that the peace treaty complies with international law, which renders null and void treaties imposed by the threat or unlawful use of force. Toward this end, it would be important to ensure that the UN should be invited as an observer of the peace talks especially if, as proposed earlier, the UNSC passes a resolution calling on the warring parties to engage in peace talks.
Katim S Touray, PhD is a soil scientist and international development consultant, reachable at [email protected] or https://kstouray.medium.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/kstouray for more articles:
