Ukraine denial is the root cause of Putin’s genocidal war. Since he is unwilling and unable to abandon this ideological obsession, talk of negotiations by western ‘peacemakers’ looks like an attempt to avoid responsibility. The advance of the Ukrainian armed forces on the Russia-occupied territories in Autumn 2022, marked by a the liberation of the strategically and symbolically important city of Kherson in November, emboldened Ukraine supporters who demand more aid for the beleaguered country and believe that its victory, i.e., full recapture of lost territories, is increasingly feasible. On the other hand, the Ukrainian advance further unnerved the sceptics who have never got rid of their pinky idea of a ‘negotiated solution’ to the war in Ukraine as the