OPINION: Wind of Change. Again

In recent months, in the wake of the Kursk operation, a number of global media outlets have once again discussed possible negotiations on a ‘ceasefire’ based on an exchange of territories and a repeat of the West German precedent of Ukraine’s partial participation in NATO.

Commentators are not confused by the public statements from Moscow that there is no subject for negotiations, nor by the lack of willingness of some NATO leaders to seriously discuss the issue of Ukraine’s admission to the Alliance.

In addition, such proposals would require a rapid and effective change in Europe’s own defense strategy and a return to the Cold War and the deterrence policy so familiar to the current White House administration. This, in turn, requires a completely different resource endowment. What Western experts and politicians prefer to keep silent about.

For example, at the height of the Cold War, the size of the military budgets of West Germany and the United States were 3% of GDP and 5% of GDP, respectively. Almost half a million soldiers served in the FRG army, while the size of the US contingent in Europe was 340,000.

Now these figures seem absolutely unattainable fantasy (the FRG army is now less than 200,000 soldiers). European NATO member states have barely managed to reach an average spending on military budgets of 2% of GDP (now only 18 out of 31 members of the Alliance are coping). Which makes the European part of NATO completely indefensible. And this is in a situation when the volume of defense output has to be increased not by 10-20%, but by multiples.

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At the same time, natural isolation processes are taking place in the USA. Washington is focusing on domestic affairs in accordance with the demand of voters. And this applies not only to Trump’s MAGA, but also to the Democratic Party.

The Democrats also publicly insist that the EU should invest more in defense and security issues and rely less on the US.  The main difference between MAGA and the Democratic Party is only the speed of withdrawal from active participation in European affairs. The former would like to complete this process right now, while the latter would like to do it more slowly and gradually.

One can also recall the vague formulations about ‘supporting the Ukrainians as long as necessary’ and that ‘Putin cannot be allowed to win.’ Openly pro-Russian statements by certain representatives of political elites on both sides of the Atlantic. All this testifies to only one thing. Quite a significant part of the Western politicos’ dream of 2021 and strongly want to return to this status, closing their eyes to reality and reinventing ‘deterrence’ without resources.

It is foolish to assume that the Kremlin does not notice all these processes and to hope that the Russians are ready to abandon the NATO ultimatum announced in December 2021. And there were actually demands not only to restore the ‘Soviet Empire’ but also the Warsaw Bloc.

All these conditions make it impossible to roll back the situation to 2021, to the old and good world of European stability. In the streets of European capitals, the forgotten Wind of change is already in full swing, and it is useless to resist it. We are now at a fork in the road of choosing what kind of future we are going to build. And there are only two scenarios.

The victory of the Russian Empire and the restoration of the ‘Warsaw Bloc’

This is the scenario that those who want to ‘appease the aggressor’ are following, not realizing what awaits them in the end. Let’s put aside purely moral issues (Russia’s victory is possible only in the case of betrayal of Ukraine by its Western allies).

In the case of full or partial annexation of Ukraine by the Russians (and there is no other possibility), the US gets a foreign policy knockout from which it will never recover. The flight from Afghanistan has already been watched with interest by dictatorial regimes. The loss of Ukraine, supported by such a powerful ally, will definitely be perceived as a manifestation of weakness and a signal for action. The influence of the US on geopolitics and international trade will fall by multiples, which will lead to isolation within the North American continent.

Europe will be left completely defenseless. Yes, it is defenseless even now, unless of course, right now, it invests in the European military-industrial complex amounts comparable to the size of Russian frozen assets. The victorious Russia, which has been added to by Ukraine, will again become the ‘gendarme of Europe.’

In addition to the fear of a victorious ‘Russian bear,’ the EU and NATO will face massive financial injections from Russia in corrupting politicians and officials, bribing opinion leaders, disinformation and propaganda. This is already happening now. It is enough to read the statements of Hungarian and Slovakian Prime Ministers Viktor Orban and Robert Fitzo, or watch the Stasi win elections in Germany.

Once Russia wins, the number of ‘Fitzo’s’ and ‘Orbans’ will increase many times over. And this new pro-Russian ‘Warsaw Bloc’ will tear the EU and NATO from the inside like a cancerous tumor. Formally, it will still be the same NATO, but most of the leaders of the European countries of the Alliance will be guided by ‘wishes’ from Moscow. Sound familiar? This will be the sad finale of the European project.

Ukraine’s victory and the final collapse of the ‘evil empire’

Russia is ready to spend everything in this war, unlike our partners. And in a war modeled on World War I, it has undeniable advantages. It physically has more tanks, shells and soldiers. Ukraine needs (to the horror of the West) to move the war to where the ‘Russian empire’ is at its weakest – on its territory. Imperial Russia has always been held together by centralized coercive power.

Take away this core, and it will crumble.

The Kursk operation showed that Russia is not capable of defending its vast territories. And Putin’s notorious ‘red lines’ exist only in the heads of certain European and American politicians. Ukraine needs to keep hitting this weak spot. The Kursk operation will be followed by the Bryansk, Voronezh and Minsk operations (the Kremlin already considers Belarus its territory).

This, along with strikes with long-range weapons deep inside the Russian Federation will be a real blow to the regime and will lead to chaos and the disintegration of Russia into separate states. This is our way to common victory. It is time to correct the mistake of 1991 and to complete the fall of the ‘evil empire.’

But without a reliable rear, it is impossible to win the war. And the US and the EU must finally have one. “If there is one thing that I regret to some extent and see much more clearly, it is that we should have given Ukraine much more military support much earlier,” former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after his resignation.

Well, the time for regrets is over, the moment for real action has arrived. The European Union needs to rebuild its defense industry so that the amount of aid is in line with the Victory Plan, not the Survival Plan. And this needs to be done now, so that the results will be at least a year later. The Ukrainian army can still give a year to indecisive European politicians.

And then the war can be finished in a year. Not to conclude a humiliating truce for Ukraine and the West, but to accept Russia’s surrender. But this requires very creative and mobile actions of Ukraine with the real, not lip service, support of its allies. And, most importantly, we need to stop being afraid and decide for ourselves what NATO members want – Ukraine’s victory or Russia’s. Although the answer is already obvious.

This, of course, will not bring the world back to 2021. But it will create a new security construct in which regional influence will shift from Moscow to Kyiv. Ukraine, which won the war against the ‘Russian empire’ is destined to become a regional leader, uniting the Scandinavian and Baltic countries around itself (not taking into account the independent states on the ruins of Russia). And this collapse of the ‘evil empire’ will be a new incentive for the EU to renaissance for decades to come, as it was after the collapse of the USSR. And it will give the big European project a clear and reliable security structure based on Ukraine.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.