A Brief Note on the Difference Between Negotiation and Extortion

Opinion|A Brief Note on the Difference Between Negotiation and Extortion

As anyone who caught even a bit of the day’s news knows, President Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and the leaders of NATO, the European Union, Britain and several European countries spent Monday at the White House negotiating a possible land swap and security guarantees that could end the Russian-Ukrainian war. But did they really?

Let’s think about the word “negotiating.” All wars end with it, according to the popular saying, but rarely does the aggressor come to the table demanding territory that it doesn’t actually control. Usually, the belligerents discuss which military gains should be formalized and which should be reversed. Vladimir Putin, however, has consistently demanded more land than his military has been able to bring under its control in the three and a half years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. During his summit with Trump in Alaska on Friday, Putin appears to have made a small concession: He is still demanding more land than he has occupied, but not as much as he used to demand. But less is still more.

So let’s talk about “land swap.” This phrase seems to refer to Putin’s offer to take a piece of Ukraine in exchange for not threatening an even bigger piece of Ukraine. This is not what we normally think of as a swap. It’s what we think of as extortion.

Let’s also talk about the word “land,” or “territory,” which the leaders gathered at the White House on Monday used a lot. Zelensky referred to a map Trump apparently provided to facilitate discussion of “territory.” Trump promised to get him a copy.

But “territory” is not an outline on a map. It’s cities and towns and villages where people still live — even near the front line, even now. Before the full-scale invasion, the populations of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two Ukrainian cities on land Putin is demanding, were 200,000 and 100,000, respectively. We don’t know how many people live there now — some people surely fled, some came from occupied territories, some died — but the number is almost certainly tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people.

To propose to cede the land to Russia is to propose either subjecting those residents to Russian occupation — which in other cities has involved summary executions, detentions and torture — or displacing them forcibly. Either would be a crime — a crime in which Trump is asking Zelensky to become an accomplice.