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This post is a response to Nate Bear’s essay in the August-September 2026 edition of Peace & Planet News. You can read the full essay online..
I want to start by expressing some of the agreements I have with Bear. Namely, we agree in our desire for a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Relatedly, we agree that the loss of life on both sides of the conflict is tragic. Finally, we also agree that the portrayal of this conflict in the West as “a righteous battle against evil for the soul of the world” is wildly inaccurate. To start, To start, I don’t view Russia as a wholly evil empire, which I believe Bear would agree with. Likewise, I don’t view Ukraine as a shining beacon of democracy and freedom. The defense of Ukraine by the West, which I support, should not be confused with anything other than a strategic decision in favor of Western interests.
Now for the disagreements. Right off the rip, Bear claims that “Russia isn’t losing,” and “Ukraine is suffering.” The implication is that Russia is winning. After all, if Russia isn’t losing, and Ukraine is suffering, then Russia must be winning. This just isn’t the case, though. He cites an article from CEPA’s publication Europe’s Edge to establish that “Ukraine is definitely not winning the war.” Yet the very article he cited states the following: “The overall military situation appears better than it has for some time and there is much to cheer. Ukraine is far from beaten and a long way from being forced into a bad peace.” The truth of the matter is that both sides are suffering. As in any conflict, no one escapes unscathed. Russia is far from winning, but so is Ukraine. Neither side is making the progress they need to force favorable peace terms on the other. Thus, the conflict continues.
Bear takes issue with the use of the phrase “bad peace.” From the pro-Ukrainian perspective, it would be bad peace to end the war if it entailed ceding territory to Russia. “Good peace,” by contrast, involves the return of all Ukrainian land, including Crimea, to Ukraine, along security guarantees. From Bear’s perspective, this notion of good peace “is a delusional position that guarantees never peace and a forever war.” For the most part, I think he’s right. Unless something significant changes in the conflict, I don’t see how Russia will ever agree to give Ukraine’s land back. Nor do I see Russia ever agreeing to allow Ukraine to formally establish closer ties to the EU and NATO. However, the previously described bad peace is equally as delusional. Again, unless something significant changes in the conflict, I don’t see how Ukraine will ever agree to let Russia take its land. Nor do I see Ukraine ever agreeing to peace terms that strip it of its ability to establish closer relations with the EU and NATO, including security guarantees. To present only one side as delusional is quite the ignorant perspective. As for Bear’s fear-mongering concerning the prolonging of the war resulting in a Europe that will militarize and establish “a Palantir-powered surveillance state,” it needs to be said that the erosion of liberal society isn’t primarily driven by the valid concerns surrounding Russian aggression. Rather, the erosion is the quite natural outcome of an increasingly entrenched capitalism.
Next, Bear expresses his frustration with the characterization of Russia’s attack on Ukraine as “unprovoked.” According to Bear, the use of this adjective for the Russia-Ukraine conflict “is propaganda designed to obscure the long history which led to Russia’s invasion.” He begins his case on shaky ground, however, with the alleged promise by then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward. I don’t have any unique contributions to make on this topic, but I will point the reader to the historian M. E. Sarotte’s extensive treatment of the historical record in her book Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate. She concludes that there was no binding agreement made that precluded the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe. Historian Kristina Spohr has drawn the same conclusion. Robert Zoellick, one of Baker’s top aides and someone who was intimately involved in the discussions surrounding the reunification of Germany, has plainly stated that no such agreement about NATO expansion was made. It seems to me that the best reading of history doesn’t land on the side of Putin’s argument that NATO promised to never expand eastward.
The second alleged provocation is “the NATO-backed remilitarisation of Ukraine following the ousting of Victor Yanukovych in 2014.” Bear doesn’t cite anything in support of this claim, and I can’t find anything in my own research that alleges NATO remilitarized Ukraine after the 2014 revolution. As it is an assertion with no apparent evidence, it can safely be assumed to be false. Next, Bear makes reference to “the Russian annexation of Crimea in response and Ukraine’s bombing of the Donbass which killed hundreds of Russian-speaking Ukrainians.” This claim is plainly false. Bear cites a Human Rights Watch (HRW) article that refutes his own claim. The Russian invasion of Crimea started in February 2014. The bombings Bear references occurred in October 2014. Thus, the invasion of Crimea by Russia was not a response to the bombings in the Donbas region. Further, the cited HRW article states the following: “In the 12 incidents documented by Human Rights Watch, cluster munitions killed at least 6 people and injured dozens.” While Bear and I would agree that any loss of human life is a tragedy, the numbers provided by HRW are a far cry from Bear’s alleged “hundreds.” And lest we be under the false impression that only Ukraine has been accused of using cluster bombs, there is solid evidence that both Russia and Ukraine have used them in the conflict.
Before moving on from this alleged provocation, I want to make it clear that Russia is the one who got involved in supporting the militarized rebels in Donbas. Russia was the aggressor from the very beginning, starting with invasion of Crimea, continuing with military support for rebels in Donbas, and culminating in a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Bear attempts to tie Ukraine’s friendly relations with the EU and NATO to the historical precedent of foreign nations invading Russia through Ukraine. The problem is that there’s absolutely no reason at all to believe either the EU or NATO has any intention of invading Russia. Both Estonia and Latvia border Russia and have been members of both the EU and NATO since 2004. Ukraine, a member of neither the EU nor NATO, was invaded by Russia a full decade later after a popular revolution to form closer ties to the West took place. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not an instance of, as Bear puts it, a “fearful” Russia protecting itself. Rather, it’s an example of an imperialistic Russia trying to retain control over a region that has moved on. Putin doesn’t get to make demands of other countries, certainly not after he has chosen to militarily invade them and support armed rebel operations.
The rest of Bear’s essay consists of a diatribe against Israel and the West more broadly, drawing some sort of strange moral equivalence between North Korea sending weapons and manpower to Russia and the West sending military support to Ukraine. Worth mentioning is Bear’s mishandling of Gallup’s polling data. While Bear is correct in saying that the majority of Ukrainian’s want a negotiated end to the war sooner rather than later (who wouldn’t?), he is incorrect in saying that “despite the wishes of a majority of Ukrainians, Europe and Zelensky refuse diplomacy and continue to fight.” Going back to the discussion of bad peace and good peace, neither Zelensky nor the Ukrainian people want a negotiated end to the war that results in a bad peace. Polling has shown that 54% of Ukrainians reject peace if it entails ceding Donbas to the Russians, even if security guarantees are gained.. The fact of the matter is that the majority Ukrainians do not want Russia to walk away with new territory, and they want security guarantees and membership in the EU and NATO. Bear and other pro-Russian advocates don’t want to acknowledge this.
To conclude, Bear has simply misrepresented the entire conflict and the history leading up to it. He is persistent that he isn’t “pro-Putin,” but I can’t shake the feeling that he must be. I find it incredulous that anyone who is taking a good-faith approach to analyzing this conflict could make the claims that Bear makes. Whether he’s aware of it or not, he has a clear pro-Russia, anti-Western bias.