The German foreign ministry, which commissioned the study after suspecting it was being targeted by bots, said the findings highlighted the need for governments to systematically tackle the growing number of disinformation campaigns and recognise the effect they could have on elections.
The problem with this idea is Russia’s track record of broken deals (like accepting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, then invading) and aggressive ambitions (greetings to our Baltic allies). Chances are the last two points are nothing but false hopes and all that remains is “accept the losses”, while Russia prepares to invade the next neighbor. All the good points are also the untrustworthy points. We kind of tried this idea when they took Crimea, and see where it got us.
Russia is an independent actor on the world stage, with a huge military, a huge nuclear arsenal, and a huge economy (ppp). We have to find a way to live peacefully with them because the alternative is a nuclear holocaust.
Russia started a war of aggression, which is THE primary war crime, and should not go unpunished. So relations can probably not be normalized until the current leadership is replaced (which granted might take a while), but a cease fire at least stops the killing.