Ukraine is running out of time

Ukraine is running out of time

After over four-and-a-half years of entrenched warfare, reports of U.S.-backed peace talks to end Russia's war on Ukraine are back in the news. After Finland and Norway held Europe’s first direct talks with President Vladimir Putin in a year, more trilateral talks between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia are planned for later this month. While we’ve heard tales of imminent peace time and again, here's hoping American emissaries and their counterparts can finally bring an end to the fighting.That’s because, despite considerable efforts by the U.S. and Europe to help Ukraine win this war, there is no victory in sight. While Ukrainians arguably thwarted Russian advances in its very first weeks, its backers have failed to help Ukraine consolidate its battlefield victories at the negotiating table. As a result, Russia’s invasion has slowly wrecked Ukraine: the war is Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II and Russia has seized approximately a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. After years of needless death and destruction, what will it take to actually forge an agreement to finally end this war? For the latest episode of Always at War, we spoke to Anatol Lieven, journalist, author, professor, and now Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute to discuss his career, how he became an expert on the region, and what he thinks peace can look like there. Lieven’s diagnosis of Ukraine’s current situation is grim. He estimates that the war has killed some 200,000-250,000 Ukrainians, that millions have fled the country and are unlikely to return, and explains that the birthrate has completely collapsed. As he puts it, “the population may be half what it was in 1990.” But what’s most shocking about the dire circumstances facing Kyiv is that they were foreseeable, and perhaps even preventable. Lieven himself predicted many of the current crises over decades of analysis, from books including Russia and Ukraine: A Fraternal Rivalry in 1999, to Quincy Institute papers on the dangers of protracted war in 2022. What was true then is still true today: a compromise peace that secures Kyiv’s sovereignty and empowers Ukrainians to rebuild and return is a victory for Ukraine. As Lieven has long insisted, pretending this would be anything but a victory is foolhardy: most wars “have ended not with the complete victory of one side, but with some form of messy compromise.” Yet instead of coming to grips with the realities facing Ukraine, popular headlines continue to push narratives promising imminent victory. One possible explanation for the media’s incessant optimism is that Ukraine’s victory, understandably, feels like a moral imperative in response to Russia’s unjust war. As a result, journalists and world leaders alike are willing to indulge fantasy rather than acknowledge the gruesome truth on the ground. But Ukrainians themselves don’t have the luxury of retreating to fantasy; by a 2:1 margin, they would rather see their government prioritize ending the war as soon as possible instead of pursuing total victory. The continued refusal by many in Washington to recognize Ukrainians’ appetites for peace, and the realities on the ground informing them, constitute a noble lie to oneself, one’s readers, or one’s constituents. It’s a lie that’s gone too far.