View from London: Ukraine’s shifting war aims

Kyiv
Photo: Reuters

Ukraine is going into its third winter of war with the mood darker than ever, writes ‘The Financial Times’.

In the east, its troops are losing ground to the grinding advance of their Russian adversaries. With half its power generation shattered, Ukrainians face spending hours a day without light or heat in the coldest months.

In Washington and some western capitals, meanwhile — and in the corridors of Kyiv — the mood is shifting: from a determination that the war can end only with Russia’s army driven from Ukraine, to the reluctant recognition that a negotiated settlement that leaves the bulk of the country intact may be the best hope. Yet Kyiv is not being given the support it needs even to achieve that scaled-back goal.

Ukraine’s prospects are clouded above all by the danger that Donald Trump wins next month’s US election and seeks a swift end to the war, as he has pledged. Some US and European officials hope Trump could at least be dissuaded from forcing Kyiv into an adverse deal with Moscow that would pose grave risks for future European and American security.

Yet grappling simultaneously with an escalating Middle East war, even some western capitals that previously insisted on the need to defeat Russia’s Vladimir Putin militarily are recalibrating their goals. Some Kyiv officials, too, fret in private that they lack the personnel, firepower and western support to recover all territory seized by Russia. There is talk behind closed doors of a deal in which Moscow retains de facto control over the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine it has occupied — though Russia’s sovereignty is not recognised — while the rest of the country is allowed to join Nato or given equivalent security guarantees. Under that umbrella, it could rebuild and integrate with the EU, akin to West Germany in the cold war.

This scenario relies, however, on ambitious assumptions. One is that the US and its allies must be prepared to offer Nato membership or the necessary guarantees, when they have so far been reluctant to grant Kyiv a binding path into the alliance. It would require a huge and costly deployment of forces by the US and its partners — and leave them on a cold war-style tripwire.

A second assumption is that Russia’s president can be induced to negotiate and accept such a scenario. But preventing Ukraine from joining Nato was one of his ostensible war aims. It is doubtful, too, that Putin has an incentive to agree to land-for-peace talks while he believes his forces can still expand their gains.,,

…Bingo! There is no longer talk and confidence in the West to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. They have begun to actively promote ‘the need for negotiations’.

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