EDITORIAL: Zelensky extends a hand, Putin spits on it — diplomacy against the wall of Russian contempt

A fundamental asymmetry

There is a fundamental asymmetry in the diplomacy surrounding the war in Ukraine that should provoke far more outrage than it does. On one side, Volodymyr Zelensky — leader of an invaded country, part of whose territory is occupied, whose cities are bombed daily — who proposes peace formats, ten-point formulas, prisoner exchanges, contacts via intermediaries, and who tirelessly repeats that Ukraine is "ready for peace" on the basis of its sovereignty and international law. On the other side, Vladimir Putin — leader of the aggressor — who sets conditions amounting to his victim's capitulation, refuses any independent verification mechanism, continues striking civilians during supposed "dialogue windows," and calls "negotiation" what is in reality a series of ultimatums.

This asymmetry is documented, factually established, and yet constantly erased in the discourse of many media outlets and some politicians who treat both parties as equidistant from a peace they both refuse. This is not balance. This is false balance — an intellectual error with concrete political consequences.

June 2026: a month that illustrates the deadlock

June 2026 has been a particularly revealing month for this asymmetry. Putin declares on June 23 that he is "ready to negotiate" — on the basis of the "Istanbul 2022 agreements" and "realities on the ground" — that is, on the basis of Ukrainian capitulation according to the ISW analysis. Zelensky, for his part, announces a 40-day pressure campaign on Russian military infrastructure, organizes the 76th prisoner exchange (160 Ukrainians freed), and continues defending his ten-point peace formula in international forums. One multiplies diplomatic gestures; the other continues striking civilians and setting unacceptable conditions.

It is this month that I examine in this editorial. Not to sing Zelensky's praises — he does not need my praises, and leaders who make diplomatic gestures deserve serious evaluation, not adulation. But to point to the evidence that too many commentators avoid: the diplomacy in this conflict has a fundamental problem named Putin, and until that problem is named clearly, it is impossible to build an honest analysis of the situation.

False balance is one of the most insidious forms of disinformation. It does not lie about facts. It lies about their relative weight. Presenting Zelensky and Putin as two parties equally distant from peace is a lie by omission of the same magnitude as denying the facts themselves.

The Ukrainian peace formula: again and always

The Ukrainian ten-point peace formula — withdrawal of Russian forces, release of prisoners, reparations, security guarantees, justice for war crimes — was reaffirmed by Zelensky in multiple contexts in June 2026. This formula is consistent with international law. It starts from the principle that Ukraine has rights that Russia is obligated to respect, not concessions to be granted. But it is not maximalist in the sense of refusing all dialogue — it sets the conditions for equitable dialogue, not for a disguised capitulation.

It is significant that Zelensky maintained this formula publicly even in a context where pressure is being exerted on Ukraine to "make compromises." Western diplomats, think tanks, some governments — without always saying it publicly — have suggested to Kyiv that it soften certain positions to facilitate an agreement. Zelensky resisted these pressures, not out of intransigence but out of consistency: a peace that sacrifices Ukrainian sovereignty is not peace — it is an invitation to the next aggression.

The 40-day campaign: diplomacy through action

Zelensky's announcement of a 40-day military pressure campaign targeting Russian military and logistical infrastructure might seem contradictory with a diplomatic stance. It is not. The logic is what diplomats know well: one can only negotiate from a position of strength. A Ukraine that stops fighting in hopes of Russian concessions would obtain Istanbul conditions — capitulation. A Ukraine that maintains and intensifies military pressure — strikes on refineries at Ufa and Moscow, according to Euromaidan Press and Militarnyi — arrives at any future negotiation with a different balance of power.

This combination — peace offer via the diplomatic formula plus maintained military pressure — is the only coherent strategy available to Ukraine. It tells Moscow: we want peace, but we will not beg for it. We will continue making you pay the cost of this war until you are ready to negotiate on equitable terms. That is a moral and strategic position that many far more powerful countries would struggle to maintain.

