“All things can be justified by a lofty purpose—except the emptiness of the soul”
This formula of Pavlo Tychyna painfully cuts into today’s reality. When politics neglects morality, grand agreements become a façade for the capitulation of values. History has shown more than once: the ambition to enter the textbooks as a peacemaker can turn into quotation marks placed around that very word.
The visit of Vladimir Putin to the United States—a country that, in the civilizational imagination, embodies freedom and responsibility—was not merely an item in the newsfeed but a moral trial for the American people. The fact of negotiations in Anchorage on August 15, which concluded without a ceasefire agreement or any other tangible results, was recorded by leading publications. The formula of progress without outcome left behind a bitter aftertaste: the pathos of the meeting without peace, the images of handshakes on the red carpet without any guarantees of safety for the victims of aggression.
In 1938, in Munich, the world, weary and desperate, sought “peace at any cost” and in the end purchased a pause that the aggressor used to prepare a new massacre. Historian Tim Bouverie has persuasively explained why the argument of “a respite for rearmament” proved an illusion: both sides received the pause, but above all, it benefited the aggressor. As then, concessions under the guise of “realism” only worsen the strategic position of the free world.
The symbolic inversion of meaning produced by this meeting is obvious. The subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant arrived, and left as the leader of a “great power,” equal among equals on the ceremonial podium. The untouchable arrived, and departed as one who is received, photographed, and discussed as a subject of high politics. He arrived on the eve of promised sanctions and left with hints of trade deals and closer future contacts. The issue is not one of compliments or insults. The issue is how external rituals can legitimize unambiguous evil if the political process is detached from ethical boundaries. Even the ICC warrant itself is not rhetoric but a legal document with juridical consequences.
The only reason Putin should have come to the United States was to be arrested, imprisoned, and tried for crimes against humanity.
A mirror distortion occurred on the other side of the negotiating table. The Master of Deals arrived with the declared aim of forcing the aggressor to sign peace, and departed without even an agreement to cease the shelling of civilian cities. He came to “look into the eyes,” and left with the claim that the victim of the crime must sign the deal. Public interpretations after Anchorage only underscored this uncertainty, because they spoke of “progress toward an agreement” but not about the substance of peace, which cannot be reduced to the freezing of a front line at the cost of territorial concessions.
Across many states these days (and it is to be hoped this has been noticed), another and genuine reminder of values has appeared: there are visibly more blue-and-yellow and American flags, and “Support Ukraine” signs on ordinary American homes. There have also been new acts of solidarity: hundreds of people in the cold Alaskan air holding placards reading “Ukraine ≠ Bargain.” The social barometer has shown that society clearly distinguishes political tactics from moral truth.
The coming week promises complex riddles on the eve of the announced meetings in Washington: Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders will join the discussions. The diplomatic architecture of these days rests on the collective foundation of Brussels, London, Paris, and Berlin—a demonstration of transatlantic unity, a search for safeguards against a bad peace. But the fact remains: after Alaska, there was neither a ceasefire nor verified security guarantees. European leaders are preparing for Washington precisely because they understand that the fragile balance achieved by gestures is dangerous.
In this situation, the moral dimension matters no less than the formula of agreements. Political philosopher Michael Walzer has reminded us: even a just peace must meet minimal moral criteria—the “right intention,” the “serious prospect of success,” and above all, that “peace must not generate evils greater than those it is meant to remove.” A peace built on the legalization of aggression or, in this case, on the coerced renunciation by the victim of its territory and sovereignty does not meet those criteria. It merely preserves injustice, postponing the moment of a larger explosion.
Strategist Thomas Schelling once wrote about the “diplomacy of coercion” as the logic of deterrence: what stops an aggressor is not the promise of symbolic peace, but the sense of the inevitable cost of continuing the crime. Concessions without a real mechanism of coercion in such conflicts operate as encouragement, teaching that violence can be justified. A bad peace does not resolve the causes of war; it only gives the aggressor time to regroup.
The humanitarian dimension of this story is unfolding here, in the United States. For approximately 120,000 Ukrainians who arrived after August 16, 2023, under the “Uniting for Ukraine” program, a genuine catastrophe without solutions is beginning—the space of legal certainty is narrowing rapidly. The decision not to renew their legal status places them under the blackmail of circumstances—without the right to work, without social support, without any legal path. The American press has written plainly: it is about some ten thousand people per month who, on a “sliding scale” of dates, slip out of legal existence day by day. Another part of the community, which arrived before August 16, 2023, and managed to secure Temporary Protected Status (TPS), is under a different regime, but that window was rigidly dated and is now closed. This contrast between technical legality and human reality is especially painful: it concerns families with children, people who work, pay taxes, and build new Ukrainian communities here.
This humanitarian knot is not the periphery of grand politics but its center. Keeping the Ukrainian community within the legal framework is not a privilege or a charity, but an investment in American security and stability. An active, integrated, law-abiding diaspora does what state machinery cannot always do: explain, persuade, build bridges between elites and society. To deprive this community of legal breathing space is to weaken America’s position in the central moral conflict of the decade.
A strong position is the construction of the value framework of a just peace. No legalization of occupation. No referendums under the supervision of occupiers. No bans on arming the victim—on the contrary, long-term security guarantees that make a renewed aggression unprofitable and technically impossible. No linguistic “engineering” as a condition for silence, but there must be accountability for crimes.
For Ukrainians in America this debate is no abstraction. It concerns every letter to a congressman, every rally, every explanation to neighbors why actions à la Chamberlain are unacceptable. And it concerns every Ukrainian family in the United States that today finds itself in despair due to hopelessness.
Today the United States has the chance to confirm its historical role—not as a stage for legitimizing the aggressor, but as an architect of a just peace. European leaders are arriving in Washington not only with diplomatic positions but with the expectation of moral clarity.
In politics, the emptiness of the soul fills very quickly—with someone else’s blood. If current policy chooses truth instead of emptiness, history will remember. If not, history will remember that too.
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