Despite all the sanctions designed to isolate Russia’s economy, billions of dollars’ worth of military assistance to Ukraine, and two years of grueling warfare, there seems to be no end in sight for this disaster. Today, those of us living in Ukraine continually wonder: when will the war finally end and what kind of peace will it bring?
When will the war end?
The answer to this question is simple: the war could end within one year if the West did two things:
- Fully enforce all current sanctions, such as the oil embargo, SWIFT limitations, etc.
- Provide Ukraine with long-range drones and missiles, and to allow their use on Russian territory.
So far, most sanctions have not been enforced – for example Russia has continued to sell oil products to India and China. In another stark example, just last week, we learned that the German companies Knauf and WKB Systems GmbH are involved in the so-called restoration efforts in the occupied city of Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, which was destroyed by Russian troops, according to an April 3 investigation by journalists of the ARD Monitor Program.
In terms of military assistance, the US resembles a rudderless sailboat, lacking a captain in a hurricane season - an impotent nation without a coherent foreign policy, perpetually in a state of internal conflict. That is why the US has held up vital military assistance to Ukraine at a critical time, allowing Russia to destroy much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the last month.
One could argue that the increase in Russia’s attacks is directly due to Mike Johnson, who appears to religiously follow the diktats of former President Trump - who is at the moment just a citizen, not a government official.
Thankfully, the European nations are trying to fill the military void. For the first time since the US withdrew its military support, Ukraine has been effectively targeting numerous military objects deep in Russian territory on a regular basis - oil depots, airfields, drone factories, and so on. There is ongoing talk about blowing up the Crimean Bridge, which would dramatically change the battlefield. Ukraine is just beginning to get the upper hand in this war despite difficult times.
If fully supported with strict enforcement of sanctions and with long-range weapons, Ukraine could win this war within one year. The bigger question is when will the West give Ukraine the necessary support?
Conditions for ending the war.
Ukraine’s terms for ending the war are simple:
- Return all territory as it was in 1991 prior to the Budapest Memorandum (including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, etc.
- Compensate all damage, with a current estimate of between $650 to $800 billion,
- Comply with the ICC ruling that declared Putin as a war criminal – remove him from office and send to The Hague.
As a part of this deal, all Western sanctions would be lifted, and Russia would make a peaceful return to the global community.
Knowing the nature of Putin, none of these conditions are acceptable to him for numerous reasons. This is why a long-lasting settlement negotiated in good faith is impossible with Russia, and the war will not end as long as Russia’s war economy is able to function. Only a crushed Russian economy, totally depleted of resources, would be able to slow the war to a grinding halt, freezing the conflict indefinitely.
Life in Ukraine after the war
Without agreeing to Ukraine’s terms, Russia will remain a pariah state facing a permanent cold war with the West, as it once was, and continuing its hot war with Ukraine. So how could Ukraine continue to function under such conditions?
There are two obvious examples of how other peaceful and prosperous countries like Ukraine ended up living for a long time next to aggressive, vindictive neighbors, hell-bent on destruction.
One involves Israel and Iran, with Gaza and Hamas in the buffer zone, and the other is North Korea and South Korea with a demilitarized zone separating the two nations. In both cases, unresolved grievances have continued for decades, as did the threats and attacks from the aggressive neighbor, witness the latest Hamas attack on Israel.
In both cases, there were buffer zones, much like the Donetsk and Lugansk regions have become today. Gaza was settled by civilians and governed by Hamas, a terrorist group sponsored by Iran, while the Korean DMZ is purely militarily controlled. Like Hamas, Russia is currently resettling its citizens into Ukrainian cities that it has destroyed. Unless Ukraine takes back these cities, a similar situation to Gaza will develop on Ukraine’s borders after the war, allowing Russia to continue terrorizing Ukrainian civilians with missiles and drones on an indefinite basis.
So how do Ukrainians continue living their normal lives, while living next to this Russian beast? Normalcy is relative, and if Israel was able to implement air defense systems and alerts and continue to operate airports, allowing people to fly without risking death, Ukraine will surely borrow from this experience.
With such a system in place, Ukraine will be able to safely start a massive reconstruction and continue to integrate with the EU and NATO. Like in the early 1990s, the Ukrainian economy will experience tremendous growth whilst Russia will stagnate in isolation until it complies with the West’s and Ukraine’s conditions.
In conclusion, many analysists agree that Ukraine will surely win the war, while others believe that Russia will conquer the entire Ukraine (or at least take over large territories). Instead of these two absolute scenarios, I believe that unