In this analysis, veteran Azerbaijani journalist and political commentator, Mehman Aliyev, draws lessons from the 1994 Armenia-Azerbaijan ceasefire, to assess what can be possible impact of ceasefire in Ukraine.
According to diplomats, under such conditions, a negotiating format or a partial ceasefire based on a modified version of the twenty-eight points is entirely plausible in 2026. A frozen line of contact, monitored by international mechanisms while talks drag on, is more likely than a fully implemented peace treaty by early that same year.
“This document opens a window,” said political commentator Farid Gakhramanov. “Whether it means the end of the war or the beginning of a new frozen conflict will depend on the decisions of Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, and Brussels — not on the document itself.”
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Lessons from Bishkek 1994
When the gunfire finally fell silent in May 1994, the ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan seemed more like a desperate pause in a war that had destroyed lives, displaced more than a million people, and reshaped the map of the South Caucasus. Few expected that a fragile truce, concluded at the dusk of the post-Soviet collapse, would last for decades or lay the groundwork for one country to become a regional energy power.
And yet that is exactly what happened.
The story of how the ceasefire was reached—and how it changed the destinies of two newly independent states—serves as a reminder of how fragile political arrangements can alter the trajectory of nations.
A Ceasefire Born of Exhaustion and Uncertainty
By early 1994, the war had reached a stalemate. Armenia, whose forces controlled large swaths of Azerbaijani territory, faced economic isolation and mounting strain. Azerbaijan, shaken by political turmoil and territorial losses, was nearing collapse.
President Heydar Aliyev, who had returned to power in Baku a year earlier, inherited a nation in chaos. The army was fragmented, the economy was deteriorating, and the government itself was threatened by internal rebellions. Aliyev’s priority was survival—and ending the war was essential to that goal.
Russia stepped in. Seeking to restore its influence in the unstable South Caucasus, Moscow sent its seasoned envoy Vladimir Kazimirov, whose tireless shuttle diplomacy led to the signing of the Bishkek Protocol in May 1994. It was not a peace agreement; it was a ceasefire reached quietly, almost reluctantly, because the alternatives looked worse.
On May 12, the fighting stopped. There were no celebrations. People were too exhausted and too unsure of what would come next.
In his speech on May 21, 1994, Heydar Aliyev said: “We understand very well that if the war continues, it will lead to new great tragedies. That is why we want to put an end to it; we strive to resolve the problem by peaceful means… By signing the Bishkek Protocol, Azerbaijan pursued a single goal — to stop the gunfire, and we achieved this, which is a positive fact for us.”
A Peace Process Without Peace
The following years brought diplomatic activity but few results. The OSCE Minsk Group, led by Russia, France, and the United States, became the official forum for negotiations. Endless proposals followed: the “package,” “phased,” “common state,” the “Madrid Principles.” None produced a breakthrough.
For Armenia, the priority was consolidating gains achieved on the battlefield. For Azerbaijan, it was the return of lost territories and assurances that the conflict would not become permanent.
The result was a diplomatic paradox: a frozen conflict that was anything but frozen. Soldiers continued to die in sporadic clashes, sometimes by the dozens. Political rhetoric hardened even as negotiators posed for group photos in European capitals.
And yet the ceasefire endured—partly because both societies needed a respite to build states that had barely existed a few years earlier.
Azerbaijan: Stability Becomes Strategy
No country changed more radically after the 1994 ceasefire than Azerbaijan.
Aliyev, a former Politburo member skilled in political consolidation, used the breathing space to rebuild institutions, rein in warlords, and restore order to a fragmented state. Unlike the chaos of the early 1990s, the new leadership displayed discipline and ambition.
Foreign executives began arriving in Baku, attracted by the prospects of vast offshore oil reserves that had remained undeveloped for decades. But they needed guarantees—above all, that the ceasefire would last.
In September 1994, just four months after the guns fell silent, Aliyev gathered a consortium of Western oil companies in Baku. The result was the landmark “Contract of the Century”—a production-sharing agreement that would channel billions of dollars into the country’s energy sector.
