Don’t trap Ukraine in Catch-22

We cannot tolerate a future where, whatever Ukraine does, it loses

Biden and Zelenskyy in Kyiv, February 2023. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

I have spent the past week listening to Russian specialists discuss the coming Ukrainian offensive. I won’t even think of speculating about the future course of the war – for an informed opinion I urge you to read Phillips O’Brien and Lawrence Freedman. But I know enough about how politics works to see a potential trap. There is a danger that, whatever happens in the field, Ukraine could lose.

Option 1: Quagmire

The Ukrainian armed forces make some territorial gains but most of the Russian defences hold. The refusal of the West to give Ukraine a modern air force, and the delays in resupplying its armed forces, have grim consequences on the battlefield. The cry goes up in Western capitals that this war has gone on long enough. In France, Italy and Germany, leaders mutter that the voters are weary of it. European politicians are happy to overlook China’s failure to condemn the invasion. Instead, they welcome its efforts to mediate a settlement. Sensing the change in mood, Putin offers the bait of a return to cheap energy supplies. Many in Europe are keen to bite.

Meanwhile in the United States, Joe Biden is facing Donald Trump, whose fascistic yearnings are made manifest in his declared admiration for Putin,  and whose isolationism was again made clear last week, when he announced that “we’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now.”

Never is the saying that “success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan” truer than in war.  While the Ukrainian armed forces are victorious in the field, foreign leaders are willing to bathe in their reflected glory and pose with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.  But if they falter, Western diplomats will start muttering about “quagmires,” “stalemates” and “another Vietnam”. No one wants to be tied to an endless conflict, least of all US Democrats who must think first of saving their country from a second Trump presidency.

Alina Polyakova, the president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, told the New York Times a few days ago that, “there’s always been a desire among some people in Washington to say, look, if Ukraine doesn’t make gains…it might be time to have a conversation about looking for a settlement.” Not that she approved. For the West to accept territorial aggression and crimes against humanity would be “shocking,” she added. Territorial concessions would “validate Russia’s aggression, which sets a global precedent for China and others.”

But politics is “shocking” particularly in a US election year.  With Trump threatening a comeback, and European public opinion growing tired of war, one can see how a military stalemate leads to the West demanding that Ukraine accepts a new version of the Minsk agreements. Russia keeps the Ukrainian land it occupies. It regroups, renews its forces, and prepares to attack again.

Option 2: Victory

Ukraine may not have all the weapons it needs (and deserves) but it has enough.  The advance that began in Bakhmut in the second week of May 2023 precipitates a Russian collapse. Ill-led and mistreated Russian troops are no longer prepared to act as Putin’s human sacrifices. Ukrainian forces drive south from Zaporizhzhia to the Black Sea. They cut the enemy’s forces in two, take out the Kerch bridge, and isolate the Russian troops in the south and in Crimea.

Will success have a thousand fathers?

Maybe not.

It is easy to see how Ukraine could be an orphan again.

Far from making them happy, Russia’s collapse causes Western diplomats to worry about Putin ramping up the nuclear threats. Crimea is his red line, they say, and he will do anything to stop Russia losing it. They worry too about Putin falling and Russia descending into civil war – a civil war with nukes.

 As fear-filled scenarios are issued with every fresh news cycle, panic spreads. The West pressures Ukraine into a new version of the Minsk agreements. Russia keeps the Ukrainian land it occupies. It regroups, renews its forces, and prepares to attack again.

---

At London’s Pushkin House, the independent centre for Russian scholars, I listened to Jade McGlynn, the author of Russia’s War and Iain Garner, the author of Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia's Fascist Youth.

Neither can see the future. But they made an argument that can help us face it with more confidence: the West needs to think a little more about Ukraine and a little less about Russia.

Our obsession with Putin leads us into the fantasy that the invasion of Ukraine was the start of Putin’s war, not of Russia’s war. It gives us the false hope, that if cancer kills Putin – and there is no evidence he has it, for all the speculation about his health – or a palace coup deposes him – and there’s no sign of that happening either – Russians will turn into liberal democrats and everything will be well in Europe again. Blaming Putin, they warned, ignores Russia’s dominant ultra-nationalist movement, which is willing to commit crimes close to genocide to restore imperial greatness whether Putin is in the Kremlin or not.

It also allows Europeans to duck hard questions

When will we stop freeloading off America and take responsibility for our own defence?

What will Europe do if Trump comes back to power?

More than anything else, it stops us thinking about what Ukrainians want. Listen to the speculation from some commentators and you can think we are back in a time when European powers could divide up the world without a thought for the wishes of its inhabitants.

Ukrainian officials, and the overwhelming majority Ukrainians, do not just say that this war needs end, but that it needs to end properly so Russia does not invade again. Ukrainians will not sit outside the conference chamber, while the great powers divide up their territory, as if it were Poland in the 18^th century or Africa in the 19^th.

Jade McGlynn, put it best when she said it was not in our interests to act as if Ukrainians had no say in their future. Zelensky will reject an imposition of unjust terms, she predicted. And if he didn’t, he would face a revolt. “Ukraine would be torn apart by a massive upheaval, and what then for European security?” Russia would like nothing more than to watch as Europe’s first line of defence descended into chaos.