The 40-day campaign is Ukraine's version of "speak softly and carry a big stick." I would prefer we lived in a world where peace proposals suffice. We do not. In the real world, one can only negotiate seriously with someone who knows the alternative to dialogue is costly.

Declarations that look like openings but are not

Putin's declaration on June 23 about his "readiness for talks" based on "Istanbul 2022" was immediately presented by media favorable to Moscow as a significant gesture of goodwill. The ISW dissected it the same day and reached the opposite conclusion: these are "2022 war aims" reaffirmed in diplomatic packaging. But between the headline of the dispatch ("Putin ready to negotiate") and the reality behind that headline, there is an abyss that many pressed readers do not cross.

Alongside these "diplomatic" declarations, Russian forces continued striking Ukraine. Civilian infrastructure was targeted. Civilians were killed. The front line continued to be a site of daily violence. An actor that truly wants peace does not strike civilian cities the same day it announces its "readiness for talks." This behavior — talking peace while continuing to strike — is the clearest sign that Russian declarations are political communication, not sincere diplomacy.

The division agenda: using diplomacy to weaken the Western alliance

Russian peace declarations serve a precise strategic objective: divide the Western alliance supporting Ukraine. If some European countries sincerely believe that Russia is "ready to negotiate," they might pressure Kyiv to "seize the opportunity." If this pressure is strong enough, it could force Ukraine to sit at a table under unfavorable conditions — and Putin would obtain without fighting what he could not obtain militarily.

This scenario is not hypothetical: it partially occurred in 2015 with the Minsk II Agreements, which Ukraine signed under French and German pressure and which Russia did not respect. The memory of Minsk is vivid in Ukrainian diplomatic circles — which is precisely why Kyiv is so careful about negotiation conditions. Having experienced it once is enough to understand that the words "agreement" and "peace" mean little if the interlocutor decides not to respect them.

The Russian division strategy is transparent but effective. It worked with the Minsk Agreements. It could work again if Western leaders do not keep in mind the lesson of 2015. Historical memory is a diplomatic weapon. Ukraine uses it. Its allies should do the same.

Why Putin refuses diplomatic equity

Beyond strategies and calculations, there is something more fundamental in Putin's behavior toward Ukrainian diplomacy: contempt. Not the ordinary emotional contempt between enemies — something more systemic and more revealing. Putin does not accept Zelensky as a legitimate interlocutor. He does not recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state with rights equal to those of Russia. He speaks of negotiating "with Ukrainians" as if addressing a population to be saved from its leaders rather than a state whose elected representatives have democratic legitimacy that he himself does not have.

This contempt is not rhetorical: it is structural. Putin's declaration that Ukraine was an artificial invention, that "Ukrainians and Russians are one people," that Kyiv's leaders are "nationalists" or "Nazis" — all these formulations deny the legitimacy of the interlocutor itself. How can one negotiate in good faith with someone whose very legitimacy as a partner one does not accept? One cannot. And that is precisely what Putin does.

Contempt as an explicit political choice

This contempt is an explicit political choice, not an involuntary consequence of war. Putin has built a narrative in which Ukraine can only be right if it accepts absorption into the Russian sphere. Any Ukraine that resists is by definition "under Western influence," awaiting "de-Nazification," or "artificial." This narrative allows him never to have to acknowledge that Ukraine has legitimate grievances, that its resistance is just, or that its peace proposals deserve a serious response.

The practical result of this structural contempt is that every Ukrainian diplomatic gesture is either ignored, reframed as Western manipulation, or turned into an argument for maintaining maximum demands. When Zelensky proposes direct talks, Putin says he cannot speak with people who have "banned" negotiations (a reference to a Ukrainian 2022 decision that itself responded to the Bucha atrocities). When Ukraine releases Russian prisoners, this is not presented as a humanitarian gesture but as a war obligation. Ukrainian good faith cannot penetrate a narrative that has disqualified it in advance.

