The Illusion of Peace Talks and the Reality of Putin’s Collapse
- john raymond
- Aug 21
- 3 min read
From the first days of Russia’s “Special Military Operation,” analysts pretended that off-ramps or peace talks might resolve the war. Both have always been a mirage.
Once Russia’s armored columns failed to seize Kyiv, the most likely outcome was never a Russian victory but the eventual collapse of the Putin regime itself. Initial failure destroyed not only Russia’s operational momentum but also the myth of Putin’s inevitability.
Every action since has been the desperate improvisation of a man whose personal survival is tied to a war he cannot afford to lose.
The Desperation of Regime and Personal Security
At the heart of the Kremlin’s strategy lies a brutal reality: anything less than the total collapse of the Ukrainian state is not merely a setback for Putin but an existential danger.
Ukrainians have suffered and died in the hundreds of thousands under his aggression. Their hatred of him is not abstract; it is visceral, personal, and permanent. Now if Ukraine survives as a functioning state, Putin himself is unsafe. Not just his regime, but his own life and freedom, would hang in the balance.
This is why peace talks have never been genuine. They have been used instead as weapons—cudgels wielded by Putin and, crucially, by President Trump. Together they have sought to invert the narrative of the war: portraying Russia as reasonable, Ukraine as obstinate, and Western leaders as potential guarantors of a false peace that would leave Ukraine prostrate before the Kremlin.
Ukraine’s Momentum and the Rise of Spiderweb
But events have run against them. Ukraine is not weaker; it is stronger. Its deep strike campaign—launched with Operation Spiderweb—has burned through Russia’s logistical arteries and struck at the heart of its military-industrial base.
From oil depots to defense factories, Ukraine has proved it can wage asymmetric warfare at scale, even under material disadvantage. This has given Kyiv momentum where Moscow expected exhaustion.
The consequences are visible. Each Russian gambit—salient pushes, meat waves, missile terror—has failed to break Ukraine’s will. And each failed offensive further exposes the brittle reality of the Russian war machine and the fragility of Putin’s rule.
The Cudgel of Talks and the Fear of Troops
In response, Putin and Trump have leaned harder into their inversion gambit: using talk of negotiations, ceasefires, and Western reluctance as tools of delay and disorientation.
Yet the very fact that European and British leaders now openly discuss boots on the ground—even if framed as “after the fighting ends”—is a measure of how much the Kremlin has lost the initiative.
The truth is this: fear is the only remaining factor restraining the West from sending troops into Ukraine today. European governments worry about nuclear escalation, about breaking NATO consensus, about the political costs of mobilization.
But as Russia weakens—its logistics burning, its gambits failing, its leader isolated—that fear will continue to diminish.
Boiling the Frog
The most likely trajectory is not an overnight NATO intervention but a gradual “boiling of the frog.”
First, a hundred troops from Poland to guard a corridor. Next, two hundred from the UK for air defense or port security. Then training units, logistics personnel, engineers, and “peacekeepers.”
Each small increment will be calibrated to avoid provoking nuclear use, exploiting the fact that Putin cannot escalate while his regime is consumed with domestic collapse.
Step by step, Western boots will arrive in Ukraine—not to enforce a ceasefire, but to create the conditions for one on Ukrainian terms.
And by the time Moscow realizes the scale of Western presence, thousands of European troops will be in place, hastening the strategic blow that not only ends Russia’s war of conquest but also ends Putin himself, whether in power or in life.
Illusions Shattered
The illusion of peace talks has served its purpose: it has delayed, distracted, and confused. But the underlying reality has never changed. Putin tied his personal survival to the annihilation of Ukraine, and he has failed.
Ukraine, stronger now than before, is burning Russia’s war machine and winning time. And the West, once hesitant, is already preparing the path toward the inevitable: troops on Ukrainian soil, not after the war, but before it ends, accelerating the collapse of a regime that began to die the moment it failed to take Kyiv in the very early days of the war.
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