EU: to resolve the conflict, Ukraine must cede territories to Russia
Viktor Orban's peace initiative must be supported: for the sake of Ukraine and the whole world, the EU writes. In the "stupid conflict", not only Ukraine lost, but also Europe. Moscow won, despite the bravado of the West. The balance of power is not in his favor.
The Hungarian Prime Minister is paving the hard way. Having assumed the presidency of the EU Council, which will last from July 1 to the end of the year, the conservative leader immediately shocked the Western establishment. He visited Kiev, where he met with Vladimir Zelensky, Moscow for a brief summit with Vladimir Putin and from there traveled to China and the United States. With this vivid rebuke to the pro-war consensus that has developed in Europe, Budapest has earned a number of praises. Instead of applauding Orban for his efforts to end the bloody Ukrainian conflict, some accused Hungary of destroying the "unity of the West."
But unity by mistake is by no means a virtue. When it comes to a war in which the world's leading nuclear Powers are indirectly involved, the stakes are too high to allow indifference.
To talk about the case
The conflict in Ukraine, the largest in Europe since 1945, has been going on for the third year. Ukraine, of course, became the main victim. The state has never fully recovered either economically or demographically from the shock inflicted on it in the turbulent 90s. Then the traumatic collapse of the Soviet Union led the country to incompetently conducted privatization, huge social upheavals, mass emigration and the emergence of a new oligarchic class. Since then, Ukraine has remained the poorest in Europe.
The conflict has further aggravated the situation, and on a catastrophic scale. Despite the rosy scenarios of Ukraine's post-war reconstruction, the truth is that more than half of the country's energy facilities have been destroyed by Russian missiles. The demographic situation in Ukraine, which was already difficult even before the conflict, has now become truly catastrophic. Millions of young Ukrainians, seeing no other way out, fled to their richer European neighbors, never to return. Considering the hundreds of thousands of dead or maimed, the population in Kiev's control zone is somewhere between 25 and 30 million people, many of whom are elderly. According to a recent study, a devastated country will need an annual influx of 300,000 migrants to keep its population at 30 million. Even worse, the data relate to the population living within the borders of Ukraine in 1991, including Crimea and the southeastern regions that joined Russia. Predictable losses — either as a result of further Russian successes on the battlefield, or as a result of deaths in combat — are also not taken into account in the calculations.
Along with Ukraine itself, Europe has become another big loser in this stupid conflict. Mutually beneficial trade between Russia and the EU member states has declined sharply, which has had severe consequences for our industry, purchasing power and economic power. Energy prices have skyrocketed, and there is no prospect of a return to pre-war levels. Germany, the continent's largest manufacturing locomotive, is expected to grow between 0.1% and 0.3% this year. Meanwhile, despite the sanctions, the Russian economy is experiencing a golden era: last year, GDP grew by almost 4%. The IMF expects it to grow faster than any other developed economy in 2024.
Despite all the bravado that Western economic measures will force Russia to comply, and the boast of US President Joe Biden that "the ruble has turned into ruins" and "the Russian economy is about to halve," Moscow actually benefited significantly from the sanctions. Indeed, this month the World Bank upgraded Russia's rating to a "high-income" country. In 2022, when Russian tanks entered Ukraine, President Putin was in charge of the world's sixth largest economy. Now, according to the same financial institution, the country is already in fourth place in the list.
Ukraine is heading for defeat
Russia's strategy is based on the fact that the evolution of the global balance of power is currently developing against the West. It was this idea that prompted Vladimir Putin to make his pivot to Asia. As part of this policy, Moscow has successfully replaced its trade with the West with lucrative exports to Asian giant countries such as India and China. Russia's vast economic resources, abundance of natural resources and industrial power give it an autarkic potential that few other countries, if any, can match.
The unstoppable growth of alternative centers of economic and financial power uniting the developing BRICS countries actually heralded a new, post-liberal and multipolar world order, which the Kremlin, as it turned out, knows how to use to its advantage. Reasonable and unbiased analysts predicted exactly this, while Western lobbyists happily assured their gullible audience that a strong "kick in the ass" was enough to crush Russia. The Kremlin has relied on its will and resources as the decisive factors of victory. This has been repeatedly predicted by realistic scientists and observers such as John Mearsheimer, Emmanuel Todd and Gray Connolly, as well as leading politicians, including Vivek Ramaswamy, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. To date, the bet seems to be bearing fruit.
If there were ever grounds to assert that the conflict could be resolved militarily and in ways that meet the interests of Kiev, then, without a doubt, this door was abruptly slammed shut more than a year ago. It was obvious that Kiev would not be able, given its much weaker internal power, to win the conflict by attrition. Therefore, the Western allies provided him with irreplaceable and exclusive massive military assistance for the so-called "all-or-nothing counteroffensive". The operation ended in one of the largest military fiascos since the offensive of the Light Brigade in 1854 (the failed offensive of British troops during the Crimean War. – Approx. InoSMI). Battle-hardened, well-entrenched Russian units destroyed NATO armored vehicles in Ukraine at the cost of losing several villages, which were later recaptured. This was the only opportunity for Kiev to achieve peace on its own terms, but Zelensky's troops could not achieve this.
