The country’s former foreign minister explains the powderkeg that is three leaders in a cannot-lose standoff
BETWEEN 2016 AND 2022, Western diplomats and journalists frequently asked Ukrainian officials what Ukraine was prepared to concede to Russia for peace. This was more than mere curiosity. It was the tip of a policy iceberg submersed in the belief that peace could be achieved by sacrificing Ukrainian interests to Russia. Look at the headlines since February 2022 to see where this approach has led.
Since Donald Trump’s re-election, I’ve spoken to European and American media outlets only to learn that, nearly three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, we are back to these same questions. It is painful to realise that Ukrainians may again pay the price imposed by those who misunderstand the situation. Whatever ideas Mr Trump and his entourage may entertain with regard to ending the war, they will be checked by reality.
The first question to pose instead has nothing to do with the Ukrainian position: how to pique Vladimir Putin’s interest in stopping the war? It is undeniable that Russia’s army is making progress in the creeping occupation of Ukraine. Mr Putin reads that as hard evidence that the current strategy of Ukraine and its partners does not work. He disdains the West for its weakness and indecisiveness, and believes that he will eventually prevail because those partners will be incapable of providing Ukraine with sufficient support to match Russia’s impressive war effort. Yet, if Mr Putin were as strong as he wants us to believe, why would he import thousands of North Korean troops and rely on North Korean ammunition?
Analysts seem to build their peace models on the assumption that Mr Putin is a rational decisionmaker. They miss the point that he is fighting the war of his life, and that his ambitions extend beyond mere territory. On the timeline of Russian history, he places himself as Vladimir III, following Peter I, who drowned Ukraine’s struggle for independence in blood following the victory at Poltava in 1709, and Catherine II, who dismantled Ukraine’s autonomy within the empire and destroyed its last Cossack stronghold in 1795. Mr Putin views subjugating Ukraine as a core part of his legacy; any failure to do so would mark him as the first Russian tsar who fell short. That is to say, a loser.
Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump cannot afford to appear weak either. He must demonstrate to the entire world that his plan—whatever it is—is far better than Joe Biden’s. He may believe that the current strategy will not stop Russia’s advances and therefore must change. Fair enough. But he should realise that the strategy is failing not because it is fundamentally flawed, but rather because it was never fully implemented. Half-measures and half-resolve have led to half-results.
Many believe Mr Trump will strip Ukraine of financial assistance to force it into a more accommodating mood. Yet President Volodymyr Zelensky would not immediately bend; he would still have some support from America, dispatched in the final days of Mr Biden’s administration, plus more from Europe.
If the money were to dry up, a new dynamic would come into play, and not all of it on the battlefield. True, bereft of funding, Ukraine could lose ground completely. If the Trump administration then imposed unpalatable peace terms on Ukraine, and if Mr Zelensky agreed (an unlikely scenario), part of Ukrainian society would resist. Domestic unrest would risk the country’s internal collapse. That would give Mr Putin the victory he has long desired, painting Ukraine as a failed state—but responsibility for it would fall squarely on Mr Trump. He cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan.
Neither Mr Zelensky nor Mr Putin will agree to anything like the Minsk agreements that reduced but did not end hostilities after Russia’s annexation in 2014 of Crimea. Both leaders have invested too heavily to accept such half-measures now. And the idea that territory-for-security could work is misguided. The war would not end if Ukraine were to reclaim its 1991 borders, nor if both sides were to agree on a new dividing line. The war will end only when Mr Putin accepts Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent and democratic Western power. Mr Putin will not accept legal losses of his territorial gains, and Ukraine cannot accept otherwise.
Hence, even if any temporary solution is reached it will simply be a pause before the next conflict. It may sound counterintuitive, but under these circumstances NATO membership would be the only way to prevent Ukraine from reclaiming its lands in the future. But Mr Putin would not accept Ukrainian membership of NATO.
In sum, none of these three leaders—Trump, Putin or Zelensky—can afford to lose. Ukrainian and Russian leaders see this war as defining their lives. Mr Trump cannot simply throw Ukraine under the bus. That would make him look weak in the short term, and in the long one force him to restore assistance to a yet more weakened and bleeding Ukraine.
Those who crave de-escalation led by the president-elect, then, may be stunned to see the complete opposite in the coming months. Right now both Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin view Mr Trump as their chance to tip the scales in their favour. Mr Trump, in turn, will be compelled to follow them in escalating his own line.
It is of course too early to say how this new Ukraine conundrum will play out. But it is clear that instead of focusing on what Ukraine will accept, the only viable way forward should be forcing Russia to accept peace. ■