The deal was unprecedented in the post-Soviet world. It brought together BP, Amoco, Statoil, Total, Unocal, Itochu and others into a consortium that would ultimately turn the Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli fields into one of the world’s largest oil deposits outside the Middle East.
The ceasefire made it possible; the contract made it transformative.
Energy revenues became the foundation of Azerbaijan’s modern economy. They funded new highways, airports, cultural institutions, schools, and social programs, and helped establish a sovereign wealth fund intended to stabilize future generations. They also financed large-scale military modernization, which decades later reshaped the balance of power once again.
Armenia: Stability With the Costs of Isolation
For Armenia, the end of hostilities brought a different kind of stability. Politically, the country consolidated around the idea of victory and security. Economically, however, the post-war years were difficult.
With its borders closed by Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia relied heavily on the diaspora for investment and on Russia for security and energy. The ceasefire gave Yerevan time to develop its institutions and eventually integrate into the global economy, but structural constraints linked to geography and blockade persisted.
While Azerbaijan attracted billions in foreign capital, Armenia’s growth was steadier but more limited. This divergence shaped the countries’ trajectories for decades.
A Long Peace That Was Never Real Peace
The 1994 ceasefire did not reconcile Armenians and Azerbaijanis. It froze the conflict rather than resolved it, leaving both sides convinced that history had been paused rather than rewritten.
But it achieved something arguably more significant: it allowed two states born from the ruins of the Soviet Union to consolidate their identities and political systems.
It enabled Azerbaijan to transform from a fragile post-Soviet republic into a strategic energy supplier whose pipelines reached the Mediterranean and supplied Europe. It allowed Armenia to stabilize and maintain its security doctrine even as economic pressures rose. And it created an imperfect diplomatic framework that prevented a full-scale war for an entire generation.
The truce lasted more than 25 years and offered real opportunities for a compromise-based peace treaty. Unfortunately, these opportunities were missed, and in 2020 the ceasefire was finally shattered—once again reshaping the region.
But the legacy of the 1994 ceasefire remains: it is a reminder that even imperfect agreements can create room for states to define themselves.
In the South Caucasus, that room proved enough to change the map, the economy, and the future.
Applying These Lessons to Ukraine: A Ceasefire as a Beginning, Not an End
When Armenian and Azerbaijani commanders agreed to stop firing in May 1994, few believed the truce would last. It was drafted in haste under Moscow’s mediation and signed by exhausted leaders who distrusted each other as deeply as Russia and Ukraine distrust each other today.
Three decades later, as Ukraine and Russia face the possibility of a negotiated ceasefire that could halt the fighting without resolving the conflict, the South Caucasus offers a stark and complicated precedent.
It is not a blueprint. But it is a warning—and perhaps a quiet source of hope.
For Ukraine and Russia, a similar transition—from military confrontation to political bargaining—could be the difference between destructive uncertainty and the first steps toward eventual reconciliation, however distant.
A ceasefire does not require trust. It requires exhaustion, pressure, and time.
Today, Ukraine is larger, more integrated with the West, and more politically cohesive than either Azerbaijan or Armenia in 1994. Russia, meanwhile, is more authoritarian, isolated, and militarized than it was in the 1990s. The conflicts are not identical.
But the logic of the 1994 ceasefire remains relevant:
1. A Ceasefire Can Create Political Space for Transformation
Just as Azerbaijan emerged from the ceasefire with a modernizing army and a globalizing economy, Ukraine could use a negotiated truce to:
- deepen integration with Europe,
- rebuild war-damaged infrastructure,
- strengthen state institutions,
- consolidate NATO-level military standards.
An incomplete ceasefire is not a defeat. It is an opportunity for strategic restoration.
2. Russia Cannot Remain Frozen Forever
In the South Caucasus, the long road to an eventual settlement passed not only through Baku and Yerevan but also through Moscow—a Russia undergoing internal change after the Soviet collapse.
