A peace deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine seems closer than ever, but even if one is reached, the potential for pernicious Russian action remains significant. The next phase of the conflict could well be diplomatic, and to guide a real and lasting peace, U.S. policymakers must understand Russian tactics and strategies in this field. In particular, Russia’s history of weaponizing veto power has allowed it to appear cooperative while setting the groundwork for future exploitation of peace arrangements. By understanding how Russia has, and may once again, used this tactic, U.S. policymakers can tailor a more informed and effective strategy for pursuing a cease-fire deal in line with the U.S. administration’s desire while avoiding the pitfalls that Moscow will inevitably set to render the agreement void and unenforceable at its whim alone.
The weaponization of democratic bodies has been a favorite tactic of Russia for centuries, and examples even within the confines of this most recent war attest to that. Historically and more recently, Russia has established a pattern of behavior in which it will infiltrate democratic bodies and arrangements, either through direct invitation or through proxy actors, and then use its veto power to incapacitate the group. Sometimes, this takes the form of domestic interference; other times, it takes the form of joining, and even encouraging the creation of, multilateral bodies that require a unanimous vote for action, giving Russia the ability to single-handedly veto any actions the organization attempts. Russia, when given a stake in a democratic (especially unanimous) institution, has a pattern of acting in bad faith and using its stake to stall or entirely prevent the institution from acting. This is a tactic often utilized against the West, which has a propensity to form democratic institutions domestically and internationally.
In the context of a Ukraine cease-fire, this could manifest as a revival of the aborted 2022 security framework proposals. In the early weeks of the full-scale invasion, Russia and Ukraine entered negotiations to end the war and discussed various cease-fire proposals, although by April 2022, those efforts had failed. These proposals would have created a multilateral security framework for Ukraine in which the U.S., other NATO nations, and Russia itself would have been obliged to collectively come to Ukraine’s defense in the event of war. However, Russia proposed to require a unanimous vote for the security framework to take action, giving it veto power against any collective defense.
A History of Manipulation
Russia has followed this strategic pattern of infiltrating and disrupting democratic entities for centuries. Russian Empress Catherine the Great’s hijacking of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth’s Liberum Veto stands as a prominent example. A remarkably republican institution for its time, the Liberum Veto required unanimous approval of all legislation to pass in the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm, or parliament. Starting in the mid-18th century, Catherine bribed a small number of individuals in the Sejm to systematically stall any resolutions unfavorable to Russia. When the Liberum Veto was done away with in the 1794 Polish Constitution, she resorted to military force, completing the partition of Poland.
Russia has also attempted this tactic in the years straddling the end of the Cold War. In the waning months of the Soviet Union, Soviet negotiators proposed an alternative security architecture for Europe. Rather than NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Russia proposed the use of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as a unified defense alliance. Like the Polish Sejm centuries before, the organization used a unanimity system to pass measures, and this unanimity would have extended to defense actions as well. Western policymakers noted the possibility of Russian interference in security actions and rejected the overtures for this unified framework, saying that Russia gets “a vote, not a veto.” The notion that Russia would have interfered in security operations was later justified by its opposition to NATO’s military intervention against the Serbs during their genocides in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In response to the Russian-backed Donbas war, the Minsk agreements in 2014 were created to try and establish a cease-fire and an eventual resolution of the conflict. Here, Russia attempted to hijack the Ukrainian governance process by proxy. According to various analysts, including in the Congressional Research Service, Russia’s efforts in Donbas did not have the goal of annexation but rather to gain the ability to leverage the Ukrainian state internally. While Russia did formally annex the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2022, this was in response to the previous course of action failing. In the Minsk II agreements, the breakaway republics, themselves propped up by Russia, were to be granted autonomous status within Ukraine. This, in turn, would allow Russia to de facto play a role in the Ukrainian system and weaken Ukrainian efforts to realign toward the West. Just as the Russians had infiltrated the Polish Sejm centuries earlier, they hoped to repeat the feat once again in Ukraine. However, Russia was less successful, as the accords were never fully implemented, and the Donbas republics never reintegrated or gained special status.
Recent Developments
In the early months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, security frameworks once again made an appearance. According to Foreign Affairs, significant headway had been made in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to end the war in early 2022, and these negotiations included a multilateral coalition to guarantee Ukrainian security. Titled “Key Provisions of the Treaty of Ukraine’s Security Guarantees,” the nascent agreement had largely been drawn up by Ukraine and tentatively accepted as a framework by Russia. The proposed treaty would be upheld by various security guarantors, notably Russia. The fact that Russia was included is significant, especially considering it was part of a Ukrainian proposal. As the talks continued, however, Russian negotiators attempted to add a provision requiring unanimity among the framework’s members to initiate security actions, virtually guaranteeing its ability to single-handedly render the architecture ineffectual.
