Budapest
At this week’s summit in Washington, D.C. NATO leaders will look – not very optimistically, some of them confused – for a peaceful way out of the war of aggression, which Russia is waging against Ukraine and thus against Europe. Noble, but futile. Instead, they should make sure that Ukraine wins this war decisively.
The war, the bloodiest and most destructive in Europe since World War II, has been going on for 10 years, starting with the annexation of Crimea and occupation of Donbas in 2014, followed by a massive invasion in 2022. If the war is allowed to continue, its third phase will target the Baltic States and Northern Europe. This very prospect recently prompted Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
We are in the midst of a third world war. More than one hundred countries are mobilizing in the crescent of crises, which since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has moved across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Far East. In the 20th century, the democracies recognized that they could not afford to lose two world wars and the subsequent Cold War. Neither can they in the 21st century afford to lose a third world war, this one initiated by fascist Russia.
Democratic countries – from the United States and Canada to Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand – are waking up to the threat to their existence posed by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Enough mistakes have been made, including the decision at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 to delay Ukraine’s accession. This was a continuation of the policy of appeasement, through which Britain and France in the 1930s encouraged German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, initially in collaboration with Stalin’s communist Russia, to open World War II.
The fact that the West allowed Putin, Hitler’s and Stalin’s clone, to get away unscathed from his attack on Georgia in 2007 and his first war against Ukraine in 2014 contributed to the Russian leader’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022. Logic dictates that, if World War III is to be confined to Ukraine, it must be won in Ukraine. This victory will require the West to fully support Kyiv and to rethink the underlying mental and political currents in Russia.
The West tends to view Russia as a wayward nation that, with a little patience and a few minor concessions, can be brought into the global legal order. This is a misconception. European and American leaders think in terms of the rule of law, of nation-states and the humanity of the renaissance, which never came to Russia, but did reach, albeit weakly, Ukraine. Russia thinks in terms of empires and power, a modus which goes back to the Mongol invasion, to Byzantium, and to ancient Rome. As long as the West does not change its thinking about Russia – that Russia can be brought to some kind of Western sanity – Russia will remain a mystery to the West.
Moscow considers Ukraine to be Little Russia and Ukrainians to be an inferior tribe, which has neither the ability nor the right to be on its own, and which belong to Greater Russia.
We can consider this Muscovite reasoning barbaric, but to no avail. It is there with its demand that all peoples, considered by the Russians to be ethnically or religiously related to the Russian Empire or located in its neighborhood, must be ruled from and by Moscow. In Europe, this applies in particular to Ukraine and Belarus, but also to a Western glacis, ranging from Finland to Bulgaria. Denmark is on the edge of this glacis. If Putin gains power in the Baltic Sea, as he intends, Denmark does not have to disappear. Denmark is the so-called near abroad and can be made a vassal state like Belarus.
The Nato-heads of state and government meeting in Washington – possibly with an exception or two – will confirm their UNWAVERING support for Ukraine, but they should go beyond that already well known position. They should declare that, whatever the costs and time involved, they will see the Ukrainians through to victory, and that in practice they consider Ukraine – the whole of Ukraine – a member of their alliance, the formality of this to be established through negotiations, which Brussels and Kyiv will begin later this year. THE STARTING POINT OF THIS PROCESS COULD BE THE EXAMPLE OF WEST GERMANY – THEN AN INCOMPLETE STATE WITH NO SECURE FRONTIER VIS A VIS THE SOVIET OCCUPIED ZONE IN THE EAST – BEING ACCEPTED IN 1955 AS A FULL MEMBER OF THE ALLIANCE.
A victory – expensive because the democracies are late – can be achieved within the next three or four years. Putin has enormous resources at his disposal, including a human mass that he sacrifices mercilessly, but he is also in a tight spot. His military stockpiles are depleting, and his economy is decaying. Both weaknesses were evident at the Führer’s recent visits to North Korea and Vietnam, where he arrived hat in hand and with a long shopping list in his back-pocket. His so-called friends in China held their noses. Beijing does not want a Russian defeat in Ukraine, but they are quite happy to let the Russians bleed themselves into a powerless colossus.
In the long term the West is strong. Negotiations here and now, which the Kremlin for obvious reasons offers on an assembly line, should be rejected. The only possible deal must be the withdrawal of Russian forces first to the contact line of 2022, then to the international border, followed by Russia agreeing to pay for the damages of its war, estimated so far to some 500 billion euros.
The summit in Washington is facing several, as yet unknown factors. US President Biden is seriously weakened and may be replaced early next year by Donald Trump, a pathological liar and convicted criminal, who has declared NATO “obsolete”, and about whom once can say with certainty that so far he has not been exposed as a paid agent of Moscow. Britain, under its new Prime Minister, Labor leader Keir Starmer, is expected to remain solidly Atlantic and solidly pro-Ukraine. France after its election on Sunday is not what it was, but the expected disaster – a semi fascist government – was avoided. Germany’s Chancellor Scholz knows the dangers, but is overcautious. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán remains a problem. He can be ignored. Turkey’s Erdogan remains a problem. He cannot be ignored, and may just be able to play a positive role. Just.
NATO’s first task – together with the EU – is now to bring Europe onto a war footing that enables Ukraine’s victory and makes clear to the Kremlin that it can either have an unpleasant peace now or a total disaster later. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians must be provided fully with all the equipment and all the money they need. First and foremost, Ukraine’s air defense must be improved beyond the fighter jets provided by several NATO countries, including Denmark. Cities like Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Odesa must be considered as European as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm and Helsinki.
The time has come for the Western democracies to put the mysteries and finer feelings of Moscow behind them and go for a military victory – for Ukraine and for Europe as such.
By Per Nyholm
*These opinions are solely those of the author. The Ukrainian Review takes no position and is not responsible for the author’s words.
Per Nyholm has been a Danish journalist since 1960. He is based in Austria and is a columnist and foreign correspondent at the Jyllands-Posten, a liberal Danish daily newspaper.
Tetiana Stelmakh adapted this text for The Ukrainian Review.