Today, a peace agreement acceptable to both sides is unlikely while Russia remains locked in its current political model. But as the 1994 precedent shows, the political landscape of a region can change dramatically over time.
A Russia seeking to exit isolation, under internal pressure, and facing the limits of a militarized economy may eventually become more open to compromise. The prospect of a more democratic Russia is not fantasy; it is something the region has seen before.
A decade from now, both countries may be political actors sharing similar civilizational values—conditions for real peace that are impossible today.
Yes, the 1994 ceasefire did not bring peace. But it created the political, economic, and psychological conditions that made peace—even the one achieved decades later through force—possible.
For Ukraine and Russia, a ceasefire could be the beginning of the story, not the final line.
And in a war that has already upended Europe’s security architecture, a beginning may prove to be the most important step.
Trump Has Opened a Window for Diplomacy: Why Ending the War in Early 2026 Is Becoming More Likely
The twenty-eight-point peace plan developed by United States officials and inspired by Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “end the war” is being discussed quietly among diplomats and defence ministers. The document, first published in full by Axios and Newsweek, outlines a draft of a large-scale deal: Ukraine would cede territory and give up its ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Russia would accept legal restraints on future aggression and be readmitted to Western markets and Western institutions; the United States and Europe would provide a decade of security guarantees and reconstruction.
The appearance of the plan has sharpened a question that has been hanging over the conflict for several months: can the war truly end as early as the beginning of 2026?
The honest answer, according to officials and analysts, is that this document opens a diplomatic window. By itself, it does not make peace in the near future either likely or predictable. However…
The draft, essentially confirmed by United States officials and handed to Kyiv, would permanently exclude Ukraine from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, cap the size of its armed forces at six hundred thousand service members, and codify Russia’s control over Crimea and the entire Donbas, while offering Moscow a phased return to global markets and to the Group of Eight. In return, Ukraine would receive North Atlantic Treaty Organization-style security guarantees outside the Alliance, a major reconstruction package, and formal non-aggression frameworks with Russia and Europe, according to a summary based on the text.
Whether this is sufficient to end the war in early 2026 depends less on the elegance of the document than on four complex questions: how far Russia’s war-time economy can stretch, how deeply Ukraine has broken with Moscow, and how the United States and the European Union now define their own interests.
For the moment, diplomats say, Trump’s plan opens a serious diplomatic window for 2026 — but it does not justify expectations that the guns will fall silent by then.
Russia: From a “War Boom” to Slow Constriction
After an initial decline in 2022, the Russian economy recovered in 2023–2024 due to soaring defence spending, reduced oil exports, and a shrinking labour market caused by mobilization and emigration. By 2025, however, growth had slowed sharply, inflation remained high, and the current-account surplus had fallen from the landmark levels of 2022 amid revived imports and tighter sanctions.
Economists argue that the “war-boom model,” which reallocates the budget and industry toward the military-industrial complex, is losing momentum. Defence enterprises are operating at near-full capacity, the labour shortage is acute, and the government is preparing to raise taxes in order to sustain expenditures. This reduces the space for investment in civilian sectors and deepens Russia’s technological dependence on a narrow group of partners.
“From a purely economic standpoint, Russia would benefit from some stabilization and a gradual easing of sanctions,” said Maksim Krivelevich, Candidate of Economic Sciences. “A modern economy cannot exist indefinitely in a state of permanent military emergency.”
Trump’s plan appears to offer precisely this: phased sanctions relief, long-term energy and resource agreements with the United States and Europe, and an invitation back into the Group of Eight, provided Moscow complies with non-aggression commitments and arms-control provisions.
The war has also, perhaps as intended by the Kremlin, strengthened President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power: independent media have been shut down, opposition figures imprisoned or exiled, and security services have gained enhanced authority. Analysts argue that the threat of a military coup or a radical nationalist uprising — a real concern in early 2022 — looks minor in the short term, as the system is built to avoid any impression of defeat.
