Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba published a signed article in Foreign Affairs analyzing the illusion and danger of defeatist voices, pointing out that every dollar invested in Ukraine's defense has brought a clear security dividend to supporters, allowing Ukraine not only to successfully defend itself against Russian aggression, but also to avoid a catastrophic escalation of the situation in Europe.
Nearly two years ago, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With the advent of another winter of war, voices of skepticism about the prospects of Ukraine are growing, not at diplomatic conferences or meetings on military planning, but in news reports and expert comments. Most people do not openly advocate that Ukraine should simply abandon the fighting, but this pessimism, underpinned by so-called pragmatism, clearly has dangerous and erroneous strategic implications.
These skeptics believe that the current situation on the battlefield will not change and that the Ukrainians will not be able to retake more territory due to the more resources that Russia has. They believe that international community support for Ukraine is weakening and will decline sharply in the coming months. They mentioned"War fatigue", and the so-called bleak prospects for our troops.
The skeptics are right, our recent **, did not liberate the occupied territories with lightning speed, as the Ukrainian army did in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson in the fall of 2022. Over the past few months, observers, including some Ukrainians, have expected similar results, and many have fallen into pessimism when success does not come immediately.
But pessimism is not necessary, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism dictate our future policy decisions. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on the right track. Ukraine's victory requires strategic endurance and foresight, and just like our most recent **, the liberation of every square mile of territory will require great sacrifices on the part of our soldiers.
But there is no doubt that victory is achievable.
In the brutal war in Ukraine for nearly two years, Putin has escalated the war to the point where it is impossible to give up halfway. Unless Russia is clearly defeated in Ukraine, any other outcome will have a disturbing repercussion, and not just for Ukraine, but globally, and ultimately threaten the United States and its allies as well.
The world's leaders and aggressors are closely watching the results of Putin's military adventures. Putin's successes, even if partial, will motivate them to follow in his footsteps. And Putin's failure will make them understand the stupidity of trying.
The stage of victory.
A war of this magnitude was fought in stages. Some of these stages may be more successful than others. What matters is the end result, and in Ukraine this means both the full restoration of our territorial integrity and the bringing to justice those responsible for international crimes, with clear and feasible goals.
Achieving these goals will not only ensure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, but also ensure that other malign forces in the world do not think that simply imitating Putin will eventually be rewarded.
The war at this stage will not be easy for both Ukraine and our partners. Everyone wants a quick Hollywood-style breakthrough on the battlefield that would quickly dismantle the Russian occupation. While our goals will not be achieved overnight, the continued support of the international community for Ukraine over time will ensure that the counterattack will yield tangible results on the front lines, gradually destroying the Russian army and thwarting Putin's plans for a protracted war.
Some skeptics counter that while such a goal is just, it simply cannot be achieved. In fact, our goals remain militarily viable as long as there are three factors: adequate military assistance, including jets, drones, air defense**, artillery shells, and long-range capabilities that allow us to strike deep behind enemy lines;The rapid development of industrial capacity in the United States, Europe and Ukraine can not only meet Ukraine's military needs, but also replenish the defense stocks of the United States and Europe;Take a principled and realistic approach to the prospects for negotiations with Russia.
With these elements in place, our efforts will make significant progress on the front lines.
However, this requires that we not deviate from the direction and conclude that the struggle is hopeless simply because it does not meet the expectations of some observers at a certain stage. Even in the face of major challenges, Ukraine has achieved remarkable results in recent months. We have won the battle to defend the Black Sea, thus restoring stable maritime exports that benefit our economy and global food security.
We made progress on the southern front and recently seized a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. Elsewhere, we withstood the onslaught of the Russian army, inflicting heavy losses on the Russian army, including thwarting Russian attempts to attack Avdiivka and Kupyansk.
Despite the great efforts of the Russian army, they have not been able to achieve any results on the battlefield.
In fact, over the past year and a half, the Ukrainian army has proven capable of taking skeptics by surprise. Since February 2022, Ukrainian forces have liberated more than half of the territory occupied by Russia, against all odds. It didn't happen overnight, after liberating northeastern Ukraine in the first months of the war, we lost some positions in the east and then regained momentum.
