Many people are thinking about potential compromises leading to peace in Ukraine. Yet to understand what's at stake for Putin one must keep in mind that this war didn't start in 2022, it started in 2014. For Putin, destroying Ukraine's independence has become an obsession.
If it were just about Ukraine's status, a compromise would be at least thinkable. If Russia would feel threatened by Ukraine, there could be ways to deal with it.
Many people have picked up the arguments coming from the Kremlin, or think of Putin's war in terms of "realist" political logic. Yet this is misleading.
Putin has often said, and even written, that Ukraine is not a separate nation, and should not exist as a sovereign state. It is this fundamental denial that has led Putin to wage this totally senseless war that he cannot win.
And that leads us to the problem of making peace: either Ukraine has the right to exist as a nation and a sovereign state, or it hasn't. Sovereignty is indivisible. Putin denies it, Ukraine defends it.
How can you make a compromise about the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state? Impossible. That's why both sides can only fight on until they win.
Normally wars take place between states are about conflicts they have between them. Yet this is a war about the existence of one state, which is denied by the aggressor. That's why the usual concepts of peacemaking -- finding a compromise -- do not a apply.
If Ukraine continues to exist as a sovereign state, Putin will have lost. He is not interested in territorial gain as such -- it's rather a burden for him. He is only interested in controlling the entire country. Everything else for him is defeat.
In 2015, Putin has taken territory only as an instrument to further advance his claim to control the country, in the context of Minsk II. It was just his territorial base inside Ukraine, a tool to move ahead with his goal which remained unchanged.
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