A peace deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine is not something that is elusive, it is an illusion. There are, despite what others may believe about “proxy wars” or Boris Johnson’s instruction for Ukraine to keep on fighting, just two parties to the conflict. Ukraine, defending itself against invasion, and Russia, who chose a war of aggression. It is therefore exclusively those two parties who can bring the war to an end. The obstacle to peace is not bickering over a piece of land in Ukraine’s east, the obstacle to peace is that Russia has never really outlined what it would take for them to end their war of choice.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Some onlookers view a possible solution to the war through a transactional prism – to use a real estate analogy, a seller lists their property at x value and a buyer offers a percentage below that, the deal being struck according to who is the most desperate to conclude the transaction. This is absurdly naïve. The most common saying from Kremlin officials since they got bogged down in this quagmire is that “the goals of the ‘Special Military Operation’ will be fulfilled.” Nothing more. As a reminder, those goals include the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. Ukraine will not be demilitarized, it has grown into a military powerhouse and after the war it will be a significant global player in terms of defense technology exports. A country that is not, by any definition, “Nazi” can’t be “denazified,” by definition.