Any deal that can be presented domestically as a strategic success — a neutral Ukraine, recognition of territorial gains, sanctions relief — is conceivable. A settlement that appears as retreat is not.
At the same time, Russia has already demonstrated an ability to redirect oil and some natural gas exports from Europe to Asia. While renewed trade with the European Union and the United States would improve long-term prospects, Moscow is unlikely to portray access to Western markets as essential for its survival, which limits the influence of economic fatigue on its timing.
In essence, diplomats say, Russia is structurally closer than Ukraine to accepting the broad contours of Trump’s plan.
Ukraine: A Society Turning Fully Toward the West
If Russia’s constraints are primarily economic, Ukraine’s are social and political.
Public-opinion surveys conducted after the full-scale invasion show a dramatic shift: roughly nine out of ten Ukrainians now view Russia negatively, including in regions that were once more favourable toward Moscow, according to polling data cited by Western officials. Streets have been renamed, Soviet-era monuments dismantled, and the use of the Ukrainian language in public life has expanded.
The war has also accelerated Ukraine’s economic and institutional turn toward the West. Trade with Russia has fallen to a negligible level, while exports and financial flows have been reoriented toward the European Union. Kyiv holds candidate status for European Union membership, is aligning its legislation with European standards, and is heavily dependent on Western budgetary support and arms supplies.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s plan presents Kyiv with three difficult challenges:
- Identity and Justice
Recognizing Russian control over Crimea and all of Donbas while granting sweeping amnesty for wartime actions contradicts the principles of resistance and accountability that helped the country endure nearly four years of war. - Domestic Legitimacy
Any leadership that signs an agreement ceding territory and establishing permanent neutrality risks fierce internal backlash unless the military situation or Western support collapses so dramatically that no alternative remains. - Faith in Guarantees
North Atlantic Treaty Organization-style commitments outside the Alliance have value on paper, but Ukrainian officials privately note the political cycles in Washington and European capitals and ask what happens if a future government simply decides not to act.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is ready “to work through the points” of the United States proposal but has not endorsed the core concessions. Senior advisers have publicly warned against any agreement that “encourages aggression.”
According to diplomats, for Ukraine to accept such a settlement by early 2026, one of two things would likely have to occur: a sharp deterioration on the battlefield, or a steep reduction in Western emergency support, leaving Kyiv to choose between a bad peace and the risk of defeat. Neither condition is currently visible in such dramatic form. But both could be triggered, given the planned drawdown of financial and military aid.
The United States: From Emergency Support to Managing the Endgame
Since 2022, the United States has been Ukraine’s largest military sponsor and a key financial backer, approving tens of billions of dollars in assistance, drawing weapons from its own stockpiles, and coordinating sanctions against Russia with allies.
Over time, however, Washington shifted from ad hoc emergency packages to more structured, conditional support, and pushed European partners to assume a larger share of the burden. Trump’s twenty-eight-point plan is an attempt to turn this transition into a coherent endgame: to limit United States financial risks, freeze the front line, and anchor Ukraine’s security in a contractual system led and guaranteed by Washington — and, crucially, to secure access to Ukrainian and Russian raw-material resources, particularly rare earth elements, especially in Siberia and the Arctic.
United States officials portray the package as a “major victory” for Ukraine because it offers Article Five-style security guarantees and a pathway toward integration with the European Union, even without North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership.
However, the plan is controversial in Washington. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed concern that territorial concessions and broad amnesty would set a precedent that rewards aggression. Others, exhausted by constant debates over Ukraine funding, quietly welcome any framework that promises an end to open-ended commitments.
Critically, ensuring security guarantees that treat any “significant, deliberate, and sustained” Russian attack on Ukraine as a threat to peace across the entire transatlantic community would require solid bipartisan support for many years. This is far from assured.
Analysts argue that this makes forecasting outcomes for early 2026 more difficult: the United States clearly seeks to move from open-ended emergency support to a managed, less costly posture, but it is unclear whether domestic politics will sustain the long-term enforcement capacity implied by the plan.