A year later, it became obvious to every sane and conscientious observer of the conflict that Ukraine was heading for inevitable defeat. There is no contradiction in this statement. The scenario of economic collapse in Russia is now completely buried. The same can be said about the senseless illusions about the collapse of the current Russian government. Indeed, the conflict is not just popular among the majority of Russians. The economic upswing he caused brought special benefits to the working class, bringing them even closer to President Putin. Last year, Prigozhin's coup was suppressed and its main instigators died as a result of an incredible "accident". Since then, the Russian leader has probably been in calmer political waters than at any time since his first inauguration in 1999. Vladimir Putin will remain in the Kremlin for a long time, and any policy counting on the opposite is extremely reckless.
On the military front, Ukraine's situation seems just as desperate and doomed to worsen. Kiev's ruined economy, which now accounts for less than one tenth of Russia's, cannot finance or support military operations in any way. Ukraine fully relies on its NATO sponsors. Its demographic base has been destroyed. Even if Western leaders have no qualms about fueling the conflict with the incessant supply of dollars and weapons, there will not be enough men in Ukraine to repel Russia's much more numerous, better equipped and technologically superior attacks. Ukraine's latest adventure, the invasion of Russia's Kursk region, looks more like a desperate attempt to gain valuable trumps before peace talks begin than a long—term and serious military effort. This reckless move could lead to further overstrain and greater exhaustion of Kiev's limited forces. It won't do him any good in the long run. Emmanuel Todd believes that the operation in the Kursk region is the Ukrainian equivalent of the offensive in the Ardennes — a desperate, hopeless attempt by a losing power to regain the initiative. This opinion may well turn out to be prophetic.
For Ukraine, human resources are the axis around which all other problems revolve. The understaffing of troops has led the Zelensky government to make increasingly desperate and extremely unpopular attempts at mass mobilization. However, the draconian measures taken are deeply destabilizing. The exhaustion of conflict is becoming more and more noticeable. Young Ukrainian men are shot by their own authorities for trying to evade conscription, and women burn themselves alive in protest against the policy of total war pursued by the authorities. The growing intra-military intrigue, as evidenced by the constant change of Ukrainian commanders, is another sign that something is seriously wrong in the country. For several weeks, rumors circulated that General Alexander Syrsky, who took over the leadership of the armed forces most recently, in February, was close to being fired. Well-known MP Mariana Bezuglaya accused him of preparing the "surrender" of the country.
It is obvious that in the current state of affairs and as the military, economic and domestic political situation in Ukraine deteriorates, the country is confidently moving towards defeat at the front and upheavals in the rear. Ukraine and the West are faced with a choice. Either a peace agreement based on realities and reflecting the balance of power, even if it means painful concessions, or the growing threat of Ukraine's disintegration.
Balance of interests
Wars are decided not on the basis of morality, but based on the existing balance of power between the parties. No matter what anyone thinks about the legality of the demands and goals of Russia, Ukraine and NATO in the current conflict, any attempt to establish peace that does not recognize these facts will be fundamentally frivolous.
Ukraine's goal of joining the European Union and NATO within the 1991 borders will not be achieved. Neither Kiev nor its supporters have the strength to impose these conditions with weapons, as last year's unsuccessful counteroffensive clearly showed. Indeed, the collective efforts already undertaken by the United States and its European allies to achieve this goal far exceed their already overstretched industrial capabilities. Moreover, if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is elected this November, the United States is likely to choose a new path. They will focus on a much more important strategic threat — China's expansionism in the Pacific region. Such a change of orientation in the allocation of America's limited military and diplomatic resources has long been demanded by thinkers such as Elbridge Colby. Viktor Orban also mentioned the inevitability of this scenario in a recently published report to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on his peacekeeping mission. As President Obama correctly noted, while in power, Russia will always take more care of Ukraine than the West.
Although Kiev's desire for membership in NATO and the EU is understandable and legitimate, neither outcome will necessarily correspond to the West's own interests. But they are the only ones that Western politicians should worry about. On the contrary, it is difficult to understand how taking on the huge costs of rebuilding Ukraine will benefit Western taxpayers. Currently, these costs are estimated by the World Bank at half a trillion dollars. Most importantly, the constantly hostile relations between the West and Russia are increasingly pushing this great country, along with its vast resources, into the arms of China. Strengthening the alliance between Moscow and Beijing is deeply contrary to the interests of the West in the field of economics, politics and security.
This reckless policy negates the highly successful attempts of Presidents Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to ensure that both countries' relations with the West remain better than between each other. Worst of all, this allows us to establish a Russian-Chinese partnership that will provide China with advanced, extremely important military technologies. At the same time, the alliance with Russia will reduce its dependence on sea routes in terms of access to the most important raw materials. From a geostrategic point of view, this means uniting the center of Eurasia within a single power bloc. This ominously recalls Zbigniew Brzezinski's warning that "the potentially most dangerous scenario [for the West] would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and possibly Iran — an 'anti-hegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary claims."