Putin's contempt for Ukrainian legitimacy is the philosophical root of this entire war. Acknowledging that Ukraine is a sovereign state with rights equivalent to Russia's would undermine his entire project. That is why he cannot acknowledge it — even privately, even in theory. This impossibility is the real obstacle to peace.

Real support: undeniable but insufficient

Western support for Ukraine is real and substantial. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and others have provided billions in military and economic aid. Sanctions have weakened Russia's economy. Military training has strengthened Ukrainian capabilities. The NATO Summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026 should announce additional defense spending commitments. All of this is real.

But this support has limits that Kyiv feels painfully. Arms deliveries always arrive with delays and restrictions limiting the use of certain systems on Russian territory. Sanctions have holes — notably the Druzhba pipeline and bypass routes. The promised reconstruction aid is slow to materialize. And above all, Ukraine's NATO membership — the only real long-term security guarantee — remains suspended on conditions whose timeline is unspecified. This gap between declared support and effective support is one of the deepest frustrations on the Ukrainian side.

The temptation of imposed compromise

In some Western capitals, there is a growing temptation to find a "way out" of the conflict that is politically viable for the electorates concerned — even if this exit is not fair to Ukraine. This temptation manifests in formulations like "peace before victory," "geopolitical realism demands compromises," or "we cannot afford a permanent war." These formulations, generally well-intentioned, lead to the same implicit conclusion: Ukraine should accept some Russian demands to enable an agreement.

What these formulations deliberately or naïvely ignore is that Russian demands are not "some" and "others" — they are all or nothing. Either Ukraine is sovereign over its territory, or it is not. Either it has the right to choose its alliances, or it does not. There is no "compromise" on these questions that does not amount, in practice, to sacrificing Ukrainian sovereignty. And a Ukraine whose sovereignty is compromised is not at peace — it is in a precarious armistice before the next aggression.

Western leaders who talk about "compromise" give me the impression they are talking about a house where two problems need to be resolved on equal terms. That is not the situation. There is an aggressor and a victim. "Compromises" in this context mean the victim pays part of the bill. That is called partial capitulation, not peace.

Pressure from everywhere

Zelensky is subject to contradictory pressures of an intensity that few leaders have had to manage. From the Ukrainian side: an exhausted population that wants the bombardments to end, families of dead soldiers demanding meaning from their sacrifice, an economy on international life support, military decisions to be made under constant uncertainty. From the Western side: allies who support but with conditions, contradictory messages about the level of possible support, pressures to "show flexibility." From the enemy side: daily strikes, disguised capitulation declarations, intensive information warfare.

In this context of maximum pressure, Zelensky has maintained a remarkable political consistency for four years. He did not yield to pressures to sign a Minsk III agreement. He did not dramatically change his positions under economic pressure. He maintained prisoner exchanges as a priority without connecting them to political files. He refused the Istanbul terms while remaining open to diplomacy. This consistency in the storm is a form of leadership that history will probably judge more favorably than many of his contemporaries.

The vulnerability of the Ukrainian position

Acknowledging Zelensky's consistency does not mean ignoring the vulnerability of the Ukrainian position. It is real and multidimensional. Military fatigue is real — four years of intensive war have effects on manpower, equipment, and morale. Economic fatigue is real — the Ukrainian economy largely functions thanks to international support, and any reduction in that support would be destabilizing. Social fatigue is real — no one can live indefinitely under bombs without that leaving deep marks.

These vulnerabilities do not change the rightness of the Ukrainian position. But they impose reflection on the sustainability of the resistance and on what allies must do to reinforce it. An exhausted and under-supported Ukraine is not a Ukraine that can obtain a just peace. It is a Ukraine that might be forced to accept conditions it legitimately refuses today. The responsibility of allies is not only to support now — it is to support long enough for Russian economic pressure to produce the calculation shift that would make real negotiation possible.

