OPINION: Ukraine’s Victory Plan Is Not a Call for a Russian Defeat but a Just and Lasting Peace

On Sept. 26, President Zelensky presented his Victory Plan for Ukraine to US President Biden. While little is known about its specifics, a lot can be presumed. After all, Ukraine has for years been telling us what it needs to succeed.

The aim

According to the President of Ukraine, the Victory Plan “is part of a global strategy to end the war, restore stability and achieve peace on fair terms. The importance of this plan is not only to protect Ukraine from aggression but also to strengthen its security architecture in the future.”

The Victory Plan is not seeking a Russian defeat. It is addressing the need to force Russia to accept a just and lasting peace.

The Victory Plan is closely linked to the Ukrainian Peace Formula (also called Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan) and its effort to unite the international community to a peace plan based on international law and the UN Charter. 96 countries and organizations have signed the Joint Communiqué on a Peace Framework to date.

The battlefield situation

The plan will reflect the realities on the battlefield, including Russia’s relentless missile and drone strikes, its theater-wide initiative, and its relentless advance in Eastern Ukraine. It will outline why freezing the front line will only serve Russia as Ukraine is no longer in a position to trade territory while absorbing the initial shock of Russia’s next assault. “Major urban areas with total pre-war populations of over five million (a bit over 11% of Ukraine’s total pre-war population) are within 160 kilometers (100 miles) of the current front lines.”

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The plan will address both the military imbalance as well as the technological asymmetry.

It will, however, also present Ukraine’s military capabilities, including its ability to stop and rout Russian invasion forces; its liberation of more than half the territory that Russia seized at the start of the war; its Kursk incursion and persistent defensive operations in the east; Ukrainian innovations and the disproportionately high losses of the Russian army; its long-range drone strike campaign; the evolving drone warfare; its asymmetric approach in the Black Sea and Ukraine’s success in the maritime domain; and its Crimea strike campaign.

The plan will also highlight Russia’s persisting vulnerabilities. It is increasingly dependent upon Iran and North Korean supplies of ballistic missiles, drones, and artillery shells. China‘s supply of around 70% of machine tools and 90% of microelectronics are equally crucial for the Russian defense industry’s ability to uphold its rate of production. Still, “Russia lives off its reserves” and is dependent upon its stockpiles of Soviet legacy tanks, APC, and artillery. The plan will also highlight continued Russian air defense vulnerabilities. Ukraine will argue that Russia will reach a “critical point of depletion” within one to three years.

What it takes

Military forces win battles, logistics win wars. To force Russia to accept a just and lasting peace, the victory plan will need to address the wider effort, rules of engagement, military capabilities, and logistics.

First, the plan will include a comparison of Ukrainian and Russian military power and will both highlight their strengths and weaknesses. It will emphasize the need to counter Russian quantity with quality. More importantly, it will stress the need to regain the initiative in all dimensions. The aggressor must be forced to withdraw its forces and negotiate on the terms of international law.

It will stress the necessity for technological superiority and, consequently, the need to strengthen the Ukrainian defense industrial base and uphold Western support.

Second, the plan will try to compel the international community into action.  The strategy will likely outline a war broader in scale and scope than a “Russia-Ukraine War” only. While the war is existential to Ukraine, it has long realized that it is only a part of a broader confrontation between Russia and the West. Russia is an Imperial Power seeking strategic parity with the US and China. The strategy will refer to the many statements from European Heads of State, Ministers, and Chiefs of Defense warning that Russia will not stop at Ukraine’s western borders.

It will also outline the global repercussions of a prolonged war, many of which are already affecting the West. While the costs for Ukraine are clear for most, Western costs are less so. Despite what many believe, the costs of supporting Ukraine are not a part of the equation because the costs of not supporting Ukraine are too high to pay.

Western costs are related to the lack of NATO credibility and deterrence; reduced global standing; the spread of crises and conflicts across the Middle East and the resulting lack of security and stability; the mobilization of authoritarian regimes against the collective West; reduced energy and food security; an unprecedented surge in protests over the increased costs of living, causing strikes, demonstrations, riots, and increasing extremism globally and the rise of right-wing political power.

