"Our power comes from the perception of our power..."
Mikhail Gorbachev in the television series Chernobyl
It has been almost three years since Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. What should have been over in a few days has now cost Russia over 700 dead and injured. Following the election of Donald Trump in the US, voices are now being raised about starting negotiations with Putin about peace in Ukraine. Parts of Europe, and in particular German Chancellor Olof Scholtz, seem to share that opinion.
If we ignore the fact that forcing Ukraine to hand over occupied territory is morally reprehensible and encourages Russia to further aggression, it will not lead to lasting peace. Lasting peace, long-term peace that leads to increased security in Europe, will only be achieved when Ukraine's sovereignty and security can be guaranteed.
There are additional factors that must be considered.
Does Putin genuinely want to negotiate, and not just as a tactic to divide Europe?
What incentives does Russia have?
Furthermore, if Russia does not lose the war they started, what signals does that send to Russia, to China, or other dictatorships and regimes around the world? What should Taiwan think the promises of the West are worth?
When the European security order collapses, how does Europe benefit? The fact is that Europe, more than the United States, needs to support Ukraine, economically and militarily. It is not just about defending European values, but about rational security interests. A strengthened Russia is a greater threat to us all.
That the EU, with a population of almost 450 million, cannot protect Ukraine from Russia, with a population of 140 million and purchasing power parity with Germany[1], is worrying to say the least.
In this article, I want to highlight two main tracks. First, that Russia has no will to negotiate, and very few incentives to do so. Second, that Europe has not only the incentives but also the tools to make Russia lose, and thereby force them to the negotiating table. A lasting peace in Europe requires that Russia lose, that they are aware that they have lost, and that Europe will respond to provocations with force.
Part I – The Russian position
It is worth recalling what Russia has previously demanded of the West and Ukraine. In December 2021, almost three months before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia released a list of demands for NATO and Ukraine. Russia demanded that Ukraine be banned from joining NATO, and that NATO withdraw its troops and close all bases in countries that joined the Western defense alliance after 1997. NATO would thus leave Poland and the Baltic states, among others, completely without protection.[2] Furthermore, NATO would not be allowed to hold exercises in Central and Eastern Europe without Russia's prior approval. It was nothing more than a blatant attempt to usurp its old "sphere of interest."
Today, Russia's maximalist demands on Ukraine remain. The demands, Carnegie writes, imply that Ukraine capitulates and abandons its sovereignty.[3] In June, Putin demanded that sanctions against Russia be lifted, and that Ukraine abandon Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts, and that these be internationally recognized as Russian territory.[4]
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted in November 2024 that the Russian demands on Ukraine in March 2022 would have meant the country’s “complete surrender, disarmament, and the country would be forced to abandon its sovereignty, land, and people.” Ukraine’s army would be reduced to 50 men, that the country would not be allowed to develop, produce, purchase, or use missile systems with a range longer than 000 km. At the same time, Ukraine would be forced to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics, and bear the cost of rebuilding them!
Ukraine, writes ISW, would be forced to give up a large part of its military, offensive and defensive capabilities, territory, a significant part of its population and economic capacity. The country would stop protecting its language, history and culture.[5] This is worth remembering when Ukraine is accused of not wanting to negotiate in good faith with Russia.
From the Russian side, there are several advantages to continuing the war. Sergey Radchenko, a professor at John Hopkins University, writes in The Spectator that there are a number of reasons why Putin wants to continue the war.
First, the bulk of the war is taking place on Ukrainian soil, Kursk excepted. In a war of attrition, Russia has several advantages, including a larger population and an expanding war industry. Russia continues to make small but consistent advances in the Donbas. Furthermore, Radchenko writes, there is little reason to believe that Putin would not take the chance to annex all of Ukraine if given the opportunity. Putin “did not build up his massive war machine for small gains in the Donbas. The ambition is not to divide Ukraine, it is to conquer it.”[6]
The second reason, according to Radchenko, is Putin's (so far) reasonable expectation that Western support for Ukraine will decline even further. A pessimistic Radchenko describes that, despite the rhetoric, few in Europe seem to see the war as existential. The Europeans are asleep and the Americans are distracted and have started to focus more on China and the Middle East.
