The Paper Trap: Why Europe Can’t Negotiate Its Way to Peace

As Russia lays the groundwork to break the next ceasefire, Ukraine and the Baltics must prepare for the only thing that matters: deterrence.

Illegitimate government.

Yep. That’s it. That’s all the Kremlin will need in the future to declare that any ceasefire agreement signed under the auspices of Donald Trump is null and void. Then, with theatrical remorse and deep regret, they’ll claim they’ve been left no choice but to launch the next war — to protect the sacred, beautiful Russia from betrayal.

This framing — calling a democratically elected government “illegitimate” — is a core tactic of Nazi propaganda, now fully embraced by modern autocrats and their global movements. Always accuse the other side of the crime you commit.

But this one — “the Ukrainian government is illegitimate” — is uniquely useful to the Kremlin. It’s not just propaganda. It’s preparation.

• It helps the Kremlin make its case for removing Zelensky and his team. As long as they remain in power, the autocrat in Moscow knows any deal will be a hard sell. He needs them gone.

• It gives Zelensky’s opponents within Ukraine a pressure point — a narrative tool to drag down a wartime president. And no one on Earth depends more on the rally-around-the-flag effect than Vladimir Putin. He knows Zelensky’s popularity is a strategic threat. So what better way to chip away at that than by seeding the idea — relentlessly — that he’s avoiding elections?

• If Zelensky caves to that pressure and moves toward elections, he faces a brutal choice: he cannot include Ukrainians currently living in Russian-occupied territories. Which means holding the vote would be a quiet admission that those territories are gone. That this smaller Ukraine is now normal. That’s the real weapon — mindshare erosion.

• And globally, it hands right-wing influencers and the billionaires who bankroll them a clean line of attack. They’ll keep hammering the “illegitimate government” framing, softening the ground. So when the Kremlin finally tears up the ceasefire, they can say: We warned you. We signed with the wrong people.

• It also shreds the Ukrainian constitution, which explicitly prohibits elections during wartime. But the goal isn’t legality — it’s decay.

• And most importantly, Putin now holds the trump card before a single word of any agreement is signed.

Aces. In buckets.

Let’s be honest: there is no contract in the world that Vladimir Putin will honor.

Not for long. Not when power, narrative, and legacy are at stake.

So in a twisted way, we should be grateful the Kremlin is investing so much effort now into building the legal, emotional, and narrative scaffolding it will later use to break the ceasefire. Because it tells us one thing clearly: the next war is already being planned.

Which means this —

• There is no point in trying to write a better contract.

• There is no hope of binding Putin through process.

Ukraine must sign any future agreement with the clear understanding that it comes with a timer — and the length of that timer will depend entirely on Ukraine’s and the Baltics’ capacity to defend against the Kremlin’s next move.

That’s where the real work lies. Not in legal language — but in logistics, infrastructure, and deterrence.

Europe must stop pretending the war ends with ink. It doesn’t. It ends when Russia runs out of room to strike again. And that requires urgency — not just in Ukraine, but across the eastern flank.

The Baltics must be hardened. Border defenses must be fortified. Air defense grids, drone interception systems, ammunition stockpiles — all of it must scale. Fast.

And when — not if — the Kremlin tries to insert demilitarization clauses into the ceasefire agreement, Europe must be prepared to say a simple, unshakable no. Because weakening Ukraine’s defense posture won’t preserve the peace. It will guarantee the next war arrives sooner.

This is the truth Europe must absorb:

You can’t contract your way out of an imperial dream. But you can out-arm it. You can out-prepare it. You can outlive it. And when that day comes, the war will truly end — not with a signature, but with the silence that follows a predator who knows he can’t strike again.