Can peace ever justify shaking hands with a war criminal? It’s a question confronting global diplomacy as Vladimir Putin, indicted by The Hague for war crimes, continues his brutal war in Ukraine. With discussions of possible negotiations emerging, the dilemma of engaging an indicted figure becomes inevitable. What is gained and what is lost by sitting down at the negotiating table with someone accused of atrocities in a war of territorial expansion?
To explore these questions, we might turn briefly to literature. Few nations revere their classical literature as much as Russia, where 19th-century writers are celebrated as literary giants and are often wielded as instruments of state ideology. Even though references to Pushkin or Tolstoy appear in official rhetoric, one literary titan stands out for his penetrating moral philosophy: Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose novels probe the depths of conscience, faith, and human suffering.
Given Dostoevsky’s moral focus stands out among other Russian literary icons, it is perhaps striking, therefore, that in a presidency typically laden with literary allusions, the speeches of Vladimir Putin have been careful to avoid referencing Dostoevsky’s moral and ethical reflections. One cannot help wonder whether this omission stems from the incompatibility of Dostoyevsky’s notions of individual accountability and the idea that every human is responsible for one another, and how that measures up against the Russian president’s record.
Whether by his own design or that of his speechwriters, Putin has always avoided quoting a particularly powerful and inconvenient passage from The Brothers Karamazov, in which, through the character of Ivan Karamazov, Dostoevsky asserts that the happiness of the entire world is ‘not worth one teardrop on the cheek of an innocent child.’ The contrast between this ideal and the actions of a leader who has overseen the destruction of cities in Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukraine is stark. Consider: how much sway would the image of a single child’s tear hold for someone who sanctioned a missile strike on a Kyiv hospital treating children with cancer?
The metaphorical tear from Dostoevsky’s masterpiece has long been eclipsed by the violence wrought by Russian aggression in Ukraine. According to the UN human rights office, 2,406 children have been killed or injured in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Additionally, more than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported into Russia. These statistics represent real children with real families, each life a story of stolen childhood and ongoing heartbreak.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has accused Putin of orchestrating these mass abductions and issued an arrest warrant for him. This historic indictment stands as a resounding condemnation of actions that epitomise inhumanity. To kidnap children and sever them from their families, culture, and identity is a crime not only against Ukraine but against the global community. Yet, the man responsible for this atrocity remains both visible and defiant, pressing forward with the war emboldened by the belief in his impunity; that sheer military might and geopolitical manoeuvring can override questions of morality.
Now the newly-elected President of the United States Donald Trump, who campaigned on a platform of reinforcing transatlantic alliances, now faces the profound moral dilemma in addressing what he terms the ‘bloody mess’ in Ukraine. And as Britain stands firmly with Ukraine, evidenced by the UK-Ukraine leaders’ One Hundred Year Partnership agreement and ongoing discussions to send troops to train Ukrainian forces, the question of negotiating with a war criminal increasingly becomes one global powers must consider, however distasteful it may seem.
'Each day the war continues, more lives are lost, and more families are driven from their homes. Yet to sit down with a leader indicted for war crimes is to risk trivialising both international law and the suffering of the war’s victims. The challenge is balancing the immediate need to save lives against the long-term erosion of moral and legal norms.'
While Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to negotiate with Ukraine, he has ruled out speaking directly with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky, on the other hand, maintains that the Russian President ‘is afraid of negotiations ... and does everything possible to prolong the war.’ Despite this stalemate, there is growing consensus among world leaders that it is time to end the conflict, even if it means making difficult compromises. President Trump has volunteered to mediate, claiming he could end the war within a timeframe ranging from 24 hours to 100 days. However, any such efforts would almost certainly require Trump to sit down at the negotiating table with Putin, a scenario fraught with ethical and political complexities that could place Trump in an ambiguous position, especially given his own history of leniency towards the Russian leader.
Though any war ultimately ends with a truce (and in Ukraine, that truce could only be brokered with Vladimir Putin) any negotiation that places Putin at the table will, whether intended or not, legitimise him and his actions in Ukraine. It will set a dangerous precedent for other authoritarian regimes that will see this as an opportunity to test the resolve of the international community.
Each handshake extended to this man corrodes the moral foundations of an international order painstakingly built over decades. To sit at the negotiating table with Putin is, in a sense, to turn a blind eye to justice for the sake of expediency. While ensuring the cessation of hostilities and the end of ongoing suffering, it also sends a chilling message that power can trump morality and that heinous crimes may be overlooked if the stakes are high enough. Is this the path the international community is willing to tread? Last year, Mongolia faced global outrage for hosting Putin despite the ICC arrest warrant, demonstrating how smaller nations with precarious geopolitical positions may have limited choices. In contrast, the United States and Britain, geopolitically, economically, and militarily stronger, have more space to hold the moral line. Their decisions will be noted.
Because if Putin is allowed to negotiate his way back into legitimacy, it sends a troubling message to other authoritarian regimes. From North Korea to Belarus, dictators often calculate that the international community lacks the resolve to hold them accountable. Rehabilitating Putin could embolden them to escalate their own abuses, heralding a new era of unchecked authoritarianism. And that's not to mention the risk of dismissing the suffering of abducted children, their families, and the countless Ukrainians devastated by Putin’s ‘special military operation’ that any negotiation with Putin is sure to provoke.
Yet the argument for negotiation cannot be dismissed outright: each day the war continues, more lives are lost, more cities reduced to rubble, and more families shattered. Each day the conflict is left unresolved could prove catastrophic.
This situation forces a difficult balance between moral principle and realpolitik. History reminds us that waging war can force uneasy compromises. During the Second World War, Churchill and Roosevelt allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler, despite Stalin’s own atrocities; an arrangement that was necessary in defeating Nazism but the moral and geopolitical complexities of that alliance cast a long shadow over the postwar world. Similarly, during the Cold War, the United States sometimes worked with despots in the name of containing Soviet influence globally. These historical precedents show demonstrate that realpolitik does not come without moral cost, and such deals can spawn lasting ambiguities that haunt future generations.
In the current conflict, if a truce can end a steady toll of death and destruction, some will argue that negotiation with Putin, even under the ICC warrant, must be seriously considered. Each day the war continues, more lives are lost, and more families are driven from their homes. Yet to sit down with a leader indicted for war crimes is to risk trivialising both international law and the suffering of the war’s victims. The challenge is balancing the immediate need to save lives against the long-term erosion of moral and legal norms.
Still, certain principles must remain inviolate. Putin must understand that any negotiations will likely come with unyielding conditions: continued Western backing of Ukraine, the return of kidnapped children, reparations for destruction wrought by Russian forces, and the sustained pursuit of justice by the ICC at The Hague. Those charges cannot be bargain chips. Even if peace talks proceed, the ICC indictment should remain intact. Simply ending a war does not expiate one's war crimes.
While Putin may dismiss Dostoevsky’s ‘teardrops’ as mere rhetoric, the world cannot afford to. One day, the International Criminal Court’s verdict will be enforced, but until that day, we must return to the question posed at the outset: Does seeking peace ever justify negotiating with a war criminal? Until that question is resolved, and until accountability is secured, the teardrops of Ukraine’s children remain a reminder of injustice and a debt unpaid. Those teardrops will be a moral summons to the world far beyond the Kremlin’s walls, imploring us never to treat convenience as a substitute for accountability.
Sergey Maidukov is a Ukrainian writer, author of Life on the run and Deadly bonds, written for the US publishing house Rowman & Littlefield (Bloomsbury). Both were written in English, in the midst of war. His journalism has appeared in numerous Western publications.
Main image: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive to waiting media during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)