A public appeal for a land-for-peace deal just might carry some weight with ordinary Ukrainians.
Back on February 18, 2025, I wrote an article for The National Interest titled “Can Ukraine Draw Lessons from Finland’s Winter War Against Russia?” wherein I discussed how that war (which raged from November 30, 1939, to March 13, 1940) was technically a defeat for Finland, as it eventually sued for peace and ceded its eastern province of Karelia to Joseph Stalin. However, the war was very much a Pyrrhic victory for Moscow, due to the horrific casualties and outright embarrassment suffered by the Red Army. I suggested that that compromise might serve as an example for the Ukrainians to follow in the present, as distasteful as any sort of concession to Vladimir Putin would be after the incredibly valiant fight that the Ukrainians have put up for the last three years.
Well, as of April 25, at least one key Ukrainian political leader, the mayor of Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, is now publicly stating that some sort of land concession may be necessary to end the war (which would undoubtedly resonate with U.S. president Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth).
The Mayor of Kyiv Weighs In
The news comes to us from Guy Birchall, a correspondent for The Epoch Times, in an article titled “Kyiv Mayor Says Ukraine May Have to Temporarily Cede Land to Secure Peace.” To wit:
“The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said Ukraine may, temporarily, have to cede land as part of a peace deal with Russia on Friday … ‘One of the scenarios is … to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,’ the world champion boxer turned politician told the BBC … He said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may be forced to accede to a ‘painful solution’ in order to bring an end to the war, but added that Ukrainians would ‘never accept occupation’ by Moscow.”
Klitschko vs. Zelenskyy’s Verbal Sparring
Now, mind you, those comments won’t sit well with Zelenskyy, as he and Klitschko are political rivals; indeed, as Birchall adds, “the pair have clashed publicly before, with the former boxing champion accusing the president of having ‘authoritarian tendencies’ in an interview with Der Spiegel in 2023.” (It’s interesting to see that Klitschko leveled that accusation two years before Trump kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest by calling Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections.”)
Political bickering aside, a public appeal for a land-for-peace deal from a figure of Klitschko’s public stature just might carry some weight with ordinary Ukrainians after more than three years of suffering.
How Ukraine Can Move Forward
Some critics would maintain that any sort of concessions to Putin would be the twenty-first-century equivalent of then-British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s infamous “Peace in our time” gesture back in 1938. However, to reiterate what I said back in February, that’s not a realistic comparison: Chamberlain meekly conceded then-Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Adolf Hitler without firing a shot; the Ukrainians have been spilling plenty of Russian blood.
What’s more, the United States and Ukraine have finally inked that critical minerals deal, two months after the infamous White House blowup between Zelenskyy on the one side and Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance on the other. It is undoubtedly a blow to Putin.
The possible large-scale presence of American personnel in Ukraine would almost certainly provide that war-torn nation a security guarantee even without admission into NATO, as any Russian attack on Ukraine that results in American deaths could be construed as a casus belli, even if, in that hypothetical nightmare scenario, the Russian government mouthpieces were insisting that such deaths were merely “accidental,” “unintentional,” “collateral damage,” etc. Is that a proverbial red line that Putin would be willing to cross?
In light of this development, perhaps a partial land concession on Ukraine’s part may not be so utterly unpalatable after all.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
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