With talks of a peace process in Ukraine ramping up, so are talks of who could be the potential brokers of peace. Some commentators insist on relying on neutral mediation as a means for peace negotiations. For them, actors such as China, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, and India could be reliable partners for bringing Russia to the table. Since 2025, the United States has also stepped up as the facilitator of talks between Ukraine and Russia. Nevertheless, claimed neutrality and passive facilitation by these actors is little more than smoke and mirrors.

Russia began its aggression against Ukraine in 2014. There were multiple rounds of negotiations supported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, France, and Germany, which materialized in the two Minsk Protocols. Both of them failed despite Ukraine making significant concessions on its internal affairs and accountability for atrocity crimes. Russia launched a full-scale invasion in 2022 and has carried out relentless attacks on the civilian population. We could stop here and let the readers draw their own conclusions about how peace negotiations should proceed this time around. Yet, there remain influential voices advocating for appeasement, underscoring the need for continued clarity and resolve. 

These voices have taken various forms. Brazilian President Lula da Silva has promoted mediation frameworks that treat Ukraine and Russia as equally responsible. China’s 12-point peace plan omits any reference to Russian aggression and criticizes accountability efforts launched in response to the war. Meanwhile, even Western officials and analysts have been quietly pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia despite the clear unwillingness of Russia to soften on its demands.

Going further, some have urged Ukraine to formally cede large portions of its territory, compromise its foreign policy and security posture, and engage with actors such as China, in the pursuit of solutions to Russia’s war that Russia would accept. In fact, President Donald Trump has publicly suggested freezing the war along current battle lines, implying that Ukraine should abandon its internationally recognized borders, and its NATO aspirations. These proposals, whether framed as realism, neutrality, or pragmatism, reflect a persistent undercurrent of appeasement, which risks rewarding unlawful conduct and undermining the legal foundations of peace.

Impartial and neutral mediation does not apply when there is a clear aggressor 

If the Russian war in Ukraine was addressed as a case suitable for a traditional peace process, the mediators would help the parties to an armed conflict address underlying issues and reach a mutually agreeable solution. Mediators are generally guided by several core principles, among which are impartiality and neutrality. 

What this fails to recognize is that impartiality and neutrality in Ukraine do not function the same way as in many other contexts and, following these principles, would effectively breach a different core principle of a peace process: adherence to international law.

When one party is the aggressor and the other is defending its sovereignty, calls for “both sides” to compromise risk legitimizing unlawful conduct and erasing the lived realities of victims. Basing peace negotiations in Ukraine on false equivalence inherently runs counter to the rules-based order that has governed international relations since World War II.

In the Russia-Ukraine war, both parties do not bear the same responsibility 

A mediation approach based on false equivalence imbeds into the process an assumption that both parties to an armed conflict bear some degree of responsibility and are willing to compromise. In Ukraine, this assumption is not only inaccurate — it is legally and strategically indefensible. Russia’s conduct is not a matter of contested grievances. It is a sustained campaign of aggression, occupation, and atrocity. Ukraine, by contrast, is defending its sovereignty under international law. 

Yet calls for “neutral mediation” continue to circulate. This framing obscures legal clarity. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter and customary international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defense. Russia’s actions constitute aggression, not a legitimate grievance. To suggest that Ukraine must compromise and be treated as an equivalent party to the war in order to achieve peace is to misrepresent the foundational norms of the international order.

It also undermines victims. Equating the aggressor with the victim delegitimizes the suffering of displaced persons, survivors of torture, and communities subjected to filtration, forced deportation, and indiscriminate bombardment. It reduces atrocity to a negotiable inconvenience and risks normalizing impunity.

Peacemaking is not a value-neutral exercise but is guided by legal norms 

Most critically, it distorts the purpose of the peace process itself. Peacemaking is not a value-neutral exercise. It is guided by legal norms, including the prohibition of aggression and the protection of civilians. When mediators adopt a posture of neutrality without acknowledging asymmetry, they risk facilitating impunity rather than resolution.