I refuse easy triumphalism about Ukrainian resistance. It is real and admirable. It is also exhausting and costly. What should worry the West is the possibility that one day Ukrainian exhaustion will be great enough to force concessions that the situation does not justify. Preventing that moment requires far more sustained support than we are seeing.

Real but incomplete economic pressure

The European Union proposed its 21st sanctions package on June 27, 2026. Economic pressure on Russia is documented and real: deficit exceeding 80 billion dollars, military spending exploding by 4–5 trillion additional rubles, bond yields at 15 percent. These data converge to indicate that the Russian economy is under significant pressure. But as The Economist of June 22 notes, this pressure is not yet sufficient to cause a collapse.

This gap between real economic pressure and non-existent political behavior change illustrates a principle of economic coercion: sanctions create constraints, but they do not automatically produce political changes. Putin can choose to maintain his war even under difficult economic conditions, as long as the internal political cost is not unbearable. The central question is: at what level of economic degradation will Putin's calculation change? The honest answer is that no one knows.

What is still missing in the economic pressure

What is missing to maximize this pressure: the total oil embargo (the Baltic states continue demanding what Brussels continues postponing), secondary sanctions on the most active third-party intermediaries, and the total seizure of frozen Russian assets for Ukrainian reconstruction. These measures would have a significant additional economic impact. They would make Putin's position even harder to maintain. And they would send a strong political signal: the West is serious about making Russia pay the cost of its aggression.

Without these measures, the sanctions regime remains what it has been through twenty packages: real pressure but with a hole in the pipe. Zelensky knows this. He says so. His allies should listen more carefully — not to please him, but because he is right.

There is something absurd about the fact that Zelensky, leading a country at war, regularly needs to remind his allies at peace that they are not doing enough. The risk asymmetry is troubling: Ukraine pays in blood, the West pays in money and economic discomfort. The equity of this relationship should command a more complete commitment.

Without guarantees, no lasting peace

At the heart of all debate on Ukrainian diplomacy lies a question no one really wants to resolve: what security guarantee can Ukraine have that is real and credible? NATO membership is the logical answer — it is the only guarantee that has demonstrated, over 70 years, its capacity to deter aggressions. But it is blocked by political considerations within the Alliance, notably the fear of being immediately drawn into a war with Russia if Ukraine joined NATO during the current conflict.

The alternatives — "bilateral security agreements," "guarantees" from individual countries — are less robust substitutes whose deterrent credibility cannot be assessed without testing them in a real crisis. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was this type of substitute — and it was ignored. A second memorandum without binding enforcement mechanism would be an insult to the memory of the 1994 betrayal.

The NATO solution: difficult but indispensable

Ukraine's membership in NATO is difficult to achieve under current conditions — I acknowledge that. But it is indispensable as a long-term objective. Any peace framework that does not include a credible and timed membership perspective is a framework that leaves Ukraine in a security gray zone — precisely the gray zone Putin wants to maintain, because it preserves the possibility of a future aggression.

The Ankara Summit of July 2026 is an opportunity to clarify this commitment. If NATO can commit to a timeline for Ukrainian membership conditional on cessation of hostilities — an "admission after peace" accompanied by robust interim security guarantees — it would change the diplomatic calculation. It would tell Putin: even if you "gain" terrain now, Ukraine will be in NATO eventually. This prospect could alter his calculations on the value of continuing the war.

The NATO question is the subject everyone avoids because it is difficult. But difficult subjects do not disappear because one avoids them — they come back in forms even harder to manage. Ukraine's NATO membership is the central question of European security for the coming decades. It must be addressed now.

