The price of negotiations with Russia

Their names were Ivan, Vladyslav, and Myroslava – two-year-old twins and their one-year-old sister. On the night of February 10, they slept in a house in Bohodukhiv, the town their parents chose after fleeing shelling in another town in Kharkiv Oblast. Twenty-two kilometers from the Russian border. This was their first night in what was supposed to be a safe place.

At 23:30, a Russian Geran-2 drone crashed into their home. The building collapsed, and fire engulfed the ruins. When rescuers pulled out the bodies, they found the 34-year-old father, Hryhorii, and the three small children. The mother, Olha, 35 weeks pregnant, was pulled out with burns, a brain injury, and hearing loss.

Mayor Volodymyr Bilyi announced a three-day period of mourning. 

"We lost the most precious thing – our future," he said.

But while Ivan, Vladyslav, and Myroslava burned in their beds, diplomats were finalizing preparations for a new round of peace negotiations, scheduled for February 17 and 18 in Geneva.

We are told that diplomacy is progress. That the talks in Switzerland represent a step toward peace. That Moscow, Washington, and Kyiv are "narrowing the gap." That a truce could be reached by June.

Here is what really happened.

On February 2 and 3, Russia launched 450 drones and 71 missiles at Ukrainian energy infrastructure, completely ignoring the four-day "energy ceasefire." On February 7, Russia launched an additional 408 drones and 39 missiles against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. On February 12 and 13, another 219 drones and 24 ballistic missiles were launched. The attack left millions of Ukrainians without electricity, hospitals in darkness, and children freezing. The country lost 70% of its electricity production capacity. Not by accident, but with clear intent.

In the midst of this Russian terror, in Bohodukhiv, a Geran drone wiped out one more family. There was no collateral damage. There was no military target near that house. The family had just arrived, fleeing, hoping that twenty-two kilometers would be enough. It was not.

The drone that killed them was programmed for that address and sent with intent. Someone in the command center looked at a map, selected a residential area, and pressed a button. The explosion was no mistake. It was a message.

What did the diplomats do that night? They coordinated meetings with the American delegation led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, people whose careers are in real estate and lucrative businesses. The Russian side was preparing Vladimir Medinsky, a man who writes textbooks denying Ukraine's right to exist, a propagandist who organizes events in the occupied territories of Ukraine and finances Russian military units. This is who Moscow is sending to "negotiate"!

The Ukrainian team is trying to explain to the world that this is not a negotiation. This is blackmail. Washington is telling Kyiv to make territorial concessions by June or the US will leave the negotiations. The deadline is not humanitarian. It is related to elections. Trump needs something to show voters in November. The lives of Ukrainian children are a detail and collateral damage for him.

The tragedy lies not just in the deaths of children. The true monstrosity lies in the fact that their deaths occur simultaneously with peace talks, suggesting that one does not preclude the other. It's as if you can burn toddlers on Monday and then sit down to negotiate with good intentions on Wednesday.

Russia does not negotiate. It procrastinates, cheats, and kills.

Every round of talks since the start of the war has followed the same pattern. Moscow agrees to dialogue, makes vague and unacceptable proposals, then intensifies its attacks. The January "energy ceasefire" lasted four days before Russia bombed the power plants again. The ceasefire monitoring mechanisms discussed in Abu Dhabi were immediately followed with attacks on hospitals, schools, and homes. This is not an inconsistency. This is the tactic of the Russian aggressor. Putin does not want peace. He wants capitulation packaged as compromise. Every day the West spends debating "realistic frameworks," Russia continues the work of erasing Ukraine – one child at a time.

Because that is what it is: demographic genocide! Systematic destruction of the nation's future by killing children, kidnapping and deportation, and breaking the will of those who remain. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for abducting Ukrainian children. But kidnapping is only one method. Killing is simpler. He makes that clear.

Ivan, Vladyslav, and Myroslava are not the only victims. On February 9, three days before the Geneva talks were confirmed, a 10-year-old boy and his mother were killed in another attack on Bohodukhiv. On the same day, a mother and her eleven-year-old daughter were killed in the north of Donetsk region. Russian criminals commit these acts every day. This is extermination with a clear plan and schedule.

When the delegations meet in Switzerland on February 17, they will discuss buffer zones, ceasefire monitoring, territorial issues, and security guarantees. They will discuss how much Ukrainian land Kyiv should hand over to Moscow in exchange for a pause in the killing.

What will they not discuss? They will not address the fact that Russia's war aims include eliminating Ukraine as a sovereign state. They will not mention that Russia already seized Crimea by force in 2014 and parts of Donbas in 2022, and that each stolen meter was followed not by peace but by further aggression. They will not discuss that Putin will not stop until he is stopped by force.

And certainly not the names of the children Russia has killed. Because when you name them, when you see their faces, when you realize that Olha woke up without a husband, without twins, without a baby, you cannot pretend this is a conflict that can be resolved through peace talks that Russia will accept.

How many dead children is one day of negotiations worth? How many destroyed families justify another week of "progress in negotiations"? How many Olhas and burned children does the West consider an acceptable price for negotiations with Russia? Because Russia does not negotiate in good faith. It negotiates as it wages war: through fraud, cowardice, deception, lies, delay, and by committing the worst crimes. It assumes the West's appetite for Ukrainian suffering is endless. And so far, it has been right.

The West has been pretending for four years that this is not true, that negotiations are possible, that a compromise can be found, that peace can be bought by parts of Ukraine.

Every such attempt has ended the same way. Russia took what was offered and moved on. Crimea in 2014 was not the end but the beginning. Donbas in 2022 was not a goal but a waypoint. Putin saw every meter of Ukrainian land he occupied as confirmation that he could do more. And he gets it.

This is not due to his strength, but rather to the weakness of the West. But that weakness is not due to a lack of weapons or money, nor a lack of strength or power. The weakness lies in not understanding who Putin is and what he wants – or worse, in understanding it but refusing to face the consequences once and for all.

There is only one answer to what happened in Bohodukhiv. Not another diplomatic desk in Switzerland. Russia must be defeated – not cornered with an offer of a way out, not awarded territory for a pause in killing. Russia must be completely defeated and humiliated.

Every day the West spends seeking diplomatic solutions, Russia spends killing civilians and children. Every territorial offer in the name of "realism" becomes an invitation for the next aggression. Any delay in sending arms to Ukraine is measured in families like the one in Bohodukhiv.

The only thing that will stop this is making Russia unable to continue. That means more weapons for Ukraine, not fewer. Sanctions that paralyze the Russian war economy. Sanctions that paralyze life for everyone in Russia, because this is not just Putin's war. It is necessary to understand that Putin will not stop until he is stopped.

Diplomats will speak, and announcements will be made. And somewhere in Ukraine, another drone will be launched, another house will collapse, and another mother will wake up to find her children gone in the fire and rubble. This is what negotiation looks like when one side is committed to extermination.

"We lost the most precious thing," said the mayor. "Our future."

He was not speaking metaphorically.