The details of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” haven’t been made public. But Zelenskyy has been open about the premise: Only a strong Ukraine can force Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
He’s right to an extent. So long as Putin believes he can outlast Western support for Ukraine, his war of attrition will continue. The question is how to change his calculation.
Any right-thinking person wants an end to the fighting. About a million people have so far been killed or wounded. The war has caused mass displacement and widespread destruction of property and infrastructure. It has created new geopolitical instability and shattered an economy that serves as a global supplier of essential commodities. The impulse to throw in the towel — to accept Putin’s terms, stop the carnage and prevent further escalation — is understandable.
But is such an agreement even possible?
Putin has occasionally feigned interest in negotiations, but his price of admission — that Ukraine relinquish its claim to four regions he has illegally annexed, plus Crimea, and give up its hopes for NATO membership — betrays his insincerity. On the contrary, Russia’s entire economy has been reoriented to support the war, it is still buying weapons and technology from rogue countries, and Putin’s stated objective remains the same: Ukraine must be reduced to a Russian vassal.
As desirable as a cease-fire may be, then, it would entail enormous risks for Ukraine. For one thing, a pause would give Russia’s military time to recruit replacements for the estimated 30,000 soldiers it is losing each month, plan a new mobilization effort, address operational shortcomings and replenish its weapons stocks. Putin would likely use such a truce to simply plan more attacks, as he has done repeatedly in the past — including after his previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
Compounding this risk, a pause could jeopardize international support for Ukraine, making it all the harder for it to defend itself against a revitalized Russia. Many Western allies are already looking for an excuse to divert funds from Ukraine to domestic needs; indeed, Germany is planning deep cuts in such aid in next year’s budget. A cessation in fighting may offer plausible cover.
Putin has long bet that the West will tire of supporting Ukraine, that the Russian public will remain passive and that his military is funded well enough to keep up the fighting. A misguided cease-fire could make all these bets more likely to pay off — and leave both Ukraine and the West in a worse position when hostilities resume.
The goal for the U.S. and its allies, then, should be to ensure that Ukraine has maximal negotiating leverage before entering into talks.
As a start, the West must recognize that any meaningful reduction in funding now would not end the war — it would embolden Putin. It should continue to bolster Ukraine’s air-defense capacity, boost its supply of ammunition and other weapons, and remove most restrictions on the use of long-range missiles. Only a concerted effort of this kind is likely to change Putin’s cost-benefit calculation.
Next, the allies need to agree on a credible security guarantee for Ukraine. This is no easy task, and NATO is understandably reluctant to extend its overt protection to a nonmember state. Nuance and ambiguity may be called for. But a collective pledge — explicit or otherwise — to defend areas currently under Ukrainian control should be on the table to deter further aggression.
Throughout his bloody reign, Putin has always been willing to break truces, violate agreements and go back on his word whenever he perceives a strategic benefit to doing so. There’s every reason to think he’d do the same this time around. Without proper precautions, a cease-fire wouldn’t end the war, save lives or benefit everyday Ukrainians. It would do the opposite.
— Bloomberg Opinion via TNS