The Ukraine-United States relationship under Trump

The diplomacy surrounding the war cannot be analyzed without addressing the Trump variable. The Trump administration has an unpredictable relationship with Ukraine — sometimes signaling maintained support, sometimes suggesting a quick peace agreement (at any conditions) would be preferable to continuing the conflict. Hegseth, according to The Guardian of June 27, 2026, mentioned a six-month review of American presence in Europe and threatened to reduce American contributions to NATO — creating real anxiety among European allies.

For Zelensky, managing this variable is a first-order diplomatic challenge. Trump responds to strength and results — a Ukraine that can show military and economic successes has more chance of maintaining his support than a Ukraine that appears to be treading water. This is part of the reasoning behind the 40-day campaign being also political communication directed at Washington: demonstrating that Ukraine is capable of initiative and results, not just passive resistance.

Europe taking its responsibilities

The American uncertainty has had a paradoxically positive effect: it has pushed Europe to take more responsibility for its own support of Ukraine. The reinforcement of European defense spending, the consolidation of the defense industry, discussions about a European security guarantee for Ukraine — all of this has accelerated precisely because American reliability is no longer guaranteed. Trump is a necessary evil for Europe in this sense: he forces a strategic maturity that might have taken decades to arrive under normal circumstances.

This European maturity is one of the necessary conditions for a serious peace diplomacy. A Europe that can guarantee its own eastern border security — with or without the United States — is a Europe that can negotiate with Russia from a position of real strength, not dependence and supplication. Building this Europe is the project of the coming years. And the Ukrainian conflict is its first real-scale test.

Trump is the accidental catalyst of a Europe more serious about its own defense. That may be his only positive legacy in this file. I distrust the thesis that all's well that ends well — too many lives have been lost in this war for long-term strategic benefits to compensate. But the European maturity emerging is a fact that deserves to be named.

The battle of narratives

Beyond the physical and economic battlefields, there is an information war that Putin wages with equal intensity. The declarations on Istanbul, on "readiness for talks," on "Western responsibility" for the continuation of the conflict — all of this is weaponized information. The objective is to shape the perceptions of global public opinion in a way that erodes support for Ukraine and creates pressure for an agreement on Russian terms.

This information war has partial successes. In some Global South countries, the Russian narrative of "resistance to Western hegemony" has found an echo. In some European countries, the narrative "Putin ready to negotiate, Ukraine refuses" has begun to circulate. These perceptions are factually inaccurate — Russian positions amount to Ukrainian capitulation — but they circulate and influence real political debates.

The response: clarity, consistency, persistence

The response to this information war cannot be symmetrical counter-propaganda. It must be analytical clarity: deconstructing Russian formulas factually, as the ISW did on June 23, as Meduza does, as this present editorial modestly attempts. This clarity requires consistency over time — not repeating Russian formulas without criticizing them — and persistence — continuing to tell the truth even as fatigue sets in.

Zelensky does his part in this battle. His regular addresses to global public opinions, his interventions in international forums, his presence on social networks — all of this is effective political communication that keeps the Ukrainian reality visible. What he cannot do alone is convince electorates in countries of which he is not the leader. That is the responsibility of those countries' governments and media.

The information war is won in newsrooms, in lecture halls, in ordinary conversations. Every time a journalist, a professor, or a citizen takes the time to verify what "Istanbul" actually means, that is a small victory in that war. It is modest. It is indispensable.

What Ukraine must be ready to accept

A just peace does not mean Ukraine would have no compromises to make. I want to be honest on this point. A real peace — with credible security guarantees, a NATO membership perspective, reparations, and a war crimes justice mechanism — might imply painful concessions for Ukraine. Perhaps a delay before recovering certain territories. Perhaps a mechanism for international oversight of contested zones during a transitional period. These hypotheses are difficult to evaluate without knowing the details of a final agreement.

What Ukraine cannot accept — and what its allies must support it in refusing — is a peace that compromises its fundamental sovereignty: a peace without real security guarantees, a peace that leaves Russian forces on its territory without a legal framework for withdrawal, a peace that recognizes illegal annexations as definitive, or a peace that limits its defensive armed forces to levels that make it incapable of defending itself. That is not intransigence — it is the vital minimum of a sovereign state.

