Many expect 2026 to be a decisive year for the war in Ukraine. With Russia increasingly feeling the impact of sanctions and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure teetering on the brink of collapse while its arms stockpiles and funding are dwindling, it’s unsurprising that for the first time in a long time, the parties have returned to direct and seemingly substantive dialogue, first in Abu Dhabi and now in Geneva on February 17–18.

Real progress toward peace may look entirely possible, but circumstances mean that instead of sustainable peace, each side risks finding itself caught in a trap.

For Ukraine, the overwhelming priority is to force Russia to cease hostilities. The only question appears to be what price Kyiv is willing to pay for this in terms of territory and security guarantees.

Kyiv’s position on the territorial issue is that it should be decided by the front line at the time hostilities end. Moscow’s demand that Ukrainian troops withdraw from the Donbas region before the Kremlin will enter into negotiations for a full-fledged peace is unrealistic—at least under Ukraine’s current political conditions. But Russia believes it is only a matter of time before it succeeds in taking the Donbas by force, so sees no point in compromising on this demand.

The key risk for Kyiv, therefore, is getting stuck in endless ceasefire negotiations while Moscow continues to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. To feign goodwill, the Kremlin may periodically agree to brief ceasefires. But a lasting cessation of hostilities is only possible if Russia accepts it as part of a settlement on its terms, which include an end to Western military assistance for Ukraine.

Russia also faces its own trap, however. If Moscow succeeds in forcing Kyiv into substantive negotiations over what would essentially amount to a capitulation—a rerun of the Istanbul talks in the early days of the war—the Kremlin will be forced to choose which peace terms it is truly prepared to accept.

Russia’s demands are problematic in and of themselves. The territorial issue is important to the Kremlin, but the war has a more ambitious goal: to create a Ukraine that would be entirely within Russia’s sphere of influence and not perceived by Moscow as “anti-Russia.” Moscow wants to achieve this by imposing a series of political restrictions on Kyiv, such as banning Ukrainian nationalism, legitimizing pro-Russian forces within the country, guaranteeing the status of the Russian language there, and restoring the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In other words, Russia wants to force Ukraine to commit to becoming a “friendly” state. As guarantees of this friendliness, the Kremlin is seeking a drastic reduction in the size of the Ukrainian army, an end to its partnership with NATO countries, and a ban on the deployment of long-range weapons and any Western military infrastructure on Ukrainian territory.

This is the agenda that Putin’s aide, Vladimir Medinsky, looks set to promote in Geneva. Even the choice of Medinsky, who already participated in the Istanbul talks back in March–April 2022, indicates a return of political demands to the center of the discussion. Moreover, Moscow is clearly counting on Washington to help it impose such conditions on Kyiv.

Yet therein lies the trap. Russia risks becoming bogged down in lengthy and tedious discussions of its own political demands concerning Ukraine: demands that remain completely unacceptable to Kyiv. And even if at some point the Ukrainian authorities are forced to sign such a deal under pressure, it will likely suffer the fate of the Minsk agreements aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale invasion, with neither the Ukrainian elites nor society able to stomach such forced loyalty.

Instead of implementation, the agreements will be sabotaged and a gradual slide toward further escalation will begin. The risk of renewed hostilities will be high, and that creates another trap: this time for the mediator, the United States.

A forced agreement could of course be formally signed, allowing the U.S. president to declare he has triumphantly ended yet another war. But such an agreement would be extremely unstable and could ultimately backfire on Trump himself.

The final trap is that faced by Europe. Circumstances are pushing European capitals to resume dialogue with Moscow. Meetings and visits may become more frequent, rhetoric may soften. But Russia will seek genuine rapprochement only if Europe is prepared to discuss strategic security issues.

Moscow will likely demand an end to military support for Ukraine. The bitter truth is that Europe is neither prepared to fight Russia, nor engage in what the Kremlin considers a meaningful discussion about the future European security architecture. Accordingly, Europe will remain on the periphery of the negotiating process—as an indirect target for Russia standing behind an embattled Ukraine.

In other words, there’s little room for optimism. For the Kremlin, the war is existential. It’s not just about seizing control of towns and villages so much as a confrontation with the West taking place on Ukrainian territory. Predictions of the impending collapse of the Russian economy are not without grounds, but they miss the key point: that for the Kremlin, ending the war without Russia’s interests being taken into account would not simply be a defeat, but would amount to condemning Russia to its doom.

As long as Putin is in power, Russia isn’t paralyzed by widespread protests, and there is at least some money left in the budget for weapons, the war will continue. The Kremlin will not make significant concessions even if faced with a protracted financial and economic crisis. Rather, such a crisis, should it arise, would first lead to political change and only then to a revision of the war’s goals by the country’s new leadership.

That means there will be no final settlement either now or in the foreseeable future. Negotiations may intensify, a short-term ceasefire is possible, and documents may even be signed. But overall, this simulation of negotiations can only lead to the simulation of a ceasefire and the simulation of a settlement.

The main source of Russian aggression is a profound mistrust of the West and the firm belief that it intends to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. As long as this fear persists (and is shared by both the elites and society at large), the war will not end.