The West is being increasingly confronted with the cold realization that Ukraine cannot win this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set as a threshold for victory, not only the recapture of territory up to his country’s prewar borders, but the reclamation of all of its territory to the 2014 border, including the Donbas and Crimea. There are few among Ukraine’s Western backers who subscribe any longer to that illusion.
But Western governments and the Western media delude their public into believing that the war is a stalemate that Russia also cannot win. This assessment is based on the unsubstantiated claim that the threshold for Russia winning is, as a start, the subjugation of Ukraine in its entirety.
But that has never been Russia’s stated goal. Just as listening to Zelensky’s stated definition of victory leads to the realization that it cannot be attained, so listening to Vladimir Putin’s leads to the conclusion that it can. Russia cannot subjugate all of Ukraine. But it has also never claimed that as its goal. Putin has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory… [it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” He has said that Russia never intended to conquer Kiev and that the early advance toward the capital was intended to force Ukraine into the negotiations that the United States declined.
Putin’s stated goals have always been a written assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO and protection of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His June peace proposal contains those very points. The proposal states that Ukraine must guarantee that it will be a non-nuclear, non-aligned neutral nation that will not join NATO. It states that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, that they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and that they must ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.
If that is Russia’s definition of victory, then it is not impossible that Russia could win the war. And the advance on Pokrovsk is bringing some of those key points closer to realization.
Ukraine’s Western partners are at a crossroad. Plans of providing Ukraine with whatever they need for as long as it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine have been replaced by reinvigorating Ukraine’s position on the battlefield to strengthen their position at the inevitable negotiating table, even if that means, as one Western columnist put it, allowing Ukraine to “bomb Putin to the negotiating table.”
That would be one side of the crossroad: escalating war to advance peace. But that road, if it crosses Russia’s red line, is fraught with hazards. The other would be to find an offroad to the war, a road that leads to diplomatic negotiations and peace. Ukraine and some of its NATO partners, perhaps most importantly Britain, are urgently pushing the former. But a growing choir of Ukraine’s partners may be beginning to consider the second road.
In a vague article that names no names, Bloomberg reports that “some of Ukraine’s allies are starting to talk about how the fight against Russia’s invasion might end.” According to the report, “officials are more seriously gaming out how a negotiated end to the conflict and an off-road could take shape.” Facing the realization that Ukraine is unlikely to improve its position on the battlefield, “some allied officials” have begun “exploring ways in which diplomacy could break the deadlock.”
One of Ukraine’s partners is Germany. In a September 7 TV interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz’ statement may mark the most significant brake in NATO unity since the early days of the war. There are even unconfirmed reports that Scholz, who recently announced that Germany would provide no financial aid to Ukraine for the war after 2025, is preparing a plan for a diplomatic settlement to the war that could include Ukraine making territorial concessions.
And, though out in front, Germany may not be alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that some European diplomats are telling Ukraine that the battlefield reality necessitates that “Ukraine needs to be more pragmatic in its wartime aims and strategy.” Senior European officials have told the Ukrainian leadership that “a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.”
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on September 16 that the battlefield reality, the “slowly but steadily” advancing Russian forces and the realization in the West that “Donbass and Crimea are beyond the military reach of the Ukrainians,” are causing some of Ukraine’s Western partners in the United States and Europe to “discreetly” discuss a negotiated settlement. A “senior French diplomat” reportedly told the Le Figaro that France, too, is now contemplating a “lasting and negotiated solution to the war.”
All of these reports point to the slow birth of momentum to choose a different path at the crossroad. Even Zelensky has said, “I feel that not all territories should be regained by hand or with weapons. I believe this will take a long time and involve a significant number of people. And I think this is a bad thing. As a result, I believe we might retake our territories diplomatically.”
But Zelensky is still trying to push his NATO partners to take the road of escalation to future peace talks. And he seems to have the backing of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Calling daily for the U.S. to sign off on using Western long-range missiles to fire deep into Russian territory, Zelensky and Starmer are advocating the “bomb Putin to the negotiating table” route.
There appear to be delays on that route while the U.S. awaits the presentation of Zelensky’s promised plan for winning the war and what it needs from the West to do that. His “Ukrainian Victory Plan” promises to identify the steps needed on the battlefield to “give us the strongest possible position to bring about peace – a real, just peace.” Zelensky promises, “For each step, there is a clear list of what is needed and what will strengthen us.” Officials expect Zelensky to request NATO and European Union membership, security arrangements, economic commitments, and a steady flow of advanced weapons. Zelensky has also promised to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.
Both roads lead to diplomatic talks. The one at “a faster pace,” in the words of Olaf Scholz, the other at risk of escalation that will, in Putin’s words, “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict” and, potentially, mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”
How seriously Ukraine’s partners take Putin’s warning will help determine which road they take at the crossroad. The lack of a decision being announced after the September 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Starmer suggests that the United States may be taking the warning seriously. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that the Biden administration would never say “that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously… He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously.”
But, more concerningly, he qualified that seriousness by saying, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.” More concerningly still, was Biden’s dismissive response to Putin’s caution. “ I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.
Which attitude prevails in Washington and which view, Germany’s or Britain’s, prevails in Europe will help determine which road is chosen at the current crossroad: escalation or a faster pace to diplomacy. The first risks crossing red lines that could pull the West into direct conflict with Russia and offers little hope of improving Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table that the second road arrives at more quickly and directly. The first seems too dangerous to consider; the second seems like dangerous folly not to consider.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