The third and final reason, according to Radchenko, is that the war has consolidated Russian society around the regime, and a victory would radically raise Putin's status. Once Putin wins, he can then build relations with Europe by referring to a new status quo.[7]
Radchenko, who wrote his article in October, describes how Putin is really hoping to reach an agreement with Germany. If an agreement could be reached, it would be an “almost fatal blow to NATO’s credibility and European unity” – both reasons for Putin to continue on the path he has chosen.[8]
Not even a month after the article was published, on November 15, German Chancellor Scholz and Putin spoke for the first time since December 2022. In the conversation, he reportedly said that Russia should be prepared to negotiate with Ukraine for a “just and lasting peace…” Ukrainian President Zelensky, who was not present at the conversation, said that Scholz had opened Pandora’s box.[9]
Part II – What the West should do
So what should the West, and Europe in particular, do?
The first thing required is the realization that the price of a Ukrainian loss will undoubtedly be significantly higher than the price of Ukraine winning and being able to regain its occupied territories. It is important to point out, as Ukrainian MP Dmytro Natalukha did in 2023 in Foreign Affairs, that any territorial concessions to Russia invite further aggression.[10] As long as Russia avoids losing outright, the occupied territories will be used for the next aggression – similar to what happened after the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015.
Angela Stent at the Brookings Institution points out in the same article that Russia has violated every security agreement it has had with Ukraine over the past thirty years. In 2008, Putin said that “Ukraine is not a real country.”[11]
Putin wants to continue conquering and occupying all of Ukraine. Ukraine has documented more than 20 cases of Ukrainian children being kidnapped to Russia or occupied territories for indoctrination.[12] What will be the consequences for Ukraine, and Europe, if Russia is allowed to occupy large parts of, or all of, Ukraine?
In April 2024, Branislav Slantchev and Hein Goemans pointed out that negotiations, such as Scholz hopes for, are in many ways unlikely, and no form of “creative diplomacy” can change the conditions on the ground or among the political leadership of each country. 79 percent of the Ukrainian population prefers democracy to other forms of political leadership, 80 percent want to join NATO, and the war has helped strengthen Ukrainian identity.[13] The brutal truth is that, as Slantchev and Goemans point out, Ukraine's sovereignty exists only to the extent that it can be defended from Moscow's violence.
But if direct negotiations are not likely, what is the alternative?
First – Europe must not only continue to support Ukraine economically, but also increase military support. The economic sanctions that are currently in place are working, but significantly more can be done. The second is to recognize that the historically antagonistic Russia is back.[14] The third is to relate to Russia as above, and act accordingly.
In early November, Zelenskyy pointed out that what Ukraine needs are weapons, not “help” in negotiations. As he himself pointed out, Western politicians have embraced Putin for over twenty years – “and things are only getting worse. He only thinks about war, and he will not change.”[15]
While Western support for Ukraine appears to be relatively stable, Europe must take greater responsibility as exactly how the US will act in 2025 is unclear. At the same time, the European Union delegation to the US writes that “this is not the time to weaken our support for Ukraine. Ukraine can only defeat Putin’s aggression if it stands firmly on American and European support.”[16] However, the G7 was able to agree at the end of October on a new financial loan to Ukraine of fifty billion dollars, which will be repaid by the interest on frozen Russian funds in Western banks.[17]
In mid-November, the news finally came that the US would allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles against targets in Russia. The ATACMS that have been delivered have a range of over 35 miles, and despite Russia having withdrawn several of its aircraft beyond their range, there are a number of military targets that Ukraine could strike.[18] As a direct consequence of the American decision, it is likely that the UK will hand over more Storm Shadows, with a range of 25 miles, to be able to attack targets in Russia.