What Russia must be ready to accept for a real peace

The list is longer on the Russian side, and for good reason — it is the aggressor. A real peace requires: the withdrawal of Russian forces from occupied Ukrainian territories (at minimum a defined and binding timeline); the release of all prisoners and deported civilians; acceptance of an international justice mechanism for committed war crimes; an end to attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure; and formal recognition of Ukraine's right to choose its alliances.

These requirements correspond to international law. They are not exorbitant — they correspond to what is expected of any state that has committed an aggression and seeks to settle it. Russia's resistance to these conditions is not diplomacy: it is the refusal to accept the consequences of its own acts. It is this refusal that constitutes the wall of contempt against which Zelensky runs. And it is this wall that the international community must continue to erode, patiently, stubbornly, until it yields.

I know many readers will find this editorial too one-sided. I accept that criticism. But I return it: an editorial that treated the peace demands of an aggressor and those of a victim with equal weight would itself be an act of injustice. There are situations where equidistance is a moral failure.

A plan built on the weariness of democracies

Vladimir Putin has always built his Ukraine strategy on a calculation of timing: that the weariness of Western democracies will ultimately overcome their solidarity with Kyiv. This calculation is not irrational — democracies have elections, fluctuating public opinions, fragile governing coalitions. Putin is right to bet on fatigue. He is wrong to believe it is inevitable.

The information battle is an integral part of this strategy. By sowing doubt about the chances of Ukrainian victory, magnifying divisions within Western alliances, amplifying voices that advocate for "compromises" — the Kremlin's media machine works to weaken Western support far more effectively than its missiles. Meduza, the analyses of the ISW, and journalists who decode these manipulations play an essential role in informational defense.

NATO's credibility after Ankara

The NATO Summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026 will be a test of the alliance's credibility in the face of Russian information maneuvers. If NATO can demonstrate unity on defense spending, on support for Ukraine, and on security guarantees — even if immediate membership is not possible — it undercuts the Russian narrative of "Western fatigue."

The declaration by NATO leaders that their countries "can no longer count on the United States," according to The Guardian of June 27, 2026, illustrates real tensions within the Alliance in the face of American uncertainty under Trump. These tensions are real and must be managed. But they must not be left to amplify unanswered — every unpatched crack in the NATO facade is exploited by Russian propaganda.

I distrust the doomscrollers of the Western alliance — those who find in every disagreement between allies proof that everything is about to collapse. NATO has survived many crises since 1949. But I equally distrust those who minimize real tensions. The truth is in the middle: the alliance is under pressure, it holds, and it must be actively reinforced rather than passively defended.

Oil revenues as the engine of the war machine

To understand the war in Ukraine, one must understand its financing. Russia's budget deficit exceeds 80 billion dollars in June 2026 according to United24 Media, but this figure masks a more complex reality: Russia is financing a costly war by spending beyond its revenues, drawing down reserves, and borrowing at increasing rates — Russian government bonds reaching yields of 15 percent. This is sustainable in the short term. It is not in the long term.

Oil revenues, which represent 30 to 40 percent of the Russian federal budget in normal times, are directly affected by Ukrainian strikes on refineries. The Kapotnya refinery near Moscow and the Bashneft plants in Ufa, struck in June 2026, reduce Russian refining capacity and therefore the added value Moscow can extract from its crude oil. This is an economic war waged by Ukrainian drones.

The multiplier effect of accumulated sanctions

Economists studying the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy emphasize the importance of cumulative effects. Each of the 21 European sanctions packages individually has limited impact. But their accumulation over four years has created structural pressure that now manifests in macroeconomic data worrying for Moscow: GDP contraction in Q1 2026 of 0.2 percent, IMF forecasts revised to only 0.8 percent growth, persistent capital flight.

