This week’s visit to Moscow by the American delegation doesn’t seem to have produced any significant results. In response, the Russian president declared that if the Ukrainians don’t leave Donbas, he’s ready to seize it by force and that if Europe wants war, he’s prepared for that too. He essentially raised the stakes. When listening to the messages coming out of the U.S. regarding negotiations with Ukraine, it’s also said there that any progress requires Russia’s willingness to engage. Where do things stand today?

This is exactly where we stand: we have not seen a single sign that Putin has changed his goals. Quite the opposite — we’re seeing signs that confirm he remains firmly on course. And that course is aimed not just at taking a piece of Ukraine, but at upending all of Ukraine and, in fact, the entire European security order.

The Russians sometimes express these aims in different terms. Sometimes they cloak it in talk about the root causes of the conflict, sometimes they speak of the need to achieve strategic stability, but in truth, they are always talking about the same thing. The root cause of this war is Putin’s inability to accept the collapse of the Soviet Union and his desire to return to an imperial era in which Russia dominates Central and Eastern Europe. As long as that goal hasn’t changed, I see no prospects for finding a compromise.

Of course, surrender is always an option and history in Europe offers several examples of that. For instance, the ceding of the Sudetenland was seen at the time as a way to buy stability. That kind of move today would end the same way it did in the 20th century — with catastrophe. Naturally, we support no such thing.

Read more: ERR.EE