This is not a theoretical concern. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories. This warrant is a binding legal instrument under the Rome Statute. To engage in negotiations with an indicted war criminal without conditions or accountability mechanisms is to sideline international law in favor of political expediency.

Such frameworks do not resolve violence but rather entrench it. They signal to future aggressors that territorial conquest and mass atrocity can be rewarded with political leverage. They erode the credibility of international institutions and undermine the very norms that mediation is meant to protect.

The myth of neutral mediation and mediators in the war 

Neutrality, in this context, is a strategic distortion. It allows third-party actors to position themselves as facilitators while avoiding the legal and moral clarity the situation demands.

Actors like China, Turkey, India, and Brazil are routinely presented as potential brokers of peace. Their records, however, reveal clear political alignments and strategic interests that undermine any claim to impartiality.

China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion and has amplified narratives that blame NATO expansion for the war. Its 12-point peace plan avoids naming Russia as the aggressor and calls for “respecting sovereignty” while simultaneously deepening trade and diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Turkey has positioned itself as a pragmatic broker, facilitating grain exports and prisoner exchanges. At the same time, it expands trade with Russia. Turkey has not joined Western sanctions and continues to serve as a conduit for Russian capital and logistics. Its mediation posture reflects strategic balancing, not principled impartiality.

Brazil, under President Lula, has called for peace talks that treat Ukraine and Russia as equally responsible. Lula’s rhetoric has been welcomed by Moscow but criticized by Kyiv and its allies for promoting appeasement under the guise of dialogue.

India has similarly positioned itself as a neutral actor, calling for dialogue and de-escalation while avoiding explicit condemnation of Russia’s actions. It has abstained from multiple UN resolutions addressing the invasion and continues robust trade in energy and defense with Moscow. 

These actors are not neutral. They operate within geopolitical dynamics that shape their incentives and constrain their credibility. Their proposals for mediation often rest on the same flawed premise as traditional frameworks: that peace requires symmetrical compromise, even in the face of asymmetrical aggression. 

A peace process that demands legal accountability over false equivalence 

Ukraine’s peace process demands a new paradigm. It needs to reject false equivalence and center legal accountability. A credible framework must begin with principled impartiality. Impartiality does not mean refusing to name the aggressor. It means applying international law consistently, even when doing so disrupts diplomatic convenience. Russia’s invasion, annexation of territory, and systematic targeting of civilians are not disputed facts but rather violations of the UN Charter and customary international law. Mediation that treats these acts as negotiable grievances abandons its legal foundation.

Second, the peace process must be complementary to justice, not a substitute for it. Dialogue cannot replace accountability. The ICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin is not a chip to be traded away in negotiations. Any peace effort that circumvents the obligation to execute the warrant risks institutionalizing impunity and eroding the credibility of international law. 

Third, negotiations must reflect the structural asymmetry of the war. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty under international law. Russia is violating it. A framework that neutralizes this imbalance by calling for symmetrical concessions or by elevating aggressor-aligned mediators does not resolve the war. It reconfigures it in ways that reward unlawful force and invite repetition elsewhere. 

Mediation must serve International Law, not just dialogue

Ukraine is not an exception to the rules of peace negotiations. It is a test of whether those rules can be adapted to confront aggression without capitulating to it. A just peace cannot be built on balance alone. It must be built on fairness, anchored in law, centered on victims, and resistant to the normalization of atrocity.

Ukraine’s war is not a symmetrical dispute but a test of the international system’s capacity to respond to aggression, protect victims, and uphold norms. Mediators who cling to neutrality without confronting these realities risk becoming enablers of impunity. A just peace requires more than dialogue. It requires clarity, courage, and commitment to the law.

Dr. Paul R. Williams is the co-founder and director of the Public International Law & Policy Group and holds the Rebecca I. Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University.

Sindija Beta is a Legal Officer at the Public International Law & Policy Group, working on transitional justice and peace negotiations in Ukraine.