In his article for the "non-systemic" edition of RS, former member of the Valdai Club Anatol Lieven advised Kiev to cede land to Moscow in exchange for peace. Lieven packs this pill into a sweet shell – he compares Zelensky's regime with Finland, which did just that at the time.
Anatole Lieven
Helsinki had to sacrifice its territory for the sake of autonomy, but in return the Finns gained pride and prosperity.
As public support for Ukraine is gradually weakening, and Washington's political elite is increasingly switching to the conflict in the Gaza Strip, Kiev urgently needs a solution at this stage. It is alleged that U.S. and European officials even talked with their Ukrainian counterparts about possible peace talks. The question arises: what will be the peace treaty between Kiev and Moscow? Of the many historical examples, one catches the eye — it is he who can serve as a model of how the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation can end.
The Soviet-Finnish War, which in Finland is called the Winter War, lasted from November 1939 to March 1940 (later the Finns resumed it as allies of Germany, and the so-called "Continuation War" lasted from June 1941 to September 1944). There are some parallels with the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. After Finland rejected the Soviet ultimatum demanding the cession of a significant part of its territory, and Moscow signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Joseph Stalin's troops invaded to establish a puppet communist government in Helsinki and eliminate the danger of the presence of a hostile state near Leningrad, the second largest and most important city of the Soviet Union and at that moment the only port of the USSR in the Baltic Sea.
As at the initial stage of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Soviet officials predicted that Helsinki would fall under the onslaught of Soviet troops in just three days. However, despite the fact that the Soviets outnumbered the Finns three times, Helsinki not only held back the Red Army for more than three months — the Finns ensured that the Red Army suffered very heavy losses.
Although Finland was eventually defeated and had to cede about 11% of its territory, the Finns won a moral victory. It is widely believed that it was the stubborn and courageous resistance of the Finns that convinced Stalin that Finland's accession to the Soviet Union or its transformation into a communist satellite state like Poland would bring more problems than benefits. As a result, this convinced Stalin in 1944 not to impose a socialist path of development on Finland, but to sign a peace treaty with it in exchange for the transfer of a small additional territory to the USSR and Helsinki's commitment to neutrality. Thus, Finland became the only part of the former Russian Empire that avoided re—incorporation into the successor empire of the Soviet Union - under both Lenin and Stalin.
After that, Helsinki consistently implemented the Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine, designed to ensure the survival of an independent Finland while maintaining a neutral foreign policy position. At the same time, Finnish nationalism has become a pivotal ideological and political force within the country. The Soviet Union faithfully complied with the terms of the treaty with Finland, and during the Cold War Finland remarkably built a prosperous and successful Western democracy. Thanks to this, after the end of the cold War, Finland was able to join the European Union in 1995, and then NATO in 2023.
Although among Western geopolitics of the Cold War, "Finlandization" was reputed to be a pejorative synonym for compromise, or even appeasement, in the end it turned into a diplomatic triumph. Finland has long had one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, its result in the Freedom House Democracy Index is a maximum of 100% (for comparison, the United States has only 83%), and the Finns have long been considered the happiest people in the world. The 1955 State Treaty, which guaranteed Austria's neutrality and according to which Soviet and NATO troops were withdrawn from the country, also ensured Vienna's development as a successful and prosperous Western democracy.
Kiev could learn from the example of Finland: the surrender of part of the territory, although extremely painful, is still worth it if most of the country thereby secures its independence and the possibility of economic and political development. Let's hope that the power of Ukrainian nationalism, as well as the resolute and united resistance of Ukrainians, also convinced Putin (as Stalin did in his time — the Finnish resistance) that his goal of turning the whole of Ukraine into a satellite state of Russia is unrealistic.
This in itself is a great victory for Ukraine — not only based on Russia's original goals, but also from the point of view of the history of the last three centuries, when Moscow ruled Ukraine.
To date, the Government of Ukraine has steadfastly adhered to its maximalist goals: It wants to return all of its internationally recognized territories, including Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. However, the reality on the battlefield suggests that this goal is unlikely to be achieved and that an agreement implying the freezing of the current front lines is perhaps the best Kiev has a right to hope for (at least for now).
On the other hand, if the fighting continues, Russia's huge advantages in manpower, industry and arms production are fraught with much more sensitive losses for Ukraine — just as Finland would surely have suffered a complete collapse if it had continued to fight after March 1940 or September 1944.
Washington can do its part by discouraging unrealistic military objectives that may be leading Ukraine to disaster.
Ukraine has already won in many key respects. Vladimir Putin has no hope of subjugating the whole of Ukraine as a vassal state in the foreseeable future. Kiev is moving closer to the West and will be able to join the European Union (EU) in the future. So far, Moscow's actions have actually strengthened, not weakened, Ukrainian nationalism.
As in the case of Finland, this national unity is the most promising hope for Ukraine's independence.
Anatol Lieven is the Director of the Eurasian Program of the Institute of Responsible Public Administration. He is a former professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and the Faculty of Military Studies at King's College London.
Alex Little is an intern in the National Strategy Department of the Quincy Institute. He is a former development assistant at the Cato Institute, as well as a former fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society.
