WASHINGTON – Three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies are quietly debating the inevitable question: how does this end?
In recent days, presidents and prime ministers, as well as Democratic and Republican Party leaders in the United States, have called for victory in Ukraine. But just below the surface are real divisions about what this would be like, and whether “victory” has the same definition in the United States, Europe, and perhaps most importantly, Ukraine.
Only in recent days has there been an Italian proposal for a ceasefire, a vote by the Ukrainian leadership to push Russia into the borders that existed before the start of the invasion on February 24, and the renewed discussion by government officials about a “strategic defeat” for President Vladimir V. Putin, one that would ensure he is unable to make a similar attack again.
After three months of remarkable unity in response to the Russian invasion, which led to a lethal flow of weapons into the hands of Ukraine and a wide range of financial sanctions that almost no one expected, let alone Mr Putin, the cracks emerging on what to do. following are remarkable.
At its heart is a fundamental debate over whether the three-decade project to integrate Russia should end. At a time when the United States is referring to Russia as a pariah state that needs to be cut off from the world economy, others, especially in Europe, are warning of the dangers of isolating and humiliating Mr Putin.
This argument is developing as American ambitions expand. What began as an effort to ensure that Russia did not have an easy victory over Ukraine changed as soon as the Russian army began to make mistake after mistake, unable to take Kyiv. The administration now sees an opportunity to punish Russian aggression, weaken Mr Putin, strengthen NATO and the transatlantic alliance, and send a message to China as well. Along the way, he wants to show that aggression is not rewarded with territorial gains.
Disagreements over the war’s goals came to light at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, with Henry Kissinger, the 99-year-old former secretary of state, suggesting that Ukraine should probably give up some territory in a deal. negotiated, though he added that “ideally the dividing line should be a return to the status quo” before the invasion, which included Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the taking of parts of the Donbas.
“Pursuing war beyond this point would not be about Ukraine’s freedom, but about a new war against Russia itself,” Kissinger concluded.
Almost immediately, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine accused Mr. Kissinger appeased, angrily replying that “I have a feeling that instead of 2022, Mr. Kissinger has 1938 on his calendar.” He was referring to the year Hitler began his sweeping Europe, the event that caused Mr. Kissinger, then a teenager, to flee with his family to New York. “Nobody knew about him then that we had to adapt to the Nazis instead of running away or fighting them.”
But Mr Zelensky has at times expressed conflicting views on what it would take to end the war, even offering to commit his country to “neutrality” rather than aspiring to join NATO.
Different goals, of course, make it even harder to define what victory would be like — or even a confused peace. And they foreshadow a forthcoming debate on what position Mr. Zelensky and his Western allies if negotiations to end the conflict finally start. If Mr. Zelensky accepted some concessions, would the United States and its allies lift many of its overwhelming sanctions, including export controls that have forced Russia to close some of its factories to build tanks? Or would doing so condemn his hopes of paralyzing Russia’s future capabilities?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Monday. Credit … Fabrice Coffrini / Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
In the end, US officials say, difficult decisions will have to be made by Mr Zelensky and his government. But they are well aware that if Mr Putin gets his land bridge to Crimea, or sanctions are partially lifted, Republican critics – and perhaps some Democrats – will accuse Biden of essentially rewarding Mr Putin for his efforts to redraw. the map of Europe by force.
The debate erupts just as the form of war changes, once again.
Three months ago, Mr. Putin was taking over all of Ukraine, a task he thought he could accomplish in a few days. When this failed dramatically, it withdrew to Plan B, withdrawing its forces in eastern and southern Ukraine. It was then clear that he could not take key cities such as Kharkiv and Odessa. Now the battle has reached the Donbas, the desolate and industrial heart of Ukraine, a relatively small area where it has already made a profit, including the brutal takeover of Mariupol and a land bridge to the Crimea. Its biggest influence is the naval blockade of the ports that Ukraine needs to export wheat and other agricultural products, an axis of the Ukrainian economy and an important source of food for the world.
So far, with Russia gaining ground, there is still no evidence that Mr. Putin is willing to enter into negotiations. But pressure will increase as sanctions worsen its energy exports and cutting key components makes it difficult to produce weapons for its exhausted army.
“Putin, whether we like it or not, will have to bring home some bacon, and Mariupol is a small slice, but a slice,” Dov S. Zakheim, a former senior Defense Department official, said in a recent interview. . “And the cost of living and materials for Ukraine will continue to rise. Therefore, it is a difficult political decision for Ukraine.”
President Biden has said that a third world war could break out if the United States confronts Russia directly. Credit … Doug Mills / The New York Times
From Biden, a road to Russia
During the first two months of the war, President Biden and his top aides spoke highly of providing Ukraine with the help it needed to defend itself, and of punishing Russia with sanctions on an unprecedented scale.
From time to time, there were indications of broader targets that went beyond pushing Russia back to its own borders. Even before the invasion, Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, warned that if Russia tried to seize Ukraine by force, “its long-term power and influence would be reduced.”
But on April 25, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, speaking frankly that surprised his colleagues, acknowledged that Washington wanted more than a Russian withdrawal. He wanted his military to be permanently damaged.
“We want to see Russia weaken to the point that it can’t do the kind of things it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said.
Mr. Austin’s frankness led the White House to insist that it was not changing policy, only giving voice to the reality of what the export sanctions and controls were intended to do. But over time, government officials have gradually changed their tone, speaking more openly and optimistically about the possibility of Ukraine’s victory in the Donbas.
Last week in Warsaw, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith, a former national security aide to Mr Biden, said: “We want to see a strategic defeat for Russia.”
Now, in meetings with Europeans and in public statements, those in charge of the administration articulate more specific objectives. The first is that Ukraine should emerge as a vibrant and democratic state, exactly what Mr. Putin intended to crush.
The second is Mr Biden’s oft-repeated goal of avoiding direct conflict with Russia. “This is called World War III,” Mr Biden said repeatedly.
Then come several versions of the goal that Mr. Austin articulated: that Russia must emerge as a weakened state. In a testimony earlier this month, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, explained Washington’s concern. “We appreciate that President Putin is preparing for a protracted conflict in Ukraine, during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbass,” he said.
And increasingly, U.S. officials are talking about using the crisis to strengthen international security, beating nations that were on the fence between allying with the West or an emerging China-Russia axis.
As the United States perfects its message, no one wants to get ahead of Mr. Zelensky, after months of proclamations by the administration that “there will be nothing decided on Ukraine without Ukraine.”
“President Zelensky is the democratically elected president of a sovereign nation, and only he can decide what victory will be like and how he wants to achieve it,” John F. Kirby, Pentagon’s press secretary, said on April 29. .
Protests organized by the Hungarian opposition protested against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Budapest in March. Credit … Marton Monus / Reuters
In Europe, unity is beginning to break
NATO and the European Union have so far been surprisingly united in supporting Ukraine, both with painful economic sanctions on Russia and in the supply of a growing number of weapons to Ukraine, though not with fighter jets or advanced tanks.
But this unit is under tension. Hungary, which has backed five previous sanctions packages, has resisted a Russian oil embargo on which it depends. And Europeans are not even trying, at least for now, to cut their Russian gas imports.
Divisions are also visible in war targets.
Central and Eastern European leaders, with their long experience of Soviet rule, have a firm view of Russia’s defeat, even rejecting the idea of talking to Mr Putin. The Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, and the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, …