This series of circumstances shows why it is misleading to draw conclusions based on a single stage of fighting. If the war had been based only on numbers, we would have lost long ago. Russia may try to outnumber us, but the right strategy, advance planning and adequate support will allow us to strike back effectively.
The fallacy of negotiations.
Some analysts believe that a ceasefire to freeze the conflict is a realistic option for now. Proponents of such a program believe that this will reduce Ukraine's ** and allow Ukraine and its partners to focus on economic recovery and reconstruction, integration into the EU and NATO, and the long-term development of our defense capability.
The problem is not only that now a ceasefire will reward Russian aggression. A ceasefire will not only not end the war, but will only suspend the fighting until Russia is ready to advance inland again. During this period, the Russian occupation forces can fortify their positions with concrete and minefields, making it almost impossible for them to be driven out in the future, and millions of Ukrainians will suffer decades of repression under the occupation.
Russia's 2024 budget for the occupied Ukrainian territories, up to 32 trillion Russian rubles (about $35 billion), which is a clear indication of Moscow's plans to be stationed for a long time and suppress resistance to the occupation authorities.
Moreover, whatever the argument that such a scenario would be less costly for Ukraine and its partners, the reality is that such negotiated ceasefire options are simply not on the table. Between 2014 and 2022, we conducted about 200 rounds of various forms of negotiations with Russia, and 20 ceasefire attempts in the 2014 skirmish following Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine.
Our partners put pressure on Moscow to be constructive, but when they ran into the Kremlin's diplomatic wall, they insisted that Ukraine must take a step"Step 1", if only to prove that Russia is the problem.
Following this erroneous logic, Ukraine made some painful concessions. What does this lead to?Russia launched a full-scale offensive on February 24, 2022.
It is both immoral and naïve to declare once again that Ukraine must take the first step.
If the front line is frozen now, then there is no reason to believe that Russia will not take advantage of such a respite and plan a more violent offensive in a few years, in which not only Ukraine, but also neighboring countries and even NATO member countries are likely to be involved. Those who believe that Russia will not attack NATO countries after celebrating its success in Ukraine should recall how unimaginable a large-scale invasion of Ukraine seemed just two years ago.
Supporting Ukraine is not a handout.
Skeptics also argue that supporting Ukraine's struggle for freedom is too costly to last indefinitely.
We Ukrainians are fully aware of the amount of aid we receive from the United States, European countries and other allies, and we are very grateful to the countries**, legislators and individuals who have extended a helping hand to our country at war. We manage these supports in the most transparent and accountable way possible: U.S. inspectors of military aid to Ukraine have found no evidence of significant waste, fraud, or abuse.
This support is not, and never has been, a handout. Every dollar invested in Ukraine's defense has paid a clear security dividend for supporters, allowing Ukraine not only to successfully defend itself against Russian aggression, but also to avoid a catastrophic escalation of the situation in Europe.
And Ukraine is doing all this with U.S. assistance, which together accounts for about 3% of the U.S. annual defense budget. What's more, much of that money is actually spent in the United States, funding the U.S. defense industry, supporting the development of cutting-edge technology, and creating jobs in the U.S., which is why some local U.S. business leaders have spoken out against withholding or cutting military aid to Ukraine.
Moreover, despite the fact that the United States is Ukraine's largest defense partner and Washington has shown exemplary and vital leadership in securing support for Ukraine, the United States has hardly taken responsibility alone. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently noted, other NATO member states, including European countries and Canada, account for more than half of Ukraine's military assistance.
A number of countries provide more aid as a percentage of GDP than the United States: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Germany's aid continues to grow, becoming the largest absolute supporter of Ukraine in Europe.
Some skeptics are trying to portray Ukraine's struggle for freedom as yet another futile one"Forever war", but they ignore these facts. Ukraine has never asked the United States to station troops there. Our agreement is fair: our partners provide us with everything we need to win, and we do the rest ourselves, defending not only our borders, but also the borders of global democracy.
