Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ plan to end the Ukraine warThis will be a bitter pill for Zelensky and European leaders to swallowing, but the final political reckoning with strategic defeat draws ever closer as events in France are showing.
I’m reposting below Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ plan to end the war in Ukraine. It is a pragmatic and realistic plan to end a devastating war that is fast approaching five years in duration. The plan is quite simple and there is nothing that hasn’t been raised before.
Clearly - or at least to me - this is an edited version of the plan that the Trump White House has been pursuing. The biggest blockages are:
The list is longer than that, but the key point is that landing a deal, the shape and substance of which Ukraine and Europe have been resisting since the war started, represents a massive hurdle. Why? Because, at the very least, taking NATO off the table and making Ukraine a neutral state will represent an enormous strategic defeat of the west, that political leaders will have to account for to their publics, following years of open-ended and exorbitant financial commitments, during which time Europe has grown demonstrably poorer because of its war policy. So the biggest blockage to this plan is political. But the political facts on the ground in Europe, characterised by what is happening in France right now, are bringing the final political reckoning with defeat ever closer, while making the pill more bitter. I am sceptical that there is the statesmanship across European capitals to engage with this, given the high personal stakes for globalist leaders in London, Berlin, Paris and Brussels. But, as always, I live in the hope of being proved wrong. This proposed settlement—designed to help end a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation—addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms. The first is Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, adopted in a constitutional law on the model of Austria’s law of 1955, which would return Ukraine to the founding choice of its Declaration of State Sovereignty of 1990. Ukraine would join no military alliance and host no foreign bases or forces, whether of NATO, the European Union, their member states, or Russia. Neutrality would not mean disarmament, and Ukraine would retain armed forces for its own defense. The second is that Ukraine would pursue its candidacy for membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state, with a neutrality protocol in its accession treaty on the model of Ireland’s, and Russia would affirm that Ukraine’s membership in the EU is consistent with Russia’s security. The fourth is the end of NATO enlargement eastward. At signature the North Atlantic Council would declare that NATO will not admit Ukraine or other new members in Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus, withdrawing the Bucharest pledge of 2008. The settlement would take effect as a permanent end of hostilities on signature, not as a temporary ceasefire, and its provisions would be implemented in stages under international verification. No element would be negotiated in isolation, and no party would be asked to make a concession in advance of signature. A demilitarized belt would run along both sides of the armistice line, with heavy weapons and long-range strike systems withdrawn to agreed distances, and mutual ceilings on forces would apply in the border regions on both sides. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, commercial navigation would be free for all Ukrainian and Russian ports, and attacks on shipping and ports would be prohibited. The settlement in Ukraine should also begin the repair of European security as a whole. NATO and Russia would agree on a moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Europe, refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any additional state, and restore the NATO-Russia Council. Normal diplomatic relations would be restored on both sides. The parties would convene the first summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2010 to entrust the OSCE with monitoring the settlement, verifying arms limits, and overseeing the provisions on rights. Questions of language, education, culture, and religion would be resolved according to European standards, with the Russian language treated on the same basis as Ukraine’s other minority languages, and Russia would accept the same obligations toward Ukrainian speakers and religious communities on its side of the line. All obligations concerning extremism and incitement would be mutual and monitored by the OSCE. Prisoners of war would be exchanged on an all-for-all basis, detained civilians released, and separated children reunited with their families. Sanctions would be lifted during 2027. Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets would also be released, and private property seized or immobilized on both sides would be restored. An international reconstruction fund administered by the European Investment Bank would finance reconstruction on both sides of the line, with contributions from all parties, Russia included, in a common effort rather than as reparations. Gas transit through Ukraine could resume wherever there are willing buyers, without any commitment by the European Union to purchase Russian gas. A report of serious violation by an OSCE monitoring mission of unarmed observers from states outside NATO would trigger consultations among the guarantors and referral to the Security Council. Ukraine would lift martial law and hold elections under OSCE observation, and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada would ratify the settlement and adopt the constitutional law on neutrality, while the Russian Federal Assembly would ratify it at the same stage. You're currently a free subscriber to The Peacemonger. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. © 2026 ian |