There will, however, be no coalition and no plan without US participation. The implementation of some of the points of the Victory Plan depends solely on the United States.

Ukraine will stress why the West cannot let Russia win. The victory plan will aim to convince the collective West that Russian aggression can be stopped without risking an all-out war. Ukraine will encourage its partners to ignore Russia’s threats of escalation as it has long proven its so-called red lines to be fictional.

The Victory Plan will seek “unity of the allies, unity of the world to stop Russia, this war, and to ensure a real fair peace.” Ukraine will try to build “a powerful and effective international coalition of states.”

Third, the plan will seek to synchronize the joint efforts. For that to happen, the plan must suggest common aims and objectives based on international law. It must explain what a victory looks like and what is needed to secure a just and lasting peace. This is the only way it can ensure a full international commitment.  

Fourth, the plan will introduce a sense of urgency and outline a timeline. It will quote the statements by European officials warning about the risk of a military conflict between NATO and Russia in two to five years.

“We don’t have much time. The next few months will be decisive. Ahead of us in this war – Russia’s war against Ukraine and all of you because this is Russia’s war against freedom itself, – we are short of time to define what the outcome will be. And we must define it. Not Russia, not their bloody allies.” (President Zelensky, on Sept. 24, 2024)

It will stress the need for resolute action to stop the ongoing genocide and ecocide. “Regular explosions, drone attacks, gunfire, and repeated interruptions of external power supply, among other challenges, increase the risk of a nuclear accident.” Additionally, it will highlight intelligence indicating a possible Russian attack against Ukrainian reactors. The plan will highlight the consequences of continued attacks on critical infrastructure, including the energy sector, and the risk of parts of Ukraine becoming uninhabitable this winter.

It will stress that the costs increase exponentially the longer the war lasts. Time will not only increase the scale of suffering and destruction in Ukraine but also allow Russia to adapt and solve its strategic predicaments. Russia will continue to develop schemes to circumvent Western sanctions. It will strengthen and advance the coalition of autocracies. It will continue to evolve bilateral industrial cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea. The number of potential partners will likely grow over time if the West upholds its present strategy of restraint.

Russia will continue to spread chaos and crises to undermine Western focus and cohesion. It will increase its efforts to secure the support of the Global South. Over time, the “tsunami of ripple effects” from the war will also slowly increasingly change the political landscape in the US and Europe to Russia’s advantage.  

Fifth, the plan will stress the crucial importance of continued Western support. ISW has pointed out that the patterns of Western aid – slow and incremental – and its refusal to supply Ukraine with higher-end weapons systems have shaped Ukraine’s ability to develop and execute sound campaign plans. It has limited its ability to initiate and continue large-scale counteroffensive operations.”

Ukraine needs logistic predictability to succeed. The plan will ask for a Ukrainian “Marshall Plan.” Additionally, it will likely ask for weapons to be delivered faster and in larger quantities to help Ukraine gain momentum.

Sixth, the plan will call for measures to strengthen Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. Victory is impossible unless Ukraine can effectively defend its military forces, command and control nodes, logistic hubs, lines of communication, air bases, ports, and critical infrastructure. Public resolve and resilience are a center of gravity and must be protected far better than what has been achieved until now.

It addresses the urgent requirement to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense network against missiles, drones, and guided glide bombs. It will likely reiterate its request for NATO to fully or partly close the sky.

Seventh, the plan will call for measures to strengthen Ukraine’s offensive capabilities. Victory is unlikely if Ukraine continues to be forced to fight with one hand tied to its back. Restrictions and limitations must be lifted for Ukraine to be able to fight on equal terms. Russia cannot continue to be allowed to operate its forces in a sanctuary and freely attack Ukraine. Russian indiscriminate attacks on Ukrainian cities cannot be accepted as a norm. It must be countered and stopped.

According to Ukrainian defense sources, the strategy highlights the need to target Russia’s ability to sustain operations by destroying its lines of communication (e.g. railway, bridges, etc), ammunition and fuel depots, maintenance and repair facilities, and airports, etc. in Russia. By cutting its supplies of weapons, ammunition, fuel and food, Ukraine will actively undermine its ability to conduct offensive operations. This will allow Ukraine to regain the theatre-wide initiative.

