The Honeymoon Trap

The “peace process.” Minsk I. Minsk II. Each one a honeymoon phase. Russia promising to respect ceasefire. Russia promising to withdraw. Russia promising to negotiate in good faith. And every single time — every single time — the honeymoon ends and the battering restarts. Worse than before.

Minsk I was the first honeymoon. It lasted weeks before Russia escalated to Debaltseve. Minsk II was the second honeymoon. It lasted seven years — seven years of frozen violence, of daily shelling, of slow-motion genocide — before Russia escalated to full-scale invasion.

The honeymoon is always a trap. In domestic violence, the honeymoon phase is how the abuser retains control of the victim. In geopolitics, the “peace process” is how Russia retains control of the West. The function is identical. The honeymoon buys time. The honeymoon resets the victim’s expectations. The honeymoon reinstalls the hope that this time will be different.

Source: Provocation Logic Speech Series, Speech 2: Wife-Beater Logic (2026)

The Coercive Control framework reveals the peace process for what it is: the third phase of the abuse cycle. Phase One: escalating tension (years of rhetoric about NATO provocation, Ukrainian Nazis, persecuted Russian speakers). Phase Two: the explosion (Crimea 2014, Donbas 2014, full-scale invasion 2022 — each framed as the victim’s fault). Phase Three: the honeymoon (Minsk I, Minsk II, Istanbul — promises of ceasefire, withdrawal, good faith negotiation).

The domestic violence parallel is not metaphorical. It is structural. The function of the honeymoon phase in both contexts is identical: it buys the abuser time to consolidate control while resetting the victim’s expectations so they remain in the relationship. Every time the West enters a “peace process” with Russia, it is re-entering the honeymoon phase. And every time, the battering restarts — worse than before.

When we call Putin an “abuser” — when we recognise that his governance technique is structurally identical to the coercive control exercised by a domestic abuser — we run different software. We stop trying to reason with him. We stop looking for the “real” Putin who secretly wants peace. We start treating his behaviour as a pattern to be escaped, not a puzzle to be solved.

Source: Provocation Logic Speech Series, Speech 5: Coercive Control Is the Energy of MAGA (2026)

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