Ukraine has won a great victory, that opens the way for a lasting peace settlement. Contrary to all previous expectations, Ukraine has fought the Russian army to a standstill, secured 80 percent of its territory, consolidated its national identity and Western alignment, and gained the possibility of joining the European Union. This is a tremendous success not only when compared to the initial goals of the Russian government, but in the context of 500 years and more of Ukraine’s domination by Russia, Poland and Austria.
It is not of course a complete Ukrainian victory. That would mean reconquering all the territory that Russia has occupied since 2014. Such a victory is however militarily impossible, and the Western analysts who now write that Ukraine has “turned the tide’ and that “momentum” is now on the side of Ukraine have completely misunderstood the military lessons of this war.
A combination of drones, mines and satellite intelligence have made it impossible for the Russian army to create the local mass necessary for a breakthrough. As a result, the war on the ground has become a grinding stalemate, in which tiny numbers of men on both sides take (often briefly) tiny amounts of territory. However, exactly the factors that have prevented the Russians from advancing will do the same to the Ukrainians if they try to launch a major offensive.
The Westerners who demand that any peace settlement must include absolute and permanent guarantees against future Russian aggression are only displaying their strategic illiteracy. In all history, there is no example of a permanent guarantee of anything. The only way to achieve one in this case would be to permanently destroy the Russian state; and it is to guard against this possibility that Russia possesses a huge nuclear arsenal.
If the truce between the US and Iran lasts, then perhaps the Trump administration will return to negotiations with Russia and will be able to craft a viable peace. For this however European participation will be essential; because only the European Union can provide sufficient incentives to Russia and Ukraine to get them to abandon their mutually unacceptable demands.
But, we are told, “Russia refuses to negotiate”. Nonsense. What else has the Russian government been doing with the Trump administration over the past year? Moreover, during that time Moscow has radically scaled back the demands it set out in June 2024. Thus the Russian government now appears ready to accept that there will be in effect no limits on the size of the Ukrainian armed forces, with the possible exception of a ban on long-range missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory; Russia has given up the demand that as part of a peace settlement Ukraine withdraw from the whole of the provinces of Zaporizhia and Kherson, which it claimed to have annexed but has only partially occupied; and Russia has accepted Ukraine’s right to join the European Union.
Of course, this progressive abandonment of previous key demands has not been due to some miraculous triumph of morality in the Kremlin, but simply due to the fact that in two years of war, the Russian armed forces have neither achieved victory on the battlefield nor broken the will of the Ukrainian population to resist. Meanwhile, the Russian army has suffered enormous casualties; despite high financial incentives, the supply of suitable volunteers for the army is declining; the Russian economy is in increasing difficulties; and war weariness is growing in the Russian population (though this does not imply a readiness to surrender and is also true in Ukraine); and Russian establishment figures are beginning to call for an early peace.
It is in fact the European Union, not Russia, that has so far “refused to negotiate”. It has done so by setting a precondition that Russia agree to an unconditional ceasefire before negotiations can even begin. Russia has repeatedly refused this, and can be expected to go on refusing; for it would mean abandoning Moscow’s only means of leverage in talks, and facing the likely prospect of either having to return to war, or seeing NATO and the EU take steps that for Russia are absolutely unacceptable and would mean an open acceptance of defeat: namely the deployment of Western troops in Ukraine, and the continued prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. For on June 7th, the leaders of Ukraine and the “E3” (France, Germany and Britain) set out “five key principles for a future peace settlement”:
An immediate and comprehensive ceasefire by Russia; peace talks should be based on the current front line and respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and alliance choices; Ukraine should receive legally binding security guarantees, including a multinational force, after a ceasefire; Frozen Russian assets should remain blocked until Russia ends its aggression and pays reparations; and European security interests must be protected in any agreement.
If these are absolute conditions, then there will never be a peace settlement; and even if sheer mutual exhaustion eventually brings Russia and Ukraine to a ceasefire, it will be an extremely fragile and unstable one, punctuated by repeated local clashes and in permanent danger of renewed war; in other words, the situation that prevailed in Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, and ended with the full-scale Russian invasion. Or, in an international context, not the relatively stable situation on the Korean peninsula since 1953, but that in Kashmir since 1948, with all its disastrous results for Pakistan and India.
It cannot be stated emphatically enough: A long-term ceasefire without a peace settlement would be utterly contrary to the interests of both Ukraine and the European continent. The resulting clashes and insecurity would vastly complicate Ukraine’s economic reconstruction and progress towards EU membership, and would be used as an excuse to block that membership by all those economic interests in Europe who stand to lose from that membership. The need for permanent national mobilisation and militarisation would consolidate authoritarianism in Ukraine, and permanently undermine democratic reforms. The whole of Europe meanwhile would be at risk of being drawn into war. This would prevent real European “strategic autonomy” by continually driving Europe back into security dependence on the US, and therefore acquiescence in whatever crimes and idiocies the US commits in the Middle East and elsewhere. And if Trump or a future US Republican president moves to seize Greenland, Europe would be in a deeply perilous position, caught between a deeply hostile US and Russia.
It is argued that there is no point in seeking a peace settlement because in any case Russia cannot be trusted not to attack again sooner or later; but that once again is simply to say that the only security for Ukraine is the destruction of Russia. Any peace process based on a mutual assumption of the other side’s innate untrustworthiness will never reach agreement. The point in any peace negotiations is to create a mixture of deterrents and incentives that will lead both sides to conclude that on balance a return to war is not in their interests.
As far as Russia is concerned, the disincentive to future aggression has to a great extent already been created; for if hundreds of thousands of dead for minimal gains, and the demonstrated worthlessness of Russia’s huge advantages in tanks and aircraft is not a disincentive to future aggression, what on earth is? The task now before European leaders therefore is to craft incentives to Russia that will allow Putin to claim (however falsely) a measure of victory, end this war, and not renew it.
For any peace agreement, Russia will have to give up its continued demand that Ukraine withdraw from the part of the Donbas that it still holds, as this is something that no Ukrainian government can ever agree to. Europe and Ukraine will have to give up Ukraine’s right to join NATO and to accept Western troops on Ukrainian soil, as these are things no Russian government can ever agree to.
This however would not be a real sacrifice by the Europeans. For by stating publicly and repeatedly that they would not go to war to defend Ukraine, the Biden administration and the great majority of NATO governments long ago in effect stated that Ukraine cannot join NATO; and the same is true of the idea of a European force in Ukraine. Many of those Europeans who advocate such a force also say that they believe that after the war in Ukraine, Moscow will “test NATO” by attacking the Baltic States. The US commander in Europe, General Grynkewich, has now stated that US military intelligence does not believe that the Russian government has either the intention or the capability to do this.
Moreover, if Russia in future really wanted to “test NATO”, how would it do this? By attacking NATO members, and thereby facing a US administration with a choice between utter humiliation and direct war with Russia? Or by attacking a European force in Ukraine, a non-member of NATO which the US is under no formal obligation to defend?
To get Russia to give up its demand for the whole of the Donbas, the E3 should adopt a position based on the initiative of Belgian prime minister Bart de Wever and offer Moscow a deal involving the normalisation of relations, the resumption of energy purchases, and the complete suspension of economic sanctions (with a “snap back” clause stating that they will automatically resume if Moscow launches a new war). Would this be enough of a “golden bridge” for Putin to be able to save face by claiming a measure of victory? I don’t know. Nobody (except Putin himself) can possibly know until we have actually made the offer, and the sooner we do this the better for all concerned.