From Eastern Europe to Middle-East and South-East Asia, the post-WWII global order has been marked by “no peace no war” settlements that some scholars have labeled as frozen conflicts. These situations often emerge from intrastate disputes, leading to the formation of de facto states -such as Kosovo, Palestine, or Taiwan- that lack unanimous international recognition. Being the existing research mostly limited to case studies and small-N comparisons, this study contributes to the scholarship with an analysis encompassing 23 conflicts and 637 dyad-years. The research argues that disruptive events such as leadership transitions, changes in power relations, and alliance shifts increase the chances of violent thawing. On the other hand, stabilizing factors such as support from an external patron, the presence of a peacekeeping operation, low democracy level of the parent state as well as de facto state’s robust state-building capacities and its autonomous status make the stalemate more durable.