Russia Demands Ukraine's Disarmament and Territory, Not Negotiations

Russia Reveals Goal: Disarm Ukraine and Keep Occupied Land

The excuse that justified the invasion for years—Ukraine joining NATO—has vanished from Russian rhetoric. What remains is a different demand: complete demilitarization of Ukraine, acceptance of already conquered territories, and ensuring Kiev ceases to be a "Russophobic" state. The Kremlin’s current argumentative line, as seen in recent analyses, is no longer about border security but pure conquest, with or without guarantees.

This shift is significant. For years, the official argument repeated that NATO’s eastward expansion was the red line. Now that line has blurred; some argue the Atlantic Alliance could disappear within years, making membership irrelevant. What matters is the terrain. According to this view, land will not be returned even for security guarantees, because such guarantees are deemed breakable.

What Moscow Demands and What It Already Controls

The package attributed to Russia’s position has three pillars. First, complete demilitarization of Ukraine, meaning the invaded country must renounce having its own army. Second, acceptance of conquered territories as part of Russia. Third, Ukraine must stop being perceived as a hostile state, which practically means abandoning any national assertion policy against Moscow.

The most frequently cited historical comparison in these analyses is the Sudetenland. The method—local referendums, minorities requesting protection, phased annexation—is identical to the 1938 precedent. Those pointing this out do so not as rhetorical exaggeration, but as a description of a repeating procedure under different names.

On the ground, debate centers on what is considered irreversible. Crimea and Donbas have been outside Kiev’s effective control since 2014, and some argue demanding their return eleven years later is an impossible starting point. The lingering question is where conquest stops: Odesa? Kharkiv? All urban south and east, where Russian is the majority mother tongue?

The Linguistic Argument: One Official Language or Federal State?

One of the least discussed conflict axes is linguistic. A map by the National Linguistics University of Kyiv from 2009 showed Russian was the most spoken language in Ukrainian households, dominant in the east, south, and much of central urban areas. Proper Ukrainian was concentrated in the west. In broad strips, a mix called surzhyk—Russian with Ukrainian elements varying by zone—was spoken.

From this arises the argument that Ukraine should have functioned as a federal or confederal state, and attempting to build a mono-ethnic, monolingual state on that base was a design error. The counterargument is equally clear: any country has the right to set one official language, and non-sharing minorities can move. The example thrown around involves Polish families in regions near Poland: should Polish be official there?

The issue tangles with the precedent of Transcarpathian Rusyns, more than 800,000 people whom Ukraine does not recognize as a distinct nation, and an early 1990s referendum where 78% of regional inhabitants voted for wide autonomy. The Ukrainian Supreme Court annulled that result. For authorities, Rusyns are simply Ukrainians.

The 1994 Precedent: When Donbas Voted for Federalization

The conflict did not start in 2022 or 2014. On March 27, 1994, during Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Donetsk and Luhansk held parallel referendums on the status of the Russian language, state structure, and Eurasian integration. In Donetsk, 79.69% voted for the Ukrainian Constitution to establish a federal territorial structure. Against: 15.02%. Null votes: 5.29%.

Thirty years later, that result remains the best argument for those claiming the problem wasn’t created by Moscow in 2014, but had been on the table for decades ignored. Counterarguments exist too: a local referendum cannot decide a whole country’s constitutional structure, and consultations held alongside national elections have limited political value.

Where the Analysis Stalls

With available data, the conclusion is uncomfortable for all sides. If Russia returns nothing for guarantees, if NATO ceases to be the central argument, and if demands include Ukraine renouncing its army and national assertion policy, then the war is not about security: it is about territory. And if it is about territory, the stopping point is marked not by negotiation, but by the resistance capacity of those defending it. The discussion continues unresolved.