A Strategy for Peace in Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky presented his “Victory Plan” at the White House two weeks ago. Senior U.S. officials have already expressed their misgivings in a triplet: Ukraine’s plan is ‘not much new.’ The reality is that recent (minor) gains in Russia notwithstanding, Russia’s grinding war with Ukraine has no clear end in sight. The U.S. should support Ukraine by responsibly arming them to the teeth, but it is less clear how their war will end.

As a student of Eurasia at an American university, I fear the implications of my peers’ common refrain that the war must stop, no matter the cost. I also regret the lack of strategic thinking in the current war versus peace debate.

Clear-eyed attention to the war’s greatest question marks has never been so important. After all, the war in Ukraine is concerned with ‘big questions’ more than it is ruptured borders. Two questions undergird its potential settlement:

For the U.S., territory matters a lot. How the U.S. leaves Ukraine matters. It will be a referendum on U.S. power, its place in the world, the efficacy of its aid, and the worthiness of current policy toward Ukraine. The maintenance of Ukrainian territorial integrity has been central to U.S. rhetoric and strategy throughout the war.

Selling U.S. aid—past, present, and future—to the American people demands that Ukraine win back as much of the prior status quo as possible. To cede half of Ukraine to Russia would be to herald a major strategic loss.

In hard power terms, Ukraine as a buffer between allied Europe and Russia would be largely lost. However, the global lesson would be even more enduring. If the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan put perceptions of American power on life-support, a loss in Ukraine would pull its plug. U.S. power would be perceived as ineffectual, with dramatic implications on brewing crises in the Middle East and East Asia.

Such reverberations would be felt at home and abroad, especially amidst the slackening U.S. domestic support for military aid to Ukraine.

Conversely, territory matters only a little to Russia. It will likely plead for the Donbas Region and, if consistent gains can be made in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts, maybe more.

If Ukraine maintains its foothold in Kursk Oblast and makes its own persistent gains in and beyond the region, Ukraine will have horses to trade.

To sell its ‘SVO’ to its selectorate, Russia will need to come home with minor gains. Symbolic more than anything else, these will serve as a referendum on Putin’s power and the worth of a costly campaign.

Territory matters only insofar as Russia’s war aims have not been affected thus far. The prime end state for Russia was and is a Belarussified Ukraine—a weak, Russian-aligned, Russian-dependent, quasi-independent, satellite state. Russia’s is a quest for a revivified Russian sphere of influence (i.e.. Russkiy Mir), in which Ukraine plays a critical—but, not necessarily territorially subsumed—role. In other words, the Kremlin wants a return to pre-Maidan Ukraine or even post-2008 invasion Georgia. 

Save for Ukrainian bravery, this dream might have been realized. Leaders in Kyiv were credibly expected to flee or cow. Instead, Zelenskyy et al. stayed in Ukraine and leapt toward the West, hard. As Western alliances (like NATO) and newfound allies embrace Ukraine with open arms, Russian war aims have become the stuff of Lewis Carroll’s fiction. That is to say: a pipedream.

Now, Russia’s real concerns deal with the future of Ukraine as a Western-aligned state. The Kremlin hopes that current leadership will be overcome by future administrations friendly to Russia, dubbing this episode more blip than break. Ukrainian membership in NATO would near-permanently disallow such ambitions.

Instruments, like the NATO Ukraine Compact assemble a ‘bridge to NATO’ for Ukraine, while not necessarily guaranteeing it in the near-to-midterm. It is hedging at its finest. The U.S. and NATO Members are steadfast in their support for Ukraine but premise their aid to Kyiv on the dogma of ‘no boots on the ground.’

Ukrainian NATO membership in the near term risks exactly that. Russia’s continued invasion of a NATO-enrolled Ukraine would trigger Article V, ushering in hot war or a crisis of legitimacy even the most assertive NATO Members are unlikely to endorse.

U.S. negotiators should take advantage of the convergence between Ukrainian, U.S., and Russian answers to both of the war’s biggest questions. We ignore these bargaining range equities at our peril. The Russian army’s weakness has already been betrayed with only marginal costs to the U.S. and a newly awakened coalition. This momentum alone, is a strategic win. Now, as Ukraine wrestles in Kursk, the U.S. should continue to press for a strong, Western-aligned, NATO-adjacent, territorially intact Ukraine—or prewar status quo+—while demurring on near-to-midterm Ukrainian NATO Membership. Then, the U.S. makes near term promises it can keep, Ukraine comes out stronger, and Russian war aims are stripped.

Zacarias Negron is a Chancellor's Scholar and Research Assistant at Vanderbilt University, where he also serves as President of the Alexander Hamilton Society. He is a former Hamilton Fellow and RRI-AHS National Defense Fellow.