The Kiel Institute has documented this "structural exhaustion" of the Russian economy — not an immediate collapse, but a progressive and potentially irreversible degradation. Russian companies that survived the first sanctions by finding more costly alternatives are now beginning to absorb additional costs related to refinancing constraints, ruble depreciation, and shortages of specialized technologies. These cumulative effects are the hardest to measure and the most powerful over time.

Economists who explain that sanctions "don't work" because they haven't caused an immediate collapse seem to miss something essential: sanctions are a long-term pressure tool, not a time bomb. Their effectiveness is measured in years, not weeks. And on that timescale, the June 2026 data are encouraging.

The political deadlock around membership

Ukraine's membership in NATO is the most robust available security guarantee — and it has been politically blocked for years. The main obstacle is no longer formal opposition from members (even Hungary finally stopped explicitly blocking), but a collective hesitation among the Alliance's major members in the face of the risk of being drawn into a direct war with Russia if Ukraine were admitted during the current conflict.

This hesitation is understandable but dangerous. It leaves Ukraine in a security gray zone — precisely the zone Putin wants to maintain, because it preserves the option of a future aggression. The paradox is cruel: it is the risk of confrontation with Russia that prevents Ukrainian membership, and it is the absence of membership that makes the next Russian aggression more likely.

The German model as historical precedent

History offers a relevant precedent: the Federal Republic of Germany joined NATO in 1955, at a time when the USSR was directly threatening military escalation. The decision was made despite these risks, and it contributed to stabilizing Western Europe for the following decades. Collective deterrence worked — not because the risk of conflict was absent, but because the cost of aggression was made prohibitive.

The argument that Ukraine "cannot" join NATO during the war seems circular to me: if membership is the best deterrence against war, preventing it during the war amounts to keeping the deterrence tool out of service at the moment of greatest need. The Ankara Summit is the opportunity to break out of this circular logic. With a formal post-conflict membership promise and serious interim guarantees, NATO can change Putin's calculation without triggering the escalation it fears.

I am convinced that Ukraine's NATO membership is the only truly durable security guarantee. Not memorandums. Not bilateral agreements. Not Trump's or Macron's promises. Article 5, with all its credibility built over 70 years of peace in Western Europe. That is why Putin fears it. And that is why it is indispensable.

Naming the obstacle correctly

When analysts and commentators say that "diplomacy has failed" in this conflict, they are making a framing error. Diplomacy has not failed — it has been refused by one party. Zelensky has proposed dialogue formats, peace formulas, prisoner exchanges. He continues to do so in June 2026. These proposals are real, grounded in international law, and available to be seized.

What has been refused is seizing them. Putin has refused to recognize Ukraine as a legitimate interlocutor. He has set capitulation conditions as prerequisites for any dialogue. He has continued striking civilians during supposed windows of diplomatic opening. This is not the failure of diplomacy. It is the refusal of diplomacy. And naming this failure correctly is the prerequisite for responding to it correctly.

The hand Zelensky keeps extending

Zelensky keeps extending his hand. With the ten-point peace formula. With prisoner exchanges. With the acceptance of imperfect intermediaries. With speeches addressed to the Russian population itself, distinguishing it from its government. This diplomatic persistence, maintained for four years despite the bombs, the deaths, the destruction, is remarkable. It deserves more recognition than it receives in debates about a "diplomatic solution."

Putin spits on that hand. He does so methodically, systematically, dressing his refusal in the vocabulary of peace. That is the reality of diplomacy around this conflict. Seeing it clearly, naming it clearly, is the prerequisite for any coherent policy. Diplomacy is not absent from this conflict. It is present, but unilateral. And this asymmetry says everything about who truly wants peace — and who wants capitulation.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

Diplomacy has its own rhythms. What seems immovable can set in motion very quickly when conditions change. I do not lose hope — but I refuse the facade optimism that ignores the depth of the obstacles.