A Peace Deal for Ukraine

[Back to Ukraine]

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office. This was clearly never going to happen but, as I said (probably, far too often), ending the war was one promise I believed he was able to keep.

The war is an utter disaster for both Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine has lost (to date) around 20% of her previous territory, and is being steadily pushed back. Despite losing a chunk of their own territory, Russia is clearly winning the war, but very slowly and at a dreadful cost. Russia has lost maybe 850,000 soldiers killed and wounded; an additional 900,000 people have left Russia, many of them young men afraid of being conscripted; they have been forced to use convicts and North Korean half-trained soldiers; the quality of their equipment has massively declined, and continues to drop, with massive implications for the effectiveness and vulnerability of their troops. The economy is in ruins: the interest rate is 21%; GDP is growing, but only because the country is spending so much on weapons and ammunition; a combination of these factors and the economic sanctions mean the real economy needs life support - hardly anything creative, worthwhile or beneficial to the people of Russia is happening, because there is no money and no people to do it - and the cost is mounting up daily.

So why is the war continuing? In part, politics - neither side can afford to admit the truth, neither side can afford to admit they need it to stop. In part, because - up to now - Ukraine has been supported by the USA and, to a lesser extent, Europe. They have been very happy to fight a proxy war with Russia: we send weapons and ammunition, and only Ukranians and Russians get killed, while the Russian economy gets progressively weaker and will take decades to recover.

Things have changed a little recently, but while we (both Europe and the USA) were careful to give Ukraine nearly adequate supplies to defend themselves with, we gave them very little to attack with, and any missiles we gave were not to be used against Russian territory: we don't want Ukraine to win the war (who knows what Putin might do then?), but we are happy for them to keep fighting and dying and weakening Russia.

The USA is funding the war, to a sufficient extent, so they can stop the war. Trump had a simple and obvious strategy - meet Putin, and make him an offer he can't refuse: tell him he can claim victory as long as he stops fighting now; if he refuses to stop fighting, then Ukraine will be given increased resources, providing them with the ability to attack deep into Russian territory. Meet Zelenskyy, and tell him he can claim to have fought the Russians to a standstill, which is a victory of sorts; but if he refuses, then USA support will stop immediately and Russia will take the whole country. There will be details to sort out, and it's unlikely to be wrapped up in 24 hours, but neither side can afford to say no - either from an economic perspective, or from a political and PR perspective.

Of course, it turns out that Trump is not as good at making deals as he claimed, and a simple 'threats in private, smiles in public' strategy is getting undermined by public criticism.

Paul

I think your penultimate paragraph is the best hope for peace, short of one side capitulating completely. I presume and hope that Trump's strategy is something like it.

The Europeans and the UK painted themselves into a corner very quickly. Their justifiable outrage at the Russian aggression left no room for nuance. The Telegraph, Express and Mail in particular have made a huge investment in backing Ukraine, churning out propaganda about Ukraninian achievements, which I would like to think is true but needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The problem with this approach is that it makes anything less than a Ukrainian victory - i.e total expulsion of Russian from its territory - seem like failure, and it also creates a zero-sum view of the rights and wrongs. Crimea has only been part of Ukraine since 1954, so its claim to it is more tenuous than is suggested. Retaking it by force was never an option; the narrow isthmus would be very easy to defend. And I would like to be more sure that a majority of people in Donbas and Kherson think of themselves as Ukrainian. But that said, of course Russia's invasion was wrong, and we were right to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. My definitiion of the morality of violence is one area where I agree with Ayn Rand: The Initiation of Violence is immoral, as it negates the use of Reason and so diminishes our humanity (and because it is not very nice to be on the receiving end).

But when it comes to giving Ukraine just enough to defend themselves but not enough to take the war into Russia, I think this was done with the best of intentions, and it is difficult to see how else we could have done it. It is true that when total war occurs, you only win by pulling out all the stops. But for anything less, we have to be seen as the good guys: how ever many civilian casualties there have been in Ukraine, we can't afford to be responsible for many civilian deaths in Russia. And there is a very real danger that Putin would see it as a reason to escalate by attacking the West. He doesn't have to nuke London: if he only shoots down the GPS satellite, I'm not going to get my Sainsbury's or Amazon delivery, and if he cuts the major internet cables, we won't be watching Netflix for a while. IT would be interesting to see how long the Express would advocate an aggressive policy if any of that happens.

Adrian

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Adrian Roberts February 25, 2025 at 9:07pm

Paul

I think your penultimate paragraph is the best hope for peace, short of one side capitulating completely. I presume and hope that Trump's strategy is something like it.

The Europeans and the UK painted themselves into a corner very quickly. Their justifiable outrage at the Russian aggression left no room for nuance. The Telegraph, Express and Mail in particular have made a huge investment in backing Ukraine, churning out propaganda about Ukraninian achievements, which I would like to think is true but needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. The problem with this approach is that it makes anything less than a Ukrainian victory - i.e total expulsion of Russian from its territory - seem like failure, and it also creates a zero-sum view of the rights and wrongs. Crimea has only been part of Ukraine since 1954, so its claim to it is more tenuous than is suggested. Retaking it by force was never an option; the narrow isthmus would be very easy to defend. And I would like to be more sure that a majority of people in Donbas and Kherson think of themselves as Ukrainian. But that said, of course Russia's invasion was wrong, and we were right to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. My definitiion of the morality of violence is one area where I agree with Ayn Rand: The Initiation of Violence is immoral, as it negates the use of Reason and so diminishes our humanity (and because it is not very nice to be on the receiving end).

But when it comes to giving Ukraine just enough to defend themselves but not enough to take the war into Russia, I think this was done with the best of intentions, and it is difficult to see how else we could have done it. It is true that when total war occurs, you only win by pulling out all the stops. But for anything less, we have to be seen as the good guys: how ever many civilian casualties there have been in Ukraine, we can't afford to be responsible for many civilian deaths in Russia. And there is a very real danger that Putin would see it as a reason to escalate by attacking the West. He doesn't have to nuke London: if he only shoots down the GPS satellite, I'm not going to get my Sainsbury's or Amazon delivery, and if he cuts the major internet cables, we won't be watching Netflix for a while. IT would be interesting to see how long the Express would advocate an aggressive policy if any of that happens.

Adrian

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