The Russian Way of Ceasefires and the Traps It Sets for Europe 

Examining the implementation and failure of successive ceasefires and peace agreements with Moscow reveals consistent patterns in the behaviour both of Russia and of its interlocutors.

These patterns provide pointers to ensuring that any future agreement is more successful, both in immediate implementation and in addressing the long-term drivers of conflict.

This paper uses historical case studies to describe challenges that are persistent in attempting to conclude conflict-ending agreements with Russia. It takes examples of such agreements that were poorly planned, drafted, monitored and enforced, and thus set beneficial conditions for their ongoing violations by Russia, and/or resumption of the conflict at a time of Russia’s choosing. Notional peace agreements with Moscow brokered by western powers have repeatedly allowed those brokers to persuade themselves that the conflict has been resolved, whereas in fact the active phase of fighting has merely been suspended.  

The authors examine Russian structuring of ceasefire terms and agreements on verification/monitoring mechanisms, and the manner in which both of these facilitate persistent breaches of what the counterparties believe to have been agreed. To do so, it presents four primary case studies to illustrate patterns of Russian post-conflict behaviour: Chechnya in 1999, Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014-2022, and Syria in the period from 2015.  

This illustrates two key points: first, conditions for conflict can be set years or decades earlier; second, Russia is willing and able to exploit successive iterations of ceasefire agreements over such periods. Both cases also demonstrate a pattern whereby Russia will conclude peace agreements when it is not in a position to force the outcome of a conflict, but will breach them when it feels confident that it is strong enough to do so.  

This analysis summarises the implications of these instances for future efforts at finding peace with Moscow, both in Ukraine and in future conflicts. Three key implications are:  

• A ceasefire with no means of enforcement, or of imposing meaningful consequences for violations, is of no value in deterring Russia from breaching it at will.

• Interlocutors must devote substantial effort to understanding Russia’s long-term objectives in order to detect longer-term political traps in any terms to end fighting that are accepted by Russia.

• The danger presented by any poorly-planned and poorly-enforced agreement in Ukraine has remained largely unchanged since the earliest days of the conflict.