Vladimir Putin had already ordered the killing or mutilation of hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians. The president of the Russian Federation will go down in history as the architect of a "war of choice." Behind the aggression he has carried out for more than three years, the same question – rarely asked and never truly answered – continues to surface throughout the battles in the Donbas: Why this slaughter? This has been a key question for understanding just how difficult it would be to even sketch out the possibility of negotiations.

Back at the White House, Donald Trump, more swaggering than ever, believed that "24 hours" would be enough for him to resolve the problem. For him, it was a real estate issue, and as the self-proclaimed "king of the deal," he knew about such things. He had proven himself in property development in New York and New Jersey. Basic rule: land dictates everything, just like in golf. So it was time for a de jure recognition Russia's annexation of Crimea, because that's how it's been since 2014, he said, and everyone, more or less, seemed to accept it. Then, a de facto recognition of the Russian army's control over part of Ukraine's eastern border, the Donbas, because Kyiv's forces lack the means to retake it. In exchange for this "real estate" arrangement, Ukrainians would be guaranteed the means to defend themselves against another Russian offensive, but without joining NATO.

The result was disappointment. Ukrainians did not like the proposal, but perhaps more interestingly, neither did the Russians. The reason being that in this conflict between both parties, the issue of territory is important, yes, but not as much as it seems. The primary objective of the 10 Russian armored divisions that crossed the border on February 24, 2022, was not the Donbas, but Kyiv. Their mission was to overthrow the democratically elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and install a government in the Ukrainian capital that would answer to the Kremlin.

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