Peace at What Price? The Risk of Trading Justice in a Ukrainian Settlement

Wednesday 18 February 2026

There is a phrase often heard in diplomatic corridors when wars grind on without decisive victory — that one must not allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. In the case of Ukraine, as she enters yet another year of total war against the Russian Federation, the temptation to reach for the ‘good’ — a ceasefire, a frozen line of contact, a resumption of trade, a lowering of the daily toll of casualties — grows stronger amongst external powers fatigued by financial cost and geopolitical strain. Yet beneath the language of pragmatic compromise lies a darker risk: that justice for crimes committed in and against Ukraine will be quietly traded away in the name of peace.

This is not a theoretical concern. It is an old pattern in international relations. From the amnesties of Latin American juntas to the Dayton Accords’ uneasy bargains in the Balkans, political settlements have often been built upon partial or deferred accountability. The question facing Ukraine and her partners is whether such a bargain would secure a durable peace — or merely mortgage the moral and legal foundations upon which her future must be built.

The Architecture of Accountability

The machinery of justice regarding Ukraine is already in motion. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for senior Russian officials, including the President of the Russian Federation, alleging unlawful deportation of children and other war crimes. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened tens of thousands of case files relating to alleged atrocities committed in territories temporarily occupied by Russia. A growing body of evidence — satellite imagery, forensic exhumations, digital intercepts — has been painstakingly assembled by domestic and international investigators alike.

There are also ongoing discussions amongst Ukraine’s partners regarding the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression — a charge beyond the current jurisdictional reach of the ICC in this context. Meanwhile asset seizure regimes across Europe and North America are probing the possibility of directing frozen Russian state assets towards Ukrainian reconstruction.

These efforts represent more than symbolic gestures. They reflect a broader post-1945 commitment that aggressive war and systematic atrocity are not merely political disputes but violations of peremptory norms of international law. To abandon or dilute these processes in exchange for a ceasefire would signal that the enforcement of those norms is contingent upon geopolitical convenience.

The Diplomatic Temptation

Yet diplomacy is rarely conducted in the language of moral absolutes. External actors — particularly those geographically distant from the front lines — may calculate that insisting upon full criminal accountability as a precondition to peace risks prolonging hostilities. They may argue that Russia will not sign any settlement that leaves her leadership exposed to arrest or humiliation, and that a negotiated cessation of hostilities, even at the price of legal compromise, would save lives in the immediate term.

There are precedents. The Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland involved the early release of prisoners convicted of politically motivated crimes. The South African transition away from apartheid relied upon a Truth and Reconciliation Commission offering conditional amnesties in exchange for confession. Advocates of pragmatic settlement may suggest that Ukraine, too, could adopt some hybrid model balancing truth, reparations and limited accountability.

But such comparisons are imperfect. Ukraine did not endure an internal civil conflict between coequal factions; she was invaded by a nuclear-armed neighbour in manifest violation of the prohibition on aggressive war. The asymmetry of power and the clarity of the breach matter — both legally and morally.

Justice as Deterrence

There is also a strategic dimension that extends beyond Ukraine’s borders. If the leadership of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council can launch a war of conquest, oversee systematic attacks upon civilian infrastructure and yet secure de facto immunity through a negotiated settlement, what message does this send to other revisionist powers?

The erosion of accountability would not merely wound Ukraine; it would degrade the fragile edifice of international law that restrains interstate violence. Smaller states — in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, the South China Sea — would draw their own conclusions about the reliability of legal norms. Deterrence, already frayed, would weaken further.

Justice, in this sense, is not vengeance. It is part of the architecture of future peace. The Nuremberg Trials did not prevent all subsequent wars, but they did embed in international consciousness the principle that leaders can be held personally responsible for aggressive war. To compromise that principle now would be to reverse decades of normative development.

