The Mask of Diplomacy: How Western Peace Talks Enable Russian Cultural Genocide in Ukraine

The Facts: A Tale of Two Narratives

This week witnessed a stark contrast in the Ukraine conflict narrative. US President Donald Trump declared “tremendous progress” toward ending the Russia-Ukraine war, following a sudden flurry of diplomatic activity around a 28-point peace proposal. This optimistic assessment came amid ongoing talks between American, Ukrainian, and Russian officials. However, this diplomatic theater unfolded against a backdrop of escalating Russian atrocities that fundamentally contradict any genuine peace overtures.

While Trump celebrated diplomatic breakthroughs, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a presidential decree titled “Russian National Policy Until 2036,” set to take effect in January 2026. This policy document explicitly calls for “additional measures to strengthen overall Russian civic identity” in occupied Ukrainian territories and praises the invasion for “creating conditions for restoring the unity of the historical territories of the Russian state.” This bureaucratic language masks a systematic campaign of cultural eradication that represents nothing less than 21st-century imperialism dressed in diplomatic guise.

The reality on ground reveals a chilling pattern of occupation policies designed to extinguish Ukrainian identity. Throughout Russian-occupied regions, Moscow has instituted a reign of terror featuring large-scale arrests targeting elected officials, journalists, religious leaders, activists, and military veterans. A UN investigation published in spring 2025 confirmed these detentions constitute crimes against humanity. Civilian populations face coercion to accept Russian citizenship under threat of losing access to healthcare, pensions, banking services, and even their homes—Kremlin legislation allows eviction and deportation of property owners refusing Russian passports.

Perhaps the most horrifying aspect is the mass abduction of Ukrainian children, with approximately twenty thousand victims taken to Russia for ideological indoctrination aimed at erasing their Ukrainian heritage. This systematic child theft prompted the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in 2023 for his personal involvement. Meanwhile, Ukrainian schoolchildren in occupied territories are subjected to militarized curricula that demonize their own identity while glorifying Russian imperialism and the invasion of their homeland.

Russia’s military strategy complements this cultural genocide through deliberate targeting of civilian populations. In front-line areas, targeted drone strikes have killed hundreds in what has been branded a “human safari,” while intensified missile and drone bombardments throughout 2025 appear designed to create refugee waves. UN data shows Ukrainian civilian casualties rose by 27 percent during the first ten months of the year, with investigations concluding these attacks constitute war crimes aimed at making entire cities unlivable.

The Context: Imperial Ambitions Versus Diplomatic Theater

The current negotiations reveal Russia’s consistent demand for Ukraine’s comprehensive demilitarization—strict limits on army size and weapon categories, plus bans on NATO membership or Western military cooperation. This insistence on an internationally isolated and disarmed Ukraine remains central to current talks, indicating Moscow’s true intention: rendering Ukraine defenseless for future conquest rather than seeking genuine peace.

Putin’s actions and writings reveal his perspective that Ukraine represents “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” His invasion stems from a desire to reverse what he perceives as the historical injustice of Soviet collapse and Ukrainian independence, which he views as emblematic of Russia’s humiliating post-Cold War decline. For Putin, a democratic, European-oriented Ukraine poses an existential threat to his authoritarian regime, potentially catalyzing further imperial retreat that began with the Berlin Wall’s fall.

Since initial 2014 aggression in Crimea, Putin’s crusade to force Ukraine back into Kremlin orbit has dominated his reign, costing Russia its relationship with the democratic world, economic prosperity, and international standing. After such massive investment, he cannot accept peace leaving 80 percent of Ukraine permanently hostile and Western-aligned. Thus, negotiations serve primarily as tactical maneuvers to stall sanctions and divide enemies rather than genuine peace-seeking.

Opinion: Western Complicity in Cultural Annihilation

What we witness is not merely conflict but civilizational assault—the systematic erasure of a nation’s identity, history, and future. The West’s pursuit of negotiated settlements with an imperial power actively committing cultural genocide represents either astonishing naivete or conscious complicity. Either way, it perpetuates the very colonial patterns that have plagued global South nations for centuries.

The fundamental asymmetry in these negotiations reveals everything. While Russia demands Ukraine’s complete demilitarization and neutralization, it simultaneously accelerates cultural extermination policies. This is not diplomacy; it is imperial dictate disguised as negotiation. The West’s willingness to engage in this charade while Ukrainian children are stolen, civilians terrorized, and identity systematically destroyed exposes the hollow nature of Western commitments to sovereignty and self-determination.

As nations that have suffered colonial oppression, India and other global South countries should recognize this pattern immediately: the powerful nation imposing its identity on the weaker, rewriting history, erasing culture, and dismantling sovereignty—all while talking of peace and progress. This is 21st-century colonialism using diplomacy as its lubricant.

The international community’s response has been tragically inadequate. While the ICC issued arrest warrants, economic pressure remains inconsistent, military support delayed, and diplomatic engagement often seems more concerned with achieving any agreement rather than a just one. This failure particularly glaring given that Russia’s actions—child abductions, cultural eradication, targeted civilian attacks—represent among the most severe international crimes conceivable.

The Path Forward: Principles Over Expediency

Sustainable peace cannot be built on the ashes of a nation’s identity. Any settlement that allows Russia to retain gains obtained through cultural genocide and war crimes would legitimize the most barbaric forms of imperialism and set catastrophic precedents for future conflicts. The global community must recognize that some conflicts represent fundamental struggles between civilization and barbarism, between sovereignty and empire.

Instead of pursuing compromised peace that sacrifices Ukrainian identity, the international community should focus on increasing economic and military pressure until Putin fears internal collapse more than external defeat. This requires political courage that has been conspicuously absent since 2022—the courage to acknowledge that some opponents cannot be negotiated with but must be compelled through overwhelming pressure.

For global South nations, this conflict represents a critical test case: will the international system protect smaller nations from imperial aggression, or will it revert to might-makes-right principles that have historically enabled colonial exploitation? The answer will determine whether the 21st century will be dominated by renewed imperialism or genuine respect for sovereignty.

The struggle in Ukraine transcends territorial disputes—it represents the battle between civilizational identity and imperial absorption, between self-determination and external domination. How the world responds will define international relations for decades. We must choose principles over expediency, justice over false peace, and humanity over imperial ambition. The stolen children of Ukraine, the erased culture, the terrorized civilians—they deserve nothing less than our unwavering commitment to a world where might does not make right, where identity is not crime, and where sovereignty means something more than diplomatic talking points.