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Ending Russia’s War: Why Ukraine’s Victory is Crucial

Russian Msta Artillery. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Russian Msta Artillery. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Presidents Putin and Trump are expected to speak about Ukraine in the coming days. Ending Russia’s war in Ukraine will be official US policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week during his interview with CBS Morning News. “It’s a war and a conflict that was started by Russia, but it is now a stalemate, a protracted and bloody conflict,” To be sure, ending the war is an important goal, but on what terms?

Rubio said that peace must be “sustainable.” However, Kyiv is currently in a poor negotiating position unless the United States significantly bolsters support. Vladimir Putin remains committed to maximalist goals in a peace settlement. This stance is dangerous. Moscow’s goals go beyond Ukraine. To prevent a larger war and achieve sustainable peace, Russia must lose in Ukraine. It is an attainable goal.

Russia’s Waiting Game on Ukraine

The real problem is that Western policymakers do not appear to believe Russia’s loss is practically achievable if anything, because Russia simply has more people to throw into the war’s meat grinder. Therefore, the argument goes, time is on Russia’s side; Moscow can drive Ukrainian forces to exhaustion. Putin, for one, is undoubtedly banking on this approach as he waits for the West to give up.

There are several steps the US can take to help Ukraine win. First, the US can empower Ukrainians to attrite the Russian military at a higher rate than Ukraine’s, if Ukraine is allowed to borrow as much as it needs, and purchase quickly the military equipment it needs. The US can also continue to toughen sanctions on Russia’s energy sector.

Second, the US needs to act outside Ukraine. It must impose global costs on Russia outside the West. Thus far, the US has failed to do this consistently and comprehensively. The lack of penalty is the reason why Russia continues to find revenue and other support to wage its war. Without the support of the global south, Russia’s resources will dwindle at a faster rate.

Putin has waged his war with the help of Iranian drones, increased trade with the Arab world – especially with the UAE, and help of North Korean soldiers on the Ukrainian battlefield. China has meanwhile provided crucial components for Russia’s defense industry. Thus, Putin has been able to raise revenue and obtain other critical resources to wage his war with the help of the global south, especially the Middle East, which is deeply tied to the European theater.

Tightening the Grip on Russia

Another problem is that the global south simply does not buy the Western narrative on the war, and at best has been ambivalent if not outright sympathetic to Russia. The US must counter Russia’s narratives in regions where they resonate the most, including the Middle East, as part of a comprehensive strategy employing multiple influence tools. 

Finally, any conversation about raising the costs on Russia comes to nuclear weapons. Russia is a nuclear power, and the potential use of nuclear weapons is a serious concern. Still, Putin is not irrational. He must know that the West will be prepared to answer any use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Putin also engages in nuclear blackmail to scare the West into concessions or to self-deter and delay or diminish support for Ukraine. 

If Putin wanted to use nuclear weapons, he’s had plenty of opportunities to do so in Ukraine over the last three years. Yet he has chosen not to, even as the fighting has intensified. And while Western leaders mull every decision on Ukraine through the prism of whether Moscow would perceive it as too escalatory, Putin has shown no such concerns about any escalatory steps taken. Trump should tell Putin that any use of nuclear weapons would result in an immediate and overwhelming response from the United States.

Russia’s resources are not infinite, and Putin knows this. This is why, for instance, Putin tried his utmost to avoid a full mobilization for as long as possible and aimed to recruit conscripts mainly outside major cities: Russia’s middle class doesn’t want to fight, and the poor simply don’t have a choice. If Putin didn’t care at all about Russia’s public opinion, he would not have criminalized referring to the war as anything other than a “small military operation.”

Russia Ukraine

Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of international military-technical forum.

Every war ultimately ends in a negotiated settlement. Still, if Putin goes into the talks with leverage over Ukraine, the outcome will only lay the foundation for a more significant future conflict. If anyone doubts that Russia’s goals go beyond Ukraine, they only need to recall that Putin himself made the war about the West when he said it was the West that started the war in Ukraine. Further proof comes to light in what former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev described Russia’s goal in Ukraine as “the creation of an open Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok.”

Russia has lost wars in the past. The 1905 war with Japan is a prime example. This loss, followed by a failed internal revolution, resulted in crucial reforms. Chief among them, perhaps, is that for the first time, Russia developed a semblance of a parliament, a nascent step towards democratization.

Sometimes only a shattering loss can force internal self-reflection, leading to a positive change. The only way to push Russia in that direction is by helping Ukraine win. But Russia’s victory will shatter American credibility and lead to the war the West sought to avoid. This year is crucial, and the stakes could not be higher.  

About the Author: 

Anna Borshchevskaya is the Harold Grinspoon Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute and the author of “Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absence.”