The Domestic Dimension

For Ukraine herself, the cost of trading justice may be even more acute. Her society has endured mass displacement, the destruction of entire cities, the loss of tens of thousands of lives and the trauma of occupation. The discovery of mass graves in Bucha and elsewhere has become etched into national memory. Any political settlement perceived as granting impunity to those responsible would risk profound domestic disillusionment.

Ukraine’s political leadership, no matter how war-weary the population may become, would face immense pressure not to concede on questions of accountability. To do so could fracture the social contract that has sustained national resistance. A peace agreement lacking credible justice mechanisms might not consolidate stability but instead sow seeds of resentment, radicalisation and future political instability.

Moreover Ukraine’s aspiration towards European Union membership is bound up with adherence to the rule of law. She cannot credibly present herself as a reforming European democracy while acquiescing in impunity for the gravest crimes committed on her soil.

The Counterargument: Lives First

It must nonetheless be acknowledged that the counterargument is not trivial. If an insistence upon prosecuting senior Russian officials were demonstrably to prolong the war by years, at the cost of thousands more Ukrainian lives, a hard ethical dilemma would arise. The families of soldiers and civilians might reasonably ask whether abstract legal principles are worth such sacrifice.

International law does not provide simple answers to such utilitarian calculations. Peace and justice are both recognised goods. The difficulty lies in sequencing — whether justice must precede peace, follow it or be pursued in parallel.

One possible pathway would be to separate the cessation of hostilities from the ultimate disposition of criminal responsibility. A ceasefire agreement need not itself extinguish international arrest warrants. The jurisdiction of the ICC is not subject to bilateral negotiation between belligerents. Even if immediate arrests are politically implausible, indictments can persist for decades. Slobodan Milošević was brought before a tribunal years after the Balkan wars had ended.

Thus the binary choice — peace or justice — may be false. A ceasefire could reduce violence while leaving legal processes intact, to mature over time as political conditions shift.

The Role of External Powers

External actors will play a decisive role in determining whether justice is preserved or diluted. If major Western states were to signal privately that arrest warrants should be suspended, asset seizures abandoned or tribunals quietly shelved in order to secure Moscow’s signature on a peace document, the integrity of the entire accountability project would be undermined.

Conversely, a firm and unified position that criminal responsibility is non-negotiable — even if politically deferred — would strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table. It would also reaffirm that certain norms are not bargaining chips.

There is finally the question of Russia herself. A settlement that entrenches impunity may not produce a stable Russia at peace with her neighbours. Authoritarian systems that escape accountability often internalise the lesson that risk-taking carries limited personal cost. Sustainable peace in Eastern Europe may ultimately depend upon internal transformation within Russia — a process unlikely to be encouraged by international indulgence.

A Peace Worth Having

History teaches that peace settlements shaped by expediency alone rarely endure. The Treaty of Versailles imposed punitive terms without reconciliation; the Munich Agreement sacrificed Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty for illusory stability. Each in its own way failed to secure lasting order.

Ukraine’s predicament is distinct, yet the principle endures: a peace that corrodes justice may not deserve the name. This does not require maximalist insistence upon immediate trials in The Hague before guns fall silent. It does require a clear refusal to extinguish accountability as a condition of negotiation.

For Ukraine justice is not an abstract Western imposition. It is intimately tied to her national survival, her European future and her claim to moral legitimacy in the eyes of her citizens. To trade it away would be to accept that aggression can be normalised if sustained long enough.

The risk therefore is real — that fatigue, fear of escalation or economic self-interest amongst powerful states could erode the resolve to pursue accountability. Whether that risk materialises will depend upon political leadership in Kyiv, in European capitals and in Washington. It will also depend upon the persistence of Ukrainian civil society, which has documented crimes at immense personal cost.

Peace is urgently needed. But if it is to be more than an interlude before renewed violence, it must rest upon a foundation that affirms, rather than abandons, the principle that grave crimes demand answer. Otherwise Ukraine may secure quiet borders at the price of a quieter, more insidious injustice — one that lingers long after the guns fall silent.