The United States has spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to build and protect an international order that maintains and protects democracy and a market economy that ensures the security and prosperity of Americans. It would be foolish to abandon this investment now. If democracy is allowed to collapse in Ukraine, America's adversaries will sense America's weakness and understand that aggression pays off. The cost of defending the United States*** from such threats will be several times higher than supporting Ukraine and could trigger decades of global upheaval, with unpredictable results.
Scholars and analysts often warn that World War III will involve a nuclear conflict between the great powers. But they may ignore the risk of a small hot war between countries, where large powers feel empowered to take advantage of small neighbors, as in World War I, not World War III.
Without a shared commitment to victory in Ukraine, Russia's aggression could mark the beginning of such a world after the fact.
Listen to the Ukrainians.
No country in the world is more eager for peace than Ukraine. It's not that we want this war to drag on indefinitely, but Putin wants it to be so (Zelensky's"A ten-point peace plan"showed us the way to peace).
Ukraine is paying the greatest price for this war. We're losing some of the best guys every day. There is hardly a Ukrainian family that has not directly felt the pain of war. In many cases, our fighters have been in service for more than 20 months, trapped in muddy or icy trenches every day under the bombardment of the Russians, with no date for returning home;Whether under brutal air raids or occupation, the number of civilians is constantly increasing;Ukrainian children were stolen and then taken by Russian families"Adoption"Accepted"Re-education"The horror continues to haunt us all.
However, even in the midst of suffering, exhaustion and struggle, Ukrainians are unwilling to give up and choose at any cost"Peace"。According to a recent survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 80% of Ukrainians oppose territorial concessions to Russia. Another poll shows that 53% of Ukrainians are willing to endure years of wartime suffering for Ukraine's victory.
Ukrainians will not be ready to give up even in the face of a significant reduction in foreign aid: a poll by the New European Center in November showed that only 8% of Ukrainians believe that this reduction should prompt us to negotiate with Russia. 35% believe that Russia's willingness to withdraw its troops from Ukraine is a necessary condition for the start of negotiations, and 33% believe that negotiations should not begin under any circumstances.
Western analysts, who urge Ukraine to accept a hasty ceasefire under unfavorable conditions, ignore these views. For years, policymakers and experts in Europe and the United States have not heeded Ukraine's warnings about diplomacy with Russia, imagining that business as usual is no longer possible. It wasn't until there was a massive invasion and great destruction and suffering that they realized that Ukraine's warnings were correct. They should not fall into the same trap again.
Allies at war.
In the summer of 1944, in the weeks following the Allied landings on D-Day in World War II, the headlines in Allied capitals were often pessimistic:"The Allied forces slowed down"、"Delays in Normandy: Over-cautious Allied forces and bad weather were considered factors affecting progress"、"The American officer explained that the terrain slowed down the tank"。
Even with the success of the Allies in Normandy, a massive campaign was carried out in the German-occupied Netherlands in September 1944"Market Garden Action"It's still challenging. It was expected that this operation would end the war, but the results were limited and the Allies suffered heavy losses.
However, the gloomy headline and disappointing, even costly, setbacks did not lead the Allies to give up.
At the end of last month, I attended a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. What impressed me the most was the very different atmosphere inside and outside the venue. Outside the venue, reporters began to ask questions asserting that the war had fallen in"Stalemate"，"War fatigue"will weaken the approval ratings, and then wonder why Ukraine is not willing to trade territory for peace.
However, this defeatist rhetoric did not emerge in the official discussions, and ministers made a firm commitment to provide more military assistance and continued support.
However prevalent the false theory of attrition, we should not allow it to put decision-making and our common strategy on a catastrophic trajectory. Nor should we be deceived into believing that Moscow is ready to negotiate a fair settlement.
Choosing to accept Putin's territorial claims and reward his aggression would be an admission of defeat, which would cost Ukraine, the United States and its allies, and the global security architecture as a whole.
Persistence in the end is a daunting task. But we know how to win, and we're going to win.