Vladimir Putin has bitten off more than he can chew in invading Ukraine. To be sure, the course of the war has surprised many: the author of this article, along with most Western analysts, worried Russian troops would march into Kyiv with ease, reenacting the lightning seizure of Crimea in 2014.
Instead, the Russians have faced a powerful Western democratic coalition ready to supply Kyiv with arms and a determined fighting force in the Ukrainian population, military and civilian alike. While Putin’s initial strategy of rapidly taking Kyiv faltered by April, his troops made slow yet marked gains in Ukraine’s eastern and southern provinces throughout the summer. When Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, announced in August plans for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to take back the key southern city of Kherson, few were optimistic about its chances. Most Western media outlets urged caution; despite sympathies for Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression, many feared switching to the offensive would only yield Russia more momentum.
Ukraine has surprised the world once more. In early September, Ukraine’s generals brilliantly outwitted the Kremlin by focusing its attention on Kherson while secretly coordinating a full-scale assault on Russian positions in the country’s northeast. The ruse worked spectacularly: on September 11th, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s most important general, shared that the country’s fighters had liberated over 3,000 square miles of land the Russians had spent months capturing. With catastrophe looming, Putin faces a difficult choice: continue the war at risk of churning through even more of his troops or bear the humiliation of negotiating their retreat. Mr. Zelenskyy must make an equally thorny decision: should he capitalize on his forces’ momentum to hammer the Russians back across the border—10,000 of them caught between his determined soldiers and the veritable anvil that is the Oskil river—or use chaos at the Kremlin to negotiate a profitable peace?
Ultimately, Western support for Ukraine’s efforts will determine both men’s choices. Despite sky-high energy prices—buoyed by Putin’s decision to close his gas pipelines to Europe, sending markets into turmoil—politicians across the aisle from America to Germany maintain their commitment to a democratic Ukraine. The world has come a long way from the imminent danger of a Russian coup in Europe’s second-largest country in February to the Kremlin’s humiliation today, in early September; yet regardless of Putin’s military failures, his country remains a nuclear superpower in need of deterrence. Thus, the West must take decisive action against Russia for Ukraine to continue winning this war. While an earlier strategy could have entailed negotiating with Putin—an approach formerly favored by this author at the war’s onset in February and advocated recently by many in the foreign affairs community—it is the wrong tone for the current state of the conflict.
Putin has committed too many atrocities—from shelling schools to the destruction of entire cities, to forced disappearances and civilian massacres—to justify anything other than his complete defeat. He has corrupted Russia from a fledgling democracy at the beginning of the millennium to a quasi-fascist state today—quite the irony, as he claims to be fighting fascists in Ukraine. Viewing Russia as a dictatorship that democracies could still work with—a viewpoint exemplified by Angela Merkel, Germany’s former chancellor, in her trade deals with Russia at the heart of Europe’s slavish dependence on Russian gas—is no longer sustainable. Negotiation would only signal a return to former times, to business-as-usual; most of all, Putin could spin it as a victory for himself and his brand of Russian fascism, a dangerous prospect for anyone wishing for a democratic Russia.
With Russia’s advance shattered thanks to Ukrainian ingenuity, the West should double down on its arms support for the country. American anti-air weaponry has played a critical role in stopping Russia’s air force from controlling Ukrainian skies; NATO members from the UK to Poland have also provided tanks, ammunition, guns, and drones to counter the Kremlin’s firepower. Beyond providing arms, the West must also ramp up its training activities of Ukrainian troops, particularly in offensive measures. More than six months of fighting bled Ukraine’s best battalions, and newer recruits’ training fails to match their bravery and patriotism. Moreover, years of war on the defensive—beginning with the Crimean conflict in 2014—provided Ukraine with plenty of expertise in defending but close to no insight on how to conduct offensive maneuvers.
Finally, Western officials must also continuously reassert their commitment to Ukrainian freedom. This sounds obvious, but it plays a crucial part in shaping Zelenskyy’s mindset. The biggest threat to Ukraine’s success is overreaching: spreading their troops too wide in trying to pierce the Kremlin’s defenses around Kherson while simultaneously pushing against Putin in the north. Indeed, Russia’s obstacles in invading Ukraine—the mud, the rivers, the dense urban areas—will change into assets as it defends its conquered territories; the pendulum of war could still swing toward the Russians. As they triumph on the battlefield, it is all too easy for the Ukrainian high command to push their luck too far: to overreach to show their allies that their weapons are working miracles on the field, incentivizing them to send more. Through such foreign pressure, a careful offensive could give way to an unwise yet politically enticing expedition, with disastrous effects. Thus, the West should clarify that their support is categorical, not contingent; they are with Ukraine no matter where Zelenskyy’s troops go.
Most importantly, it is time for the West to frame its demands against Putin—or rather, let Ukraine do so. By now, Putin has lost the advantages he once held; a quick Ukrainian defeat would have sealed NATO’s demise (many forget the alliance was proclaimed “brain-dead” by French president Emmanuel Macron in 2019), made Ukraine a pro-Russia buffer against the West, and justified his oppression at home as a precious antidote to Western feebleness. Instead, he has revealed the decrepit state of his military, enraged his most prized constituency, Russian nationalists, and unwittingly expanded NATO with the addition of Sweden and Finland, two countries that previously considered NATO membership anathema to their interests. More than ever, Ukraine now has the momentum to decisively drive out Russian forces: by the time Putin can recoup his losses for another invasion attempt, the country will have joined the NATO alliance, ending such a risk. If Ukrainians remain steadfast in refusing to negotiate with Putin if it implies anything less than total surrender, the West must honor their wishes.
Perhaps deft diplomacy could have avoided this war in the first place, but the hour of negotiation has long passed. Today, the West must support Zelenskyy more than ever as he frees his country—warning every tyrant with expansionist ambitions that democracies when threatened, stand up for each other.