British Defense Secretary John Healey told parliament on November 18 that “I am not going to compromise on operational security and comment on long-range systems today… the Prime Minister has been clear, as I am today, that we must continue to support Ukraine.”[19] Already on November 19, news came from Ukrainian sources that ATACMS had been used to knock out a logistics facility in the Russian Bryansk Oblast.[20]
Before President Biden hands over to President-elect Trump, there is just over seven billion dollars that has already been authorized to be used to send existing military equipment to Ukraine, and the United States and Europe are now working to ensure that Ukraine has what the country needs through 2025.[21]
Part III – The Russian Variable
A central variable that is rarely discussed when negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are discussed is the increasingly negative economic situation in Russia. For despite all the propaganda and the country's perceived inevitability, things are not going well for Russia. Russian losses, after less than three years of war, are estimated to be ten times higher than Soviet losses after ten years in Afghanistan.[22]
In addition to the human losses suffered by Russia, its economy is in shambles – despite the numbers looking promising on the surface. In an article in Foreign Policy, Marc Devore points out the problems Russia faces, and above all points out that “the narrative that Russia has the resources to win if it chooses [to continue the war for several years] does not hold up.”[23]
The EU could today speed up the process by cutting off the flow of thirty percent of the Russian oil tankers – as they are Greek-owned.[24] The EU could also throttle the supply of equipment to Russia via Kyrgyzstan through secondary sanctions. Since the Russian invasion, imports to the country have exploded.
Russian GDP grew by 3,6 percent in 2023, and is expected to grow by 3,9 percent in 2024. Unemployment, which was 4,4 percent before the invasion, is now 2,4. Since the invasion began, more than half a million people have started working in the defense industry, and an estimated 180 in the Russian armed forces.
But the numbers are misleading. Today, a kilo of potatoes in Russia costs seventy-three percent more than at the beginning of the year, butter thirty percent more, and mortgage interest rates have been raised to twenty-eight percent.[25]
Already today, Russia is losing more pieces on the battlefield than they can replace, and sometime in 2025, Russia will have serious deficiencies in several areas.[26]
Russia is estimated to lose about 100 tanks and 220 artillery pieces a month. But Russia can only produce 20 a month. Sometime in 2025, the country will run out of gun barrels unless China starts replacing them. Currently, they lose an average of 155 different types of combat vehicles a month, and the industry can currently build about 200 per year, or seventeen a month.
Due to a shortage of labor, inflation has increased, and in October it was over 8,5 percent.
At the same time, the Russian military is estimated to swallow up to forty-one percent (!) of the state budget by 2025, or seven percent of Russian GDP. In reality, the figure could be even higher if you include the internal security forces and private military companies like Wagner.
At the same time, Russia has put itself in a situation where demobilization and a return to more sustainable spending could lead to an economic downturn. This is because the civilian industry has declined over the same period and cannot pay similar salaries to the defense industry or the military. The interest rate, currently at 21 percent, has made it almost impossible for companies to borrow money.
Russia, DeVore says, “will not be able to continue the war beyond late 2025, when it will begin to run out of crucial weapons systems.”[27] The problem for Russia, and the West, is what happens afterwards. If Russia cuts its armed forces, it risks a recession, but if it continues to spend at current levels, it risks a situation similar to the one in the late 80s, where military spending strangles the private sector and economic growth. Devore points to a worse, third option – Russia could continue to use its military to try to capture the economic resources needed to continue its high spending.
Part IV – Forward!
There is thus a practical, not just a morally correct, reason to ensure that Russia loses in Ukraine. First, Russia must be pushed back to its internationally recognized borders and then forced to demobilize and compensate Ukraine economically. In exchange, the EU could gradually lift certain sanctions and ensure that Russia acted within certain clearly defined frameworks. At the same time, the EU must realize that the 90s are over, and a more normal relationship in the future with Russia is likely to resemble, at best, that of Western Europe with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.
Russia will remain, regardless of what the EU does, an antagonistic party for the foreseeable future. Despite the difficult situation for Ukraine, Russia has not managed to occupy more than one percent of the country's territory during the year.[28] Despite restrictions and half-measures, Ukraine has managed to occupy parts of Kursk. Ukraine remains free 1000 days after the full-scale Russian invasion.
Europe lives with Ukraine.
It is our duty to support Ukraine not only for as long as necessary, but until the country has triumphed.