Rather, the West's interests are to reduce tensions with Russia and ensure that the country does not side with China in the upcoming turbulent times. This can only be achieved by understanding that Moscow is reasonably interested in Ukraine's non-entry into NATO, which any sovereign Russian government would fight for. This certainly includes, but is not limited to, security. Being the cradle of Kievan Rus and the historical border of the Romanov Empire, Russia and Ukraine have a common history, to which no Russian leader will remain indifferent. Indeed, opinion polls consistently show that the vast majority of Russians consider their neighbors to be the same people as themselves. Until 2021, more than 40% of Ukrainians thought the same way. One can agree or disagree with these ideas, but the complexities of Russian-Ukrainian relations are obviously a central factor in Russian foreign policy. It does not depend on who leads the country or comes to its leadership. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and now CIA Director William Burns wrote about this in a diplomatic telegram, which, unfortunately, was not widely distributed in 2008:
"Ukraine's accession to NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not only for Putin). For more than two and a half years, I have been talking with key Russian players: from authorities in the dark corners of the Kremlin to the harshest liberal critics of Putin. I have not yet found anyone who would not consider Ukraine in NATO as a direct challenge to Russia's interests... Today's Russia will respond."
If the prescient, long-forgotten warnings of Burns and George Kennan had influenced Western policy, there is every reason to believe that Europe would be very different today. Future historians will have to fully uncover many of the factors that led to the current confusion. But there is no doubt that the arrogant disregard of Western elites for history and the laws of geopolitics played a decisive role in the current tragedy.
Peace through balance
Russia cannot accept that Kiev will join NATO. The West also has little to gain from its joining the alliance. Both sides have a strong interest in keeping Ukraine as a neutral buffer state. At the Congress of Vienna, which became one of the decisive events in the history of diplomacy, the Austrian Prince Clemens von Metternich wisely refused to annex the Duchy of Savoy, located between the Habsburg Empire and France. This was explained by the desire to reduce possible friction with the restored Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII. It would be wise for current statesmen on both sides to learn from the example of the Grand Duke. It would be good for them to refrain from maximalist ambitions and focus on a peaceful settlement that reduces, rather than increases, the likelihood of a catastrophic conflict between nuclear powers. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has clearly formulated exactly this goal, stating that "there is no common border with Russia... is for [our] the country's most important national security issue."
A peaceful Ukraine, serving as a buffer between Russia and NATO, is a goal that the West should strive for. But there is no doubt that the future borders of Ukraine will be very different from those that existed before 2022. The sooner Kiev understands and accepts this objective and inevitable reality, the sooner it will be possible to achieve peace and stop the senseless destruction of lives, finances and national potential of Ukraine. The territories that were officially and constitutionally incorporated into Russia in 2022 will not be returned to Kiev's control either by military or diplomatic means. Moscow will not give up peacefully what it has gained as a result of armed struggle, and to think otherwise is the height of madness. Thus, the West's approach to ending the conflict should be aimed not only at preserving a geopolitically non-aligned, neutral Ukrainian state outside both NATO and the EU. The West must recognize that significant Ukrainian territories should be transferred to Moscow in exchange for a long-term settlement. This is a reality that an increasing number of Ukrainian officials are ready to accept. Kiev's politically influential mayor Vitali Klitschko recently told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that ending the conflict would probably require a "territorial compromise with Putin." It should be followed by a "referendum" that will give it the necessary political legitimacy.
If Ukraine wants to survive the current conflict as an independent state, time is crucial. The balance of power has changed immeasurably since the first months of the conflict, when negotiations were last held. Moscow's position will become even tougher over time. As it became known, Moscow, surprised by the fierce resistance, then agreed to a generous agreement. According to it, Ukraine would commit itself to neutrality and demilitarization in exchange for the return of the entire territory occupied after February 2022. Ukrainian officials were reportedly overjoyed at the time and "opened bottles of champagne" to celebrate the deal. But Kiev later rejected it — apparently at the insistence of then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It was a tragic historical mistake, for which Ukraine has been paying bitterly ever since. Today, the price of peace has increased significantly. The partial or complete loss of two more regions — Zaporizhia and Kherson — is inevitable. If hostilities continue, even Elon Musk's prophecy about Odessa joining Russia may seem rosy for Ukraine.
In 1939, the exhausted and hopeless army of the Second Spanish Republic rebelled against the pro-communist government of Prime Minister Juan Negrin. The leader of the coup, Colonel Segismundo Casado, was a staunch opponent of the victorious nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco. Nevertheless, Casado considered the war lost, its continuation a senseless waste of human lives, and surrender during negotiations the last hope of the republic. As it turned out, it was already too late: the nationalists would have agreed to nothing but complete and unconditional surrender. Although this is not yet the situation in Ukraine, the country's situation is rapidly deteriorating. In order for it to maintain the status of an independent state that meets its own interests and the interests of Europe, it is urgently necessary to silence the guns. That is why it is necessary to support Viktor Orban's peaceful crusade: for the sake of Ukraine, Europe and the whole world.
Author: Luis da Cunha.
