Russia’s peace talks victory lap

And what the West should really be worried about.

When the history of the Ukraine war is written, these peace talks may be remembered less as the beginning of a new era of stability and more as the moment Moscow declared a kind of strategic victory.

Not because Russia has achieved all of its territorial ambitions – it hasn’t – but because it has managed to inflict deep, long-term damage on the political cohesion, economic resilience, and strategic credibility of the West.

From the Kremlin’s perspective, the war has already paid dividends.

The tactical victories for Russia

First, it has unleashed an immigration crisis in Eastern Europe. Millions of Ukrainians have fled westward, straining the infrastructure and politics of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and beyond.

While these countries initially responded with remarkable generosity, the pressures are mounting; housing shortages, wage competition, and welfare strain are fuelling nationalist rhetoric and EU-level disputes.

This is exactly the kind of political fragmentation Russia has long sought to cultivate on NATO’s eastern flank.