Editorial: Russia just said it doesn’t want peace. This is what you need to do

Russia is now saying the quiet part out loud. It has no intention of stopping the war in Ukraine.

We in Ukraine knew this all along, of course, but to sate the demands of international diplomacy, Moscow and Washington have engaged in a now more than two-month-long peace process that has achieved nothing other than demonstrating that neither is willing to do what is necessary to achieve it.

Russia has apparently grown tired of its leading role in the charade and, emboldened by what is now the almost certain knowledge it will face no repercussions from the U.S. President Donald Trump, is openly bragging about having no interest in negotiations with Ukraine or a ceasefire.

"We don't want this anymore," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on May 21, confirming what his boss told Trump in a phone call two days earlier — that the Kremlin is not ready for peace in Ukraine because it believes it is winning the war.

Trump was furious at the news, apoplectic that Putin had been stringing him along and humiliating him all this time, swiftly imposing the long-threatened sanctions, as European leaders rallied together.

Oh, wait, sorry, this is what should have happened if there had been even an ounce of logic and decency left in this situation.

In reality, Trump barely shrugged, apparently content that he's keeping Russian money-making opportunities on the table, while the EU's latest sanctions are so ineffective it's been left up to Ukraine itself to explain to the bloc how it could maybe try and make them a bit tougher.

It's beginning to feel a bit like, despite all the rhetoric, the only player who truly wants the war to end is Ukraine.

Any notion of a peace process is effectively over, and there's only one remaining hope — those Americans who actually mean what they say and truly want the war to end must follow through and finally apply some good old-fashioned global superpower pressure on Russia.

Yes, U.S. senators, we're talking to you.

One way the war can end is if the U.S. makes Russia end it. Russia, and Russia alone, is responsible for the violence being inflicted in this war.

Take a recent example — only two Ukrainian civilians were killed by Russian violence on May 8. Only two — that may sound cynical, and is in no way meant to detract from two tragedies, but the number is hugely significant.

The day before, on May 7, 14 people were killed and 54 others injured. In Kyiv on May 7, we spent the night in bomb shelters and hallways, listening to the sounds of ballistic missiles exploding, and attack drones flying overhead and crashing into people's homes.

Overnight on May 8, we slept uninterrupted throughout the night.

What was the difference between these two days? On May 8, a three-day ceasefire unilaterally proposed by the Kremlin came into effect.

Now let's get one thing straight — the Kremlin's ceasefire was a sham, announced without consulting Ukraine, with the sole purpose of not embarrassing Russian President Vladimir Putin by forcing the cancellation of his Victory Day parade on May 9.

The Kremlin also violated it, and in addition to the two deaths noted above, Ukrainian soldiers told the Kyiv Independent that Russian forces were still active and attacking on the front lines.

But Russia suspended a major part of its military operations — aerial attacks against Ukrainian cities — and the immediate effect was a dramatic reduction in civilian deaths.

April was one of the deadliest months for civilians during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — at least 209 civilians were killed, including 19 children, and 1,146 others were injured, all by Russian missiles, drones, and bombs.

Inadvertently, Russia's ceasefire proved the one thing that Putin wouldn’t admit — that Russia and Russia alone is responsible for the violence being inflicted in this war.

It is in Russia’s power to stop the war any moment, unilaterally, and to end the violence, as it showed with the ceasefire. But it won’t do it.  

The same is true on the front lines.

Where their armies clash, Ukraine, as the defending side, is reportedly responsible for the majority of the killing, as it’s conducting just and legal self-defense against Russian soldiers committing an unprovoked and illegal invasion of another sovereign nation.

For this killing to end, Russia can simply stop attacking. Aside from the personal humiliation of one man — Putin — Russia would suffer nothing, and lose nothing, from stopping the war.

Ukraine doesn’t have the same choice. It cannot end the fighting as long as Russia keeps attacking. It has everything to lose, and the violence its armed forces inflicts is committed in the name of survival, not conquest.

Even Ukrainian offensive operations like drone strikes into Russian territory are carried out in an attempt to deprive the Kremlin war machine of ammunition, fuel, and money, in an effort to aid Ukraine's survival.

This is the prism through which Washington should have viewed the U.S.-led peace process, but since Trump took office, the opposite has been true.

The U.S. has been applying pressure not on Russia, but on Ukraine, which has no choice other than to do what is required to survive.

In stark contrast, Russia remains unpunished by the Trump administration and is instead being wooed.

But there is still hope — the U.S.'s actions towards Russia are not solely in the hands of the president, and we know there are plenty of people on Capitol Hill who don't agree with the course that is currently being charted.

For one, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham's sanctions bill, the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, needs to be passed. Americans need to reach out to their representatives in Congress to demand that their elected officials support the bill.

If Americans want to show they won’t be complicit in appeasement, they should raise their voices for Ukraine — and for accountability — starting with this bill.