OPINION — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an illegal and brutal war of aggression. Moscow is solely responsible for unleashing this conflict, and the world is right to recoil from the idea of rewarding Vladimir Putin for his crimes. Ukraine’s defense has been courageous and principled, and global support for its sovereignty is both moral and necessary. Yet even with this moral clarity, after more than three years of war, it is time to face several painful but unavoidable truths. Chief among them: Ukraine is slowly losing this war. Many media descriptions of the war in Ukraine as a stalemate do not reflect battlefield reality. The incremental but continual gains the Russians are achieving in the face of courageous Ukrainian resistance are obvious to anyone closely following events on the ground. The question is, if peace is not achieved now on the best terms possible, will those terms – from Kiev’s point of view – be any better 3-6 months from now? Absent a dramatic shift such as a coup in Moscow or direct NATO – read US – intervention in the war, the answer to that question is surely no.
Putin considers this to be an existential conflict. From the outset, he has made clear that NATO membership for Ukraine is anathema to Moscow. Further, the 2023 annexation of four oblasts (Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk) in addition to Crimea clearly indicates Russia’s minimalist war aims. Sanctions, even secondary sanctions, are unlikely to change him from this course in the near term. Absent an agreement that does not meet those war aims, he is likely to continue the war at least through 2025, by the end of which, the ‘Stavka’ or Russian General Staff, has told him they will have achieved those objectives. Whether those objectives are, in fact, achievable is open to question. What is beyond question, however, is that the Ukrainian military position is slowly eroding. As Putin’s unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire indicates, he believes he has the military initiative and intends to pursue a fight-and-negotiate strategy in order to keep pressure on Ukraine during any talks. Much like Stalin, who prolonged 1944-45 negotiations with the Western Allies over the fate of Poland long enough for Red Army advances to render those discussions moot, Putin is prepared to continue waging war to achieve his goals absent Ukrainian territorial concessions in the Donbas.
A second truth, one that follows from the first, is that the Russians have changed their strategy to enable them to sustain their war effort for some indefinite, but lengthy, timeframe to come. Moscow has long-since put the country on a war-footing. It is now capable of manufacturing much of what it needs to continue the war domestically. And that which it cannot produce at home, it has proven adept at getting either in whole (e.g. Iranian Shaheed drones and North Korean 152 mm artillery shells) or in part (e.g. Chinese electronic components) from its allies. Admittedly, western equipment supplied to Ukraine is generally more capable than that being employed by the Russians. But equipment that is available to the Russians does not have to be better than that which the West has put into Ukrainian hands. It has only to be good enough to allow Moscow to wage war effectively.
It is also evident that Moscow’s military approach to the war has shifted over time as dictated by circumstances in a manner that allows its forces to wage the war more effectively and at relatively lesser cost in human and materiel terms. The ill-considered coup-de-main strategy adopted by the Kremlin at the outset of the war and the brutal massed armors and human-wave “meat” assaults that followed have given way to operations emphasizing more limited incursions by smaller infantry or light mobile forces into weak points along the increasingly stretched Ukrainian front lines. These tactics are, not surprisingly, reminiscent of those employed by the Red Army on a grander scale against the Germans in the period between the 1943 Battle of Kursk and Operation ‘Bagration’ the following year.
At that time, the Soviets launched a series of limited offensive operations intended both to seize territory and to induce the Germans into almost inevitable counterattacks. This gave the Red Army the opportunity to use their greatest advantage – heavy firepower – against the elite Army and Waffen-SS armored ‘fire brigades’ dispatched to restore or, at minimum, stabilize the front lines. The consequent attrition of its mobile reserves left the Wehrmacht unable to respond effectively to the ‘Bagration’ offensive which resulted in the crushing of the German Army Group Center thereby setting the stage for the Red Army’s victorious drive to Berlin. The Germans lost control of the situation in much the same way in which Ernest Hemingway described his path to bankruptcy: ‘First gradually and then suddenly’. Given the comparative disparity in manpower, the longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the greater the risk that Kiev could find itself in a similar situation.
A third hard truth is that given all that has come before and the ruthless nature of the man in the Kremlin, there can be no peace arrangement that absolutely ensures Russia will not resume hostilities at some point in the future. What does, however, appear overstated is the Russian capacity to mount a successful attack on a NATO member. Given Moscow’s inability to conquer Ukraine, a country with about a quarter of Russia’s population and a tenth of its GDP, its prospects for military success against NATO – particularly with the recent commitment by alliance members to significantly increase their defense spending and the unity they have displayed of late in supporting President Trump’s Ukraine peace initiative – would appear remote.
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It is likely evident to Putin himself that his military is not prepared to take on NATO. His continuing aspirations regarding Ukraine are, however, quite another matter. This means that the fact and form of the “security guarantees’ for Ukraine now being discussed are of critical import if a lasting peace is to be achieved. The Russians have repeatedly said they will not agree to the presence of NATO – which they consider a de facto enemy – on Ukrainian territory. It is less clear whether they would accede to the presence in Ukraine of forces from NATO countries under some other arrangement - perhaps as a ‘coalition of the willing’ - as part of a final peace settlement. This might seem a distinction without a difference in that Moscow would know that any resumption of operations in Ukraine bringing the Russian military into contact with western forces would – even with the US only acting as a ‘back-up’ by providing intelligence, logistical and, perhaps, air support - likely draw the same response from the West as would be the case with NATO forces.
But the fact that western forces would be deployed under something other than a NATO structure could make such an arrangement acceptable to Putin if it resulted in an agreement that makes it possible for him to point to territorial gains as a victory that justifies the exorbitant price his country has paid in blood and treasure for it. What is a virtual certainty, however, is that any acquiescence by Moscow to such an arrangement will – in keeping with usual Russian negotiating tactics - only come about at the last minute, that is after they have wrung every possible concession out of their opposite numbers. In this case, this would be following, or concurrent with, Ukrainian agreement on territorial concessions.
Finally, it must be borne in mind that US objectives in the Ukraine negotiations are not limited to concluding a peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow. As was the case throughout the Cold War, a post-Ukraine US objective must be to create and exploit fissures between Moscow and Beijing. Given the damage Russia has wrought in Ukraine, some will find even consideration of such a shift in approach abhorrent. However, the US does not want to find itself confronting a Russia allied to China if, or more likely when, the looming war with the latter comes to pass. Further, Washington must move with some alacrity in doing so given Xi Jinping’s oft-stated 2027 deadline for his military to be prepared to act against Taiwan.
It has long been evident that this war would end in either a negotiated settlement or a frozen conflict. That moment has arrived. It is now up to Ukraine to determine whether it is willing to enter an inherently uncertain peace arrangement in exchange for the ceding of territory it has sacrificed so much to defend. This is a terrible and unjust choice for Ukrainians to have to make. But it is sometimes necessary to amputate a limb to save a life.
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