In a recent article in the British magazine Spectator, veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger again reiterated his formula of a negotiated peace in Ukraine to preempt the possibility of this hot spot turning into a devastating world war.

The 99-year-old diplomat, a former U.S. secretary of state and one of the key fabricators of the Cold War policy of detente toward the Soviet Union under Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has pitched an ostensibly "simple" proposal laced with his trademark realpolitik. But, for all the obvious reasons, it has ignited a massive debate in academia. In his article, he wrote, "The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure toward achieving peace through negotiation."

Ever since the Russian troops trespassed into the Ukrainian territories in February last year, he has been advocating for a negotiated deal to extinguish this war. But his formula, owing to its innate anomalies, is being subjected to harsh criticism. Kissinger’s so-called simple prescription has many lacunas. He is proposing a cease-fire and a restoration of the pre-invasion borders, suggesting that Russia should withdraw all its troops from the areas of Ukraine that it has captured this year – but not from Crimea or the thin wedge of eastern Ukraine that it annexed in 2014. The fate of those territories can be decided through further negotiations later or settled through an internationally supervised referendum. There is a big technical problem with this idea, which is soaked with the dense sap of realpolitik.

However, in the domain of realpolitik, such compromises are suggested only when the aggressor party is in a strong position and is still capable of annexing more areas, but this is not the case with Russia at the moment. Russia’s military has been facing a paralytic halt since last August. Since then, the Russian forces have not been able to capture any new town or territory. Instead, owing to an ill-disciplined, ill-trained and poorly equipped army facing innumerable logistical constraints, Russia’s grip is weakening even on the occupied territories. The Ukrainian forces have been able to regain some of the important towns – including Izyum, Kupiansk, Balakliia and Kherson.

Zelenskyy rejected the formula

The resistance of Ukrainians, further supplemented by generous financial and material support by NATO and the United States, has certainly emboldened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnkyy to keep pushing back the Russian forces. After his blitzkrieg trip to Washington where he was showered with an unprecedented quantum of aid package as well as the Patriot system to neutralize the Russians’ aerial attacks, Zelenskyy is in high spirits and quite confident about the Ukrainian forces’ capability to face the Russian onslaught. Not surprisingly, Zelenskyy has out rightly rejected the Kissinger formula.

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said, "The prescription that the ex-secretary of state calls for, but is afraid to say out loud, is simple: appease the aggressor by sacrificing parts of Ukraine with guarantees of non-aggression against the other states of Eastern Europe."

The realpolitik solution to the Ukraine war, as suggested by Kissinger, does not have buyers on either side of the fence. Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Zelenskyy are in the mood to sit at the negotiating table at the moment; both have their own reasons and prerequisites. Putin insists that Kyiv must acknowledge Russia's annexation of southern and eastern regions, while Zelenskyy says every Russian soldier must leave its territory, including Crimea, to initiate any kind of dialogue.

The second part of Kissinger’s proposal is even more confusing and pricking for most of the Russia-watchers. He has suggested that Russia should never be subjected to the humiliation of a break-up into smaller states or reduced to impotence at the end of the war because it may create more complicated security and political problems for Europe: "The dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategy policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum."

This is a little too stretched a scenario being painted by Kissinger. The U.S. and its Western allies have never talked about the disintegration of Russia into smaller states. Even if Moscow is badly thrashed in the Ukraine war, there is no possibility of any Soviet Union-styled wave of disintegration sweeping across Russia in the near future. Yes, some voices of dissent are being noticed in Russia against Putin’s mishandling of the Ukraine war, but his power base is very much intact.

At the same time, Kissinger’s assertion is that Russia, once the Ukraine war is extinguished, should be accommodated as an active member of the global power equation. "The goal of a peace process would be twofold: to confirm the freedom of Ukraine and to define a new international structure, especially for Central and Eastern Europe. Eventually, Russia should find a place in such an order," Kissinger suggested in his article.

"For all its propensity to violence, Russia has made decisive contributions to the global equilibrium and to the balance of power for over half a millennium. Its historical role should not be degraded. The preferred outcome for some is a Russia rendered impotent by the war. I disagree," he further elaborated.

On the surface, it appears, Kissinger is not dismissing Russia’s role in the future global power structure regardless of the fate of the Ukraine war. If Russia wins – though an extremely remote possibility – then it will automatically jack up its status, and we may witness more belligerency from Putin; however, in case of its defeat, Russia’s status will drastically shrink, but there is a dreadful possibility that Putin may resort to nuclear option to avert his embarrassment. To a certain extent, Kissinger is right in suggesting that Europe can’t afford to replace Russia with smaller but nuclear-equipped states on the continent.

There is no doubt that managing and controlling a defeated Russia will be an even bigger problem for the U.S. and NATO. At the same, accommodating a defeated Russia in the new power fabric will also entail too many complications.