Let us Pray for an Imperfect Truce

The history of wars seldom concludes with the neat finality imagined by diplomats or generals. Conflicts shaped by identity, geography and competing visions of statehood tend to end not with comprehensive settlements but with fragile arrangements that freeze hostilities without resolving their origins. The war between Russia and Ukraine, already more than a decade old if one counts Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, belongs squarely within this tradition. A perfect peace that restores all territories, satisfies all populations and realigns security guarantees to the full comfort of every party is unlikely to materialise. Instead the trajectory of events points towards an imperfect truce. This would be a settlement that halts the fighting without fully reconciling the incompatible ambitions that brought the two states to war.

Three structural factors make such an outcome probable. The first is that neither side possesses the capacity to defeat the other completely. Russia enjoys a larger population, a deeper industrial base and a political system willing to absorb very high costs. She can continue prosecuting the war even at great human and economic expense. Ukraine for her part enjoys firm Western support, rapidly evolving military technologies and the powerful motivational force of defending her homeland. She has demonstrated resilience far beyond what Moscow anticipated. The stalemate across hundreds of kilometres of fortified front lines illustrates that neither side is likely to obtain decisive battlefield leverage. In such circumstances wars tend to drift towards negotiated cessation rather than total victory.

The second structural factor is geopolitical. Ukraine is tied to the West with increasing intimacy but without a formal path presently open to immediate NATO membership. Russia regards Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic orientation as a direct threat to her security and is unlikely to renounce this view. The Western alliance has provided Ukraine with substantial military assistance but seeks to avoid direct confrontation with Moscow. This triangle of interests creates incentives for both escalation and restraint. It is improbable that the West will simply disengage, yet equally improbable that it will commit forces capable of breaking the deadlock outright. This leaves a space where diplomacy and military pressure intermingle, usually producing imperfect outcomes.

A third factor lies in domestic politics on both sides. For Ukraine, any settlement that sacrifices territory is deeply painful, yet the leadership must consider the sustainability of indefinite mobilisation, enormous economic disruption and the risk of demographic loss. For Russia, admitting defeat would undermine the Kremlin’s core political narrative, yet maintaining a long attritional conflict carries dangers for internal stability. Political calculations in both capitals will eventually converge on the necessity of halting the war even if the terms fall short of ideological aspirations.

These structural pressures interact with more immediate realities on the ground. The front lines have become extraordinarily fortified. The war has transformed into a contest of attrition, drone warfare and artillery duels. The scope for major manoeuvre has diminished. Technologies that might once have supported rapid breakthroughs now provide ubiquitous surveillance, which in turn reinforces positional warfare. As the conflict becomes less fluid, diplomacy grows more relevant. Neither side wishes to concede, yet both face a battlefield that increasingly resists dramatic change.

An imperfect truce would likely involve ambiguous territorial arrangements, security guarantees of uneven credibility and monitoring mechanisms enforced by external powers. It might resemble the frozen conflicts that dot the post-Soviet space, although the Ukrainian case would be more tense because of the scale of mobilisation, the strategic weight of the country and the centrality of the conflict to European security architecture. The line of contact would become a boundary that neither side formally recognises as permanent, yet both acknowledge de facto in order to prevent further bloodshed.

Such a truce would not be a triumph of diplomacy, nor a lasting peace. It would be a compromise born of exhaustion and necessity. It would allow Ukraine to rebuild her economy and strengthen her military, while offering Russia a face-saving pause. It would reduce civilian suffering and stabilise energy and grain markets, which is a priority for Europe and the global South. It might also create space for future negotiations, confidence-building measures and incremental steps towards a more stable equilibrium.

Critics might argue that any imperfect settlement rewards aggression or undermines international law. These concerns are valid and serious. Yet history shows that legal principles often evolve through pragmatic arrangements reached on the ground. The alternative to an imperfect truce is a grinding conflict with escalating humanitarian costs and increasing risks of miscalculation amongst nuclear-armed actors. Stability, even if brittle and incomplete, may provide the necessary foundation for eventual justice.

The challenge for Kyiv and her allies is to shape such a truce in a manner that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, deters future aggression and maintains international solidarity. This will require creative diplomacy, long-term strategic planning and continued investment in Ukraine’s defence and security sectors. It will also require an understanding that peace is not an event but a process. The first step in that process is often a ceasefire that satisfies no one entirely.

The inevitability of an imperfect truce arises not from weakness or resignation but from the structure of the conflict itself. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a struggle that neither can conclusively resolve by force, and which the wider international system cannot ignore. The end of major hostilities, whenever it comes, is therefore likely to be messy, partial and uncomfortable. Yet such truces, imperfect though they are, often lay the groundwork upon which more durable settlements are eventually built.