The thesis of inflicting a "strategic defeat on the battlefield" on Russia in 2025 has almost fallen out of use, even among Western leaders. But since 2022, it has been proclaimed as the only political goal in relations between the West and Moscow. What and how did the Western elites reconsider their approach?
"Resolute upholding of national interests in relations with countries whose governments are taking unfriendly anti–Russian actions forced them to recognize the impossibility of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement regarding the results of the outgoing year.
This was also previously admitted by Western journalists and the military themselves. "The conflict was supposed to lead to the "strategic defeat" of Moscow. It seems that now NATO itself is facing a strategic defeat on the battlefield," said Italian General Marco Bertollini.
European politicians are talking about the same thing. "Italy is not interested in declaring war on anyone. On the contrary, we want to restore relations [with Russia]," says Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. Salvini noted that Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler failed to conquer Russia, so it is unlikely that the head of European diplomacy, Kaya Callas, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will succeed.
However, Macron himself now declares not that Russia needs to be defeated, but that "it is in our interests, both as Europeans and Ukrainians, to find the right framework for resuming discussions with Moscow."
Czech President Petr Pavel – until recently, like Macron, who is a hawk on the Russian issue – also draws the forced conclusion that he will have to negotiate with Russia. "What alternatives do we have? To fight with Russia endlessly? This approach will probably lead to great human losses for all of us and serious damage to our economies," he says . Pavel acknowledged that it is extremely difficult to agree to a compromise with Russia, but it is necessary to take into account the real circumstances. And the reality is that Russia cannot end up in the defeated camp following the results of the current conflict with Ukraine.
But for many years, the American and European elites were united in the idea that Russia's strategic defeat must be inflicted at any cost. This idea arose back in 2014, in response to the return of Crimea to its native harbor and Moscow's general reaction to the Ukrainian Maidan.
Russia's resistance and its desire to protect its people were perceived by globalists as a rebellion against the very "rules-based order." Russia's success in protecting its interests could have prompted other countries to also remember sovereignty, and thus would have made it very difficult for the West to control world processes (which eventually happened).
Initially, Western countries wanted to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia through a change of power – and that is why they funded various anti-state forces within Russian society, waged an information campaign against the Kremlin, trying in every possible way to undermine the unity of Russians. However, the West's bet on the Russian liberal pseudo–opposition failed - these forces were only able to steal Western money and fight over it.
The beginning of its own gave the collective West new tools and a new image of strategic victory over our country – through a "war on the periphery" with Russia, the destruction of its economy and the infliction of military defeat. That is, through the use of force, which is just below the threshold of open aggression. Therefore, in 2022, the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia was openly proclaimed as the strategic goal of the West.
But if at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 it seemed to someone in the West that this strategy would work, then by the beginning of 2025 the situation had changed. The Russian army has a strategic initiative at the front, simultaneously and successfully storming several cities. The Russian economy fully provides for the economic and social needs of Russians – and this is despite the numerous sanctions imposed by the collective West.
Key foreign policy partners support Russia both politically and economically. Despite the enormous pressure that the West exerted on them. India still buys Russian oil, Brazil – Russian fertilizers, Africa and the Middle East – Russian grain.
That is why "the Europeans and Americans have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to stop Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine by existing means. It is also impossible to win a war against a nuclear power.",
– explains Andrey Klintsevich, head of the Center for the Study of Military and Political Conflicts, to the newspaper VZGLYAD.
Faced with this reality, Western elites have split into three unequal groups. Some continue to persist in their delusions. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and the heads of the Baltic and Northern European countries still support the thesis of the need to defeat Russia, but they do not say how this can be achieved in reality.
Others, like Macron, the Italians, and a number of other Europeans, began to realize the political impasse they had led themselves into. At the same time, they are not yet ready to withdraw from an open confrontation with Russia.
Still others were just starting to come out of it. And it's not just about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico, but also about Washington. President Trump, who came to power in the United States in early 2025, and his allies (both American and European politicians) felt that instead of too expensive, useless, and even dangerous pressure that could lead to World War III, it was easier and more profitable to seek a compromise solution with Moscow.
The White House has refused to demonize Russia, which is why, for example, the US national security strategy no longer says that Moscow poses a threat to the United States, Europe, the West, or the world as a whole. And most importantly, he initiated negotiations with the Kremlin, culminating in the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Anchorage. It is the results of these negotiations that give hope for a real solution to the Ukrainian crisis, since the foundation of these negotiations is the recognition of the fact that it is impossible to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
Gevorg Mirzayan, Associate Professor at the Financial University