The plan will, therefore, both call for more long-range weapons and the authorization to strike legal targets on Russian territory.

Eighth, the plan will attempt to cement Ukrainian security. It is likely calling for Ukrainian NATO membership “today” since a promise of membership after the war only serves to motivate Russia to uphold the war indefinitely.

As I have stressed in the article “Nine Reasons NATO Cannot Afford to Say ‘No’ to Ukraine,” NATO membership is the only diplomatic tool that can end the war on Ukraine’s terms. It is also the only means available to quickly strengthen European security and re-establish NATO credibility. Crucially, membership is also the only way to guarantee a lasting peace.

Ninth, the plan will highlight the need to undermine Russia’s ability to wage war. It will highlight the importance of crushing the Russian economy through sanctions, denying it oil and gas revenue. The plan will call for increased efforts to stop the supply of Western components to the Russian defense industry. It will also address the inflow of arms, ammunition, and technology from China, Iran, and North Korea.

Finally, the plan will need to address the existential nature of the war. More than 10 years of war have shown that Russia cannot be persuaded to seek peace (unless peace fulfills its strategic aim and objectives). More than 200 negotiations and 20 cease-fire agreements have demonstrated its lack of commitment to peace. It uses negotiations to secure its strategic aim and objectives. President Putin has repeatedly stressed his conditions for “peace talks”: a Ukrainian capitulation.

Russia will never accept being defeated by Ukraine; a country that in its distorted perception “does not exist.” Nor is it willing to give up its ambition of Great Power status and strategic parity with the US and China without a fight.

Russia must be forced to seek peace based on international law. NATO membership and/or military intervention by NATO is the only way to fundamentally shift the military balance in Ukraine’s favor and at the same time provide Putin with a strategic off-ramp.

Outcome?

On Sept. 10, President Biden reportedly sent Congress a classified report on its strategy for the war in Ukraine, months after the June deadline mandated in the spending bill lawmakers passed in April. There is, however, no reason to believe that the strategy describes a plan that breaks with the Biden administration’s past policy of restraint.

President Biden’s strategy is unlikely to match that of President Zelensky. The former seeks to avoid escalation whereas the latter sees escalation as the only way to gain the initiative and de-escalate.  

The Ukrainian Victory Plan must, therefore, convince the US that the national interests of the two countries are linked and that a negative outcome of the war would be detrimental to both. It must prove that Russia can be forced to withdraw and negotiate a just and lasting peace without risking the security of Americans. It must make the US fear a Russian victory more than the fear of escalation.

Ukraine will be asking for support and a policy change that the US has already declined time and time again. President Biden has persistently shown himself reluctant to set up Ukraine for victory.

“I’ll give you anything you ask for – as long as it’s not something I don’t want to give.”

According to The Telegraph, President Biden “was said to be ‘amenable’ to allowing Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles if they can be deployed as part of a wider strategy.”

The US is, however, simultaneously, trying to lower expectations. The Wall Street Journal quoted several senior US and European officials familiar with the plan’s outline concluding that the US is “unimpressed” by Ukraine’s Victory Plan. This is also probably why a recently leaked intelligence report concludes that “Russia is likely to retaliate with greater force against the United States and its coalition partners, possibly with lethal attacks, if they agree to give the Ukrainians permission to employ US, British and French-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia.”

That said, the tide is slowly turning in Ukraine’s favour. Russia is struggling to replace both manpower and weapons lost on the battlefield. Without an actively engaged coalition, however, victory will take longer time.

The Victory Plan might not be perfect, but if nothing else, it is a great starting point for the development of a long overdue unified strategy to end the war, secure European stability and restore NATO credibility.

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

Hans Petter Midttun, independent analyst on hybrid warfare, Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Defense Strategies, board member of the Ukrainian Institute for Security and Law of the Sea, former Defense Attaché of Norway to Ukraine, and officer (R) of the Norwegian Armed Forces.