Conditions for a cease-fire in the Russian-Ukrainian war appear to be riper than ever. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed openness to negotiations in the face of mounting casualties and faltering battlefield success. The Ukrainian populace has also increasingly swung toward favoring a cease-fire. At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump has made ending the war one of his early administration priorities. The administration’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has also expressed his desire to carry out a plan to this effect, although his stance appears to be slightly more moderate than Trump’s. For example, Kellogg has proposed that U.S. military aid to Ukraine might increase if Russia did not enter negotiations, contrasting with Trump’s determination to quickly cut aid to Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also stated that he is willing to negotiate with Trump “at any time.” As such, it is likely that the United States will soon pressure Ukraine into negotiating an agreement with Russia.
In 2025, the war is likely to transition into negotiations, especially with Ukraine’s accelerated loss of ground and the Trump administration’s emphasis on ending the war. As such, policymakers in the United States will need to be cognizant of the aforementioned Russian trend. The likelihood that Russia will propose a security structure in which it has a veto is high. Behind closed doors, Russian negotiators may make proposals to resume the early-war proposed frameworks, or use the previous negotiations as precedent.
Additionally, the eagerness of the Trump administration to end the war could increase the likelihood that a deal suboptimal for Ukraine, including one of this aforementioned nature, could be struck. There is precedent for the Trump administration prioritizing a peace deal over the best interests of America’s partners, most notably in the 2020 U.S. agreement with the Taliban, which excluded the Afghan government entirely and outlined plans for a U.S. withdrawal without an extant deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government. It is possible that in a bid to keep the Trump administration’s goal to end the war quickly, the U.S. may minimize or exclude Ukraine’s interests in favor of coming to an agreement with Russia.
Now, unlike in April 2022 when the unanimity issue contributed to the failure of cease-fire talks, increased pressure on Ukraine by the United States and its sinking war prospects could force compromise on this issue and others. The fact that Western nations are predisposed to bodies with unanimous voting policies, such as NATO or the United Nations’ Security Council members, makes the possibility of Russian bad-faith manipulation in the system even more likely.
The peace plan proposed by China and Brazil in May 2023 makes overtures in this direction as well, stating that “international cooperation on … security should be supported.” While this is not the only peace proposal, Putin has expressed more interest in proposals from the Global South, seeing them as more neutral in the conflict than the oppositional West.
During a meeting with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in December, Zelenskyy asked for security guarantees for a peace deal and floated the idea of Western troops being stationed in Ukraine. While it is unlikely that Russia would agree to this given that it is highly sensitive to perceived Western political and military encroachment in the region, it is possible that it may use this as an opportunity to resurrect the 2022 treaty talks. In addition to being under greater pressure to compromise, Ukraine may have an added incentive in the form of the promise of Western troop presence as Zelenskyy has proposed. Once again, however, this would likely come at the cost of Russian partnership in the security framework, and possibly unanimous action.
Policy Recommendations:
- U.S. policymakers under the Trump administration must not agree to any proposals that would give Russia veto power in a Ukrainian security framework.
- The Trump administration, especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, should pursue Kellogg’s proposal to continue to fund Ukraine’s war effort as long as Russia refuses to enter into good-faith peace negotiations, even if this may violate the administration’s promise to bring a swift end to the conflict. Creating timelines of this nature give opposing parties a negotiating advantage, as demonstrated with the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, where a hard withdrawal date allowed the Taliban to act more freely since it understood that U.S. forces would leave no matter what. A strict adherence to deadlines with the Russo-Ukraine conflict could similarly embolden Russia.
- The Trump administration should consider any Russian insistence to create a unanimous security framework for Ukraine’s defense as noncompliance with the peace process. Should Russia insist on a unanimous security framework, the United States should continue to fund Ukraine’s war efforts or increase sanctions on Russia.
Robert Kremzner is a graduate student at The George Washington University, pursuing a degree in Security Policy. As an undergraduate at Montana State University, he earned a degree in history, where he primarily focused on Eastern Europe. His interests include Soviet history and legacies, Russian aggression in the region, and the interplay between historical memory and modern attitudes in those countries.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of the New Lines Institute.