Written By

Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Putin’s War in Syria: Russian Foreign Policy and the Price of America’s Absense.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Zhduny

    January 25, 2025 at 8:37 am

    Victory today for ukraine’s banderovtsy is exactly the same as victory for adolf hitler in 1945.

    Totally impossible, especially with washington reportedly now cutting immediately all kinds of foreign aid for now.

    The ukros will get strangled and will wither on the vine.

    Finished. Kaput. Gone case.

    Defeat for the ukro neo-nazis is inevitable, and it spells the end of genocide joe’s pet project.

  2. Jim

    January 25, 2025 at 11:46 am

    When digging a hole of geopolitical disaster, the first rule is to stop digging.

    But, here, the author wants to keep digging to China.

    And, shoveling piles of money into a black hole… with no accounting for the endless corruption in Kiev… and Washington.

    Sorry, the American People aren’t going to be a chump for globalists, who, deep down, don’t have respect for the American People… which they see as people to be manipulated & used… then disposed of when past their usefulness.

    Nor do the ‘notables’ in Washington, D. C. … they are focused on money & power, not the Common Welfare of the American People.

    And, the author seems to want to fight to the last Ukrainian… like the neo-feudal masters in Kiev, whom dispose of their soldiers like toilet paper in a series of suicide missions.

    Also, the author seems blind to the serious risk of seeing the war metastasize into a General European War.

    Kiev isn’t worth it… a hyper-chauvinistic ideology that is repugnant to European values…

    The author writes, “Another problem is that the global south simply does not buy the Western narrative on the war…”

    Bingo!

    Neither do increasing numbers of Americans.

    The Washington narrative has been a disservice to the realities on the battlefield.

    Sadly, there are signs Trump is listening to the siren song of Washington, D. C.

    This would lead to his “owning of the war” politically… big mistake.

    It’s Biden’s war… not Trump’s, unless, he wraps himself in the Washington Narrative.

    The hand maidens of War should be rejected… their siren song is a series of lies piled on top of countless other prior lies.

    The American People will suffer… if we keep going down this path.

  3. George Taylor

    January 25, 2025 at 6:19 pm

    Neoconnery is a disease.

  4. TheDon

    January 26, 2025 at 5:45 am

    They already won.
    Russia has lost many citizens, equipment, jobs, future due tu putins dream which is a nightmare. They can continue with alliances which kill conscripts but it also will fade. Ukranians have lost men but are close to winning freedom, an honor. Russians lost loved ones on putins 3 day war. It is ruining a nation. Shortages predicted for future will be historical loss if true.

  5. Z3R0

    January 26, 2025 at 8:27 pm

    Tsar Vladimir still wants regime change in Kyiv and the de-militarization of Ukraine to turn it into a Belorus-style puppet state.

    These terms can never be acceptable to a patriot.

    The Russian people don’t insist on these terms. The imperialist warmongers in the Kremlin do.

    A militarily defensible and economically viable Ukraine in the EU is within reach, because the Ukrainian people are willing to fight, kill, and die for it and people of goodwill – like in the USA – are willing to supply the Ukrainian people the tools to grab it and keep it.

  6. Swamplaw Yankee

    January 27, 2025 at 7:07 am

    yes AB is correct. America’s Credibility is right now, today, welded to the actions of Trump.

    Yes, AB, if Trump chooses to demand that the orc muscovites return all 100% Ukrainian soil to Ukraine then America manages a Victory for the WEST.

    Yes, AB, if Trump shows weak brains in this geopolitical war game, and refuses to demand the return of all 100% Ukrainian soil then America is the immediate loser.

    One can see why Trump is shaking violently at this historic decision. Trump must wield the sharp sword blade of history and slit a throat.

    Trump loses the WEST or saves the WEST. Trump needs to announce the Trump inner need for the WEST to win or that Trump is ready to slit the throat of the WEST.

    The throat of the WEST was slit by local cowards before. In 1922 the USA refused to stop the throat slitting genocide of Christians in Smyrna. USA battleships pulled up real close to the Smyrna docks so Yankee Navy brass could more clearly hear the death scream and appreciate the sizzling of Christian bodies in the bonfires of geopolitic gamesmanship.

    Earlier, Constantinopal was betrayed by those many who so so eagerly promised military aid from far far away. 500 years later this critical lost battle for the WEST is ignored by the instant army of fellows, academics, military and political experts on Ukrainian history. They wave their publish or die pages as they pretend to be knowers of Ukrainian history.

    So, the Emperor of Constantinople armored and waded into the bloody mass battle. We all recall those Hollywood epic movies! Not.

    The big, perhaps only, question is, What about the Historic Trump? Does Trump save the neck of the weakened WEST or weasal word slit their neck? In some confidence, I do expect Trump to don a heroic type of armour and slip deeply into the real mass battle all around us! And you, AB? – 30 –

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