The European Union: Strengthening Ukraine, Wary of Redrawing the Map
The European Union and its member states have allocated about 150 billion euros to military, financial, and humanitarian support for Ukraine since 2022 and have created a multi-year Ukraine Facility to provide predictable funding tied to reforms and reconstruction. Revenue from frozen Russian assets is being directed toward defence and rebuilding.
Trump’s proposal would be placed atop the EU’s emerging architecture, settling questions of security and territorial arrangements that many in Europe neither designed nor fully support: Ukraine would permanently exit NATO, Russia’s gains would be codified in law, and Moscow would be invited back to high-level forums.
Some EU diplomats fear that accepting such a map could weaken the principle of territorial integrity in Europe and embolden other revisionist powers. Others worry that an outright rejection of a U.S.-led settlement could leave Europe bearing the costs of a protracted war without a clear path to peace.
Therefore, the EU has formulated three core counter-proposals, which are now circulating among member states and being discussed with Washington and Kyiv.
- Reliable protection of Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders
European officials insist that no settlement can legitimise changes to borders achieved by force. Brussels rejects language implying recognition of permanent territorial loss.
They argue that Ukraine must play a central role in all negotiations rather than be a passive object of great-power bargaining. - Credible defence and security guarantees
The EU warns that major reductions in the size of Ukraine’s armed forces would leave the country vulnerable.
Brussels demands:
• a defence posture strong enough to deter future aggression;
• multilateral security guarantees involving European states, not only the United States;
• a mechanism for rapid rearmament if Russia violates the agreement. - Full European participation in designing the settlement
EU officials say they were not sufficiently consulted during the U.S.–Russia drafting process.
They insist that:
• any elements relating to NATO or the EU must have the consent of those organisations;
• peace negotiations must include the EU, the United States, and Ukraine;
• Europe cannot be reduced to a financial backer of a settlement designed elsewhere.
These counter-proposals highlight Europe’s concerns: while the EU wants a pathway to peace, it is wary of endorsing a settlement that could legitimise aggressive border changes or institutionalise Ukraine’s vulnerability.
On the other hand, the EU would gain access to large Russian and Ukrainian markets for both raw materials and investment — a non-trivial factor amid recession.
In practice, officials say that achieving peace in early 2026 will require more than silent acquiescence from Europe. The EU will have to define the key elements of any settlement — the conditions for EU accession, the structure of security guarantees, and the sequencing of lifting or reimposing sanctions if Russia violates the agreement.
This process is only beginning.
Early 2026: Peace, a Ceasefire, and a Frozen Front
Taken together, four factors indicate that Trump’s plan reshapes the diplomatic battlefield in favour of ending the war in early 2026 and makes such an outcome a plausible bet:
- Russia. Russia’s war economy is slowing, and sanctions are becoming painful, prompting Moscow to consider a freeze or settlement that leads to partial, and ideally full, normalization.
- Ukraine. Ukraine has decisively broken with Russia and tied its future to the West, narrowing domestic tolerance for territorial concessions and permanent neutrality.
- The United States. The United States is attempting to transition from crisis-mode support to a managed endgame aimed at advancing its interests in Ukraine and Russia.
- The European Union. The European Union is developing long-term instruments to keep Ukraine within its orbit but is uneasy about endorsing a settlement that it believes could legitimize the violent alteration of borders.
According to diplomats, under such conditions, a negotiating format or a partial ceasefire based on a modified version of the twenty-eight points is entirely plausible in 2026. A frozen line of contact, monitored by international mechanisms while talks drag on, is more likely than a fully implemented peace treaty by early that same year.
“This document opens a window,” said political commentator Farid Gakhramanov. “Whether it means the end of the war or the beginning of a new frozen conflict will depend on the decisions of Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, and Brussels — not on the document itself.”
source: Mehman Aliyev is a veteran Azerbaijani journalist and political analyst. He is a member of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Expert Strategic Platform under the auspices of LINKS Europe.
