Russian Logic of Substitution of Concepts: War is Peace. Peace is Surrender
Russia is hijacking and substituting key concepts of Western debate about this war, such as notions of peace and defence, contributing to Western category errors about both.
Peace = Surrender
The West naturally and understandably gravitates toward peace. Our default instinct is to seize the first opportunity in any conflict to “stop the fighting.” The Kremlin has mastered using the Western predisposition to peace as a lifeline for Russia’s wars – from Syria to Ukraine.
The Kremlin has not once supported its euphemism of “peace” with action in the context of Ukraine. The Kremlin has had continuous opportunities to choose peace, including a choice not to invade Ukraine – a country that Putin considered to be so militarily unthreatening that Putin assessed he could conquer it in a matter of days. Allowing Russia to keep its gains in Ukraine in 2015 and having a peace framework in place for seven years did nothing to stop the Kremlin’s reinvasion in 2022.
Every single version of the Kremlin’s euphemisms of “peace” since 2022 has included a demand that amounted to the destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev’s recent “peace formula” explicitly called for the elimination of the Ukrainian state and its absorption into Russia. The Kremlin’s use of the term “peace” has been incompatible with its actions, including Russia’s campaign to eradicate Ukrainian identity in the occupied territories.
The Kremlin’s exploitation of the Western argument for “stopping the bloodshed” conceals another critical nuance. Stopping the fighting does not stop the killing when it comes to Russia. The killing continues in Russian torture chambers on territory that Russia occupies – a process that is less visible to Western audiences and in a place where victims are stripped of the means to defend themselves.
The Kremlin dangles the concept of “peace” to steer the West towards Ukraine’s surrender - the outcome that Russia seeks but cannot accomplish militarily on its own. When the Kremlin “signals peace,” it actually signals a demand for Ukrainian and Western surrender. Western debate continues, nevertheless, to indulge the Kremlin’s false overtures for “peace,” despite the total lack of evidence to support any reasonable assessment that letting the Kremlin freeze the lines in Ukraine can lead to peace rather than more war.
Resisting Russian Aggression = Escalation
No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Ukraine’s actions. Russia imposed its war on Ukraine. Ukraine chose to defend itself. Ukraine’s action is resisting death, occupation, and atrocities at the hands of Russian forces. Yet, the Western debate periodically accuses Ukraine (or the West itself) of “escalating” or “prolonging the war.”
The Kremlin has greatly invested in framing Ukraine – and anyone who dares to resist the Kremlin – as an aggressor (and Russia as a victim). The West’s legitimization of Russia, a belligerent in Ukraine since 2014, as a mediator in the Minsk agreements also gave the Kremlin eight years to falsely frame any Ukrainian self-defence action or unwillingness to bend to the Kremlin’s will as Ukrainian aggression.
No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Western actions regarding Russia. The West has been non-escalator toward Russia for years to the point of self-deterrence and ceding its own interests. The West has consistently chosen a path of negotiations, resets, and concessions with Russia.[24] The United States did not prioritize Russia, while focused on counterterrorism, largely until 2016 when the Kremlin openly interfered in US politics.
NATO has been self-deterring for years, discussions about Ukraine’s NATO accession have stalled, and Putin expected the Western response to his invasion of Ukraine to be so weak that he could conquer Ukraine in a matter of days.
Russia has been a self-declared adversary of the US and NATO, but neither the US nor NATO took meaningful steps to defend against Russia, let alone attack it, until after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The West nevertheless periodically views its actions regarding Russia as by default escalatory, conceding the Kremlin’s reasoning. This includes Western actions to defend itself or its partners against unprovoked Russian aggression or measures to limit Russia’s access to Western technologies and markets – neither of which Russia is entitled to and certainly not when it uses both to sustain its unjust war.
The Kremlin’s framing that any Western action to resist Russia is aggression does not make those actions aggression. But the Kremlin has conditioned the West to think that way, forcing us yet again to reason from the Kremlin’s assertions, not ones based in reality. The West also indulged Putin’s grievances and grudges and reasoned to a false conclusion that we are somehow responsible for the Russian crimes that the Kremlin voluntarily committed against other states and its own people.
These Russian efforts benefit from and strengthen trends already strong in Western discourse, such as the belief on both sides of the political spectrum that US or Western interventions are the source of all or most problems in the world.
People, again, are entitled to their own views on these matters—but all should be aware of the degree to which the Kremlin seeks to weaponize our own internal discussions and disagreements to advance the Kremlin’s own aggressions and protect itself from the consequences of its atrocities.
One can in principle condemn US or NATO policies and actions in the past and also condemn Russian aggression—but not in the Kremlin’s world, and not in the false reality the Kremlin seeks to impose on our internal discourse.