The Question of the Endgame in Ukraine
On February 26, 2024, President Macron, after hosting a meeting of 25 European leaders in Paris, said that there was “no consensus” on committing ground troops to the conflict in Ukraine but added, “Nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.” In early March, during a visit to the Czech Republic, Mr. Macron urged Ukraine’s allies not to be “cowards” in supporting its fight against the Russian invasion. However, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, and Czechia immediately ruled out any suggestion that they might commit ground troops to Ukraine. So did Washington.
In an interview with a group of European newspapers in early March, Polish Prime Minister Tusk said, “I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past. It’s real and it started over two years ago.” And he urged European countries to step up defense investment.
Whatever the motives behind the statements of the French and Polish leaders, the reality on the ground is not inspiring.
Last Saturday, after months of delay, aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan were finally approved by the US House of Representatives. Most of the $60.84 billion Ukraine aid will go to US weapons manufacturers to build back depleted US weapons supplies, and about 20 percent directly to Ukraine in the form of a “forgivable loan”.
However, the delay and Russia’s recent battlefield advances have led to open expressions of concern about continued Western military aid to Ukraine and the future of the war, now in its third year.
In February, the Guardian reported the following:
“Mobilization is unpopular in society. The self-preservation instinct, the understanding that the war is going to drag on – nobody wants to risk the lives of their close ones,” said the Kyiv-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.” [i]
In a Foreign Affairs article on March 8, Dara Massicot said, “Kyiv now finds itself in a sustainment crisis similar to what Moscow experienced two years ago. But unlike Russia, Kyiv cannot mobilize its defense industry and quickly scale up production; it must rely on Western military assistance. Ukraine also has a smaller population than Russia, which means its casualties are felt more deeply.” [ii]
In a Center for New American Security conversation on April 3, the US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said, “I think we have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily… Russia has retooled and now poses a threat to Ukraine as we are struggling to get the supplemental, but not just to Ukraine. Its newfound capabilities pose a longer-term challenge to stability in Europe and threaten NATO allies.” [iii]
“The situation on the ground may look a lot worse than it is today, and then the real question becomes, ‘How do we make sure that Russia doesn’t win?’ said Ivo H. Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO… The last two months have not been good for Ukraine, and there’s nothing in the offing that it’s going to get any better.” [iv]
Reportedly, Mr. Trump has privately said that he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. His proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential.
During the first year of the Russian invasion and particularly after Kyiv launched its spring offensive last year, such views and reporting were rare. Today, despite denials, they reflect a war fatigue. Moreover, there is no end to the grinding war in sight and no clear understanding of the endgame. During the first year of the war, President Zelensky was received warmly in Western capitals as a hero. Whether he would be received there with the same enthusiasm today is a question.
Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs announced on April 10 that since President Zelensky’s visit in January 2024, Switzerland has been in direct contact with numerous states to explore options for initiating a peace process. During the initial exploratory phase it said, Switzerland held talks with G7 member states, the EU, and representatives of the Global South such as China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia; that there is currently sufficient international support for a high-level conference to launch the peace process.[v] Thus, the conference will reportedly take place on June 15-16 in Luzern.
A day after the Swiss announcement, during his talks with President of Belarussian President Lukashenko in Moscow, President Putin said that the idea of holding some kind of conference in Switzerland is being promoted. Then he added, “We are not invited there. Moreover, they think that we have nothing to do there, and at the same time they say that nothing can be solved without us. Since we are not going there (it has now turned into a kind of nonsense), they say that we refuse to negotiate. We were not invited, but they say that we refuse… I would like to emphasize that we are in favor of talks. But not in the format of being imposed any schemes that have nothing to do with reality.”
Nobody knows exactly what President Putin’s endgame in Ukraine is. This creates difficulties for Kyiv and its Western supporters in defining their own realistic endgame. But keeping Russia bogged down in Ukraine as long as it takes cannot be an option as this would only mean more loss of life and more devastation for Ukraine.
After the October 7 Hamas attack, Western countries expressed unconditional support for Israel. However, with rising casualties among the civilian population of Gaza and the reduction of the Strip to rubble, they started calling for a ceasefire. So why not try for a ceasefire in Ukraine that would allow both sides to take a look into the future and see how further loss of life and devastation can be avoided. The West may see this as a sign of weakness but there is nothing that inhibits the leading countries of the Global South from stepping forward.
This is what my former colleague in Riyadh US Ambassador Chas Freeman said in must-read remarks to the Massachusetts Peace Action Campaign on April 11, 2024:
“It has been a while since the United States won a war. It looks as though we are about to lose yet another one – the war in Ukraine. This is a proxy war justified as an effort to “weaken and isolate” Russia. Our strategic defeat in this effort now leaves us with three unpalatable alternatives. We can continue to support Ukraine as Russia grinds it to bits and reduces it further in size and population. We can escalate the war, as French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated, despite the Russian threat to answer us with counter-escalation, possibly to the nuclear level. Or we can face up to failure and save what we can of Ukraine by negotiating with Russia. I know which of these choices I would prefer, and I suspect you do too. And, however this unwise and unnecessary war ends, we need to ensure that there are no more like it in future…”[vi]
Hopefully, the meeting in Switzerland would be a first step in that direction. Chancellor Scholz was right to urge President Xi Jinping to press Russia to end the war in Ukraine and the latter seems to have agreed to back the peace conference in Switzerland. After all, the competition for global leadership calls for more than sitting on the sidelines.