Why doesn’t Ukraine want to make peace with Russia right now?

by Mark NeshtaIn the early spring of this year, my friend asked me a seemingly simple question: why doesn’t Ukraine just make peace with Russia – or conclude an armistice at least? Considering that Russia does not control any of these regions entirely, Ukraine would have not only relinquished its sovereignty but also withdrawn its troops if it was to make peace with Russia. We can conclude by quoting Oleksandra Matviichuck, head of the Ukrainian 2022 Nobel peace prize-winning Centre for Civil Liberties: «People of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world. Simply folding to Russian demands would not give Ukraine a basis for a stable and sustainable peace and would not solve the Russo-Ukrainian conflict at large. For this reason, Ukrainian President Zelensky’s peace plan[18] calls the removal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine one of the main conditions for the termination of the war.