Peace as performance by Robert Perez

Diplomacy often unfolds behind heavy doors, polished tables, and carefully rehearsed smiles. This week’s abruptly ended peace talks between Volodymyr Zelensky’s Ukraine and Russia, mediated by the United States, offered another reminder that negotiations are sometimes less about peace and more about political theater.

After only two hours on the second day, discussions collapsed. Publicly Zelensky described the talks as “difficult,” the diplomatic equivalent of a controlled shrug. Privately, according to reports emerging from closed-door conversations with military leadership, the tone was far bleaker. There was, he allegedly admitted, no peace on the horizon. The negotiations were a performance, a strategic gesture designed to reassure allies and perhaps most importantly to keep Donald Trump politically satisfied and at arm’s length.

If true this revelation exposes a harsh truth about modern geopolitics, peace talks are often conducted for audiences far removed from the battlefield. They become signals, not solutions. Leaders must show they are trying, even when they know success is impossible.

For Ukraine, the stakes could not be higher. Nearly every negotiation carries existential weight. Yet Ukraine’s leadership must balance two conflicting realities. On one hand, continuing the war demands unwavering international support. On the other, Western political fatigue grows louder. Elections, shifting public opinion, and economic pressures in allied countries threaten to erode the unity that Kyiv relies upon.

In this environment, diplomacy becomes less about compromise with Moscow and more about maintaining alignment with Washington. The United States remains Ukraine’s most critical partner, financially, militarily and symbolically. Appearing cooperative in peace efforts reassures American voters and politicians who increasingly ask how long the conflict should continue.

But peace talks without genuine expectations risk undermining public trust. Citizens, both Ukrainian and international, watch headlines announcing negotiations and hope for an end to suffering. When those talks quietly dissolve, cynicism grows. People begin to suspect that diplomacy itself has become hollow, a ritual performed because politics requires it.

There is also danger in staging negotiations purely for optics. Moscow can exploit failed talks as evidence that diplomacy is futile. Western skeptics can argue that Ukraine resists compromise. Meanwhile, soldiers on both sides continue to fight a war that no conference room seems capable of ending.

Yet one cannot entirely blame Zelensky or any wartime leader for engaging in political choreography. Leadership during conflict is not only about battlefield decisions; it is about managing alliances, perceptions and expectations. Survival sometimes requires playing multiple games simultaneously, one against an invading army and another within the complex ecosystem of global politics.

What these talks reveal is not diplomatic failure alone but the uncomfortable reality that peace is currently secondary to positioning. Negotiations become messages directed at allies, rivals, and domestic audiences rather than pathways toward reconciliation.

The tragedy lies in the gap between appearance and reality. The world wants negotiations to mean progress. Instead, they increasingly resemble pauses in a narrative everyone already understands: the war will continue, regardless of how many meetings are held.

Peace, in this moment, is less a destination than a performance, necessary, strategic and painfully disconnected from the sound of artillery still echoing across Ukraine.