The west must decide it wants Ukraine to win

The choice in the war is between defeating Russia or accepting a bloody stalemate

The war in Ukraine is approaching a critical juncture. The coming spring could see a decisive Ukrainian counter-offensive. Or it could mark the beginning of the conflict’s slide into protracted stalemate. The courage and strategic superiority of Ukraine’s army is not in doubt. The time has come for the western powers to make a choice.

The equivocation at the heart of the west’s response to Russia’s war is easily stated. Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to succeed in his aggression. The west cannot acquiesce in the collapse of Europe’s security order. But governments are fearful also of the consequences of Russia’s defeat. Moscow must not be “provoked”. So military support for Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has been carefully calibrated. Missing from this calculation has been an honest admission of the west’s own pivotal role in deciding the outcome.

Not so long ago I listened to a European foreign minister set out Nato’s war aims. For all the hesitancy of Germany’s Olaf Scholz and the occasional grandstanding of France’s Emmanuel Macron, Nato governments, this minister insisted, were fully united in theirs determination that Putin must be thwarted. A Kremlin victory would be a grievous blow to the rules-based international system. His rhetorical resolve, however, betrayed an unspoken distinction. As often as he repeated that the Russian leader must be “unsuccessful”, the minister would not say he should be “defeated”.

The ambiguity has chilling implications. The west, it says, is ready to make sure Ukraine can halt, even push back, the Russian advance. But it remains unwilling to provide sufficient military hardware to allow Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky to secure a decisive victory over Putin’s forces. 

If not now, when? In the judgement of military strategists, Putin has never been weaker. In Russia, the war is a broken promise, abroad an embarrassment. His good friend China’s Xi Jinping is said to wring his hands with despair. Putin makes long, rambling telephone calls to supposed allies in a vain attempt to win back support. 

Russian forces were supposed to be in Kyiv within days. Instead they have been defeated and depleted. Hollowed out by heavy casualties and equipment losses, short of guided munitions, and dependent on ill-trained conscripts led by demoralised commanders, the invading army is no match for a Ukrainian force melding western weaponry and strategy with fierce national resolve. Holding territory during the winter months is one thing. Spring promises another story.

And yet. Even as Nato leaders point to Russian weakness, they are reluctant to contemplate  anything resembling an unambiguous military resolution. More likely, your hear western policymakers say, Ukrainian forces will struggle to capitalise on their battlefield successes and force Putin to the negotiating table. The most likely outcome remains a bloody stalemate that, in spite of Ukrainian victories, leaves Moscow in control of much of the Donbas as well as of Crimea. 

The uncomfortable truth is that if this indeed proves to be the outcome it will be because of decisions taken in Washington, Berlin and Paris. Simply put, Zelensky can win if the west supplies the right weapons - precision artillery systems, sophisticated air defences, and yes, battle tanks - in sufficient quantities. Providing only enough to deprive Russia of “success” would make stalemate a self-fulfilling prophecy.. 

This tension is now playing out in the debate among Nato governments as to whether to meet Ukraine’s request for western tanks. Thus far, Poland and the Czech Republic have sent about 200 Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Kyiv. France has announced the dispatch of armoured fighting vehicles and Britain is talking about supplying a handful of ageing Challenger tanks. The game-changer, however, would be provision of German-made Leopard tanks. By denying them, Scholz has thus far signalled he would prefer stalemate over defeat. 

None of this is to say that the west should throw caution to the winds. For all its losses in Ukraine, Russia still wields fearsome military power. The US especially has a responsibility to avoid giving any credence to Putin’s claim that Russia is fighting an existential war against Nato.

Periodic threats of nuclear escalation cannot be brushed aside, however wild they seem. Above all, US president Joe Biden must show unflinching respect for the vital line between necessary support for Ukraine and the dangerous demands of hawks on both sides of the Atlantic to set the west’s goal as regime change in Moscow. 

Biden, however, should also weigh the enormous costs for European and global security of abandoning deterrence and succumbing to nuclear blackmail. To do so would be to re-empower Putin, condemn Ukraine to never-ending conflict, and leave the eastern half of the European continent in a state of permanent insecurity. 

It is a truism to say that wars always end in negotiation. The Ukraine conflict is no exception. And, yes, Russia has legitimate interests in the security structures in its neighbourhood. What happens now on the battlefield, however, will shape the terms of eventual negotiation. The west should be absolutely clear that its goal is not to humiliate Putin. It should be equally explicit that it will give Zelensky the help he needs to defeat Russian forces occupying Ukrainian territory.