Why it's so hard for Russia to accept a ceasefire:
1. Russia has painted Ukraine as an illegitimate country. A historical mistake made by the last soviet administration. A country that never should have been. Accepting the ceasefire would be an admission by Russia that Ukraine is a legitimate counterpart with whom deals are possible.
2. Russia has painted this war as a defensive war against western aggression. According to Russia, they are in a national life-or-death situation and if they lose this war then Russia will be destroyed. Accepting the ceasefire would be an admission by Russia that this war is somehow not a life-or-death situation for Russia.
3. Russia has painted Ukraine as war-hungry Nazis longing for the destruction of Russia. No other outcome than complete regime-change in Ukraine is acceptable or else Russia will never be save. Accepting the ceasefire would be an admission by Russia that regime-change in Ukraine is not necessary for peace.
4. Russia wants to keep NATO-military out of Ukraine and EU administration out of Ukraine: They want to preempt a precedent in which a population of russian cultural heritage lives in a western-style society, because that would be precedent that Putin's way of life is not the only possible way of life for Russians. Any type of peace-deal in which Ukraine survives as a sovereign nation (regardless of territory), puts western military, EU bureaucracy, western journalism and western cultural ideas right on top of Russia's borders, which is precisely the geopolitical scenario which Russia is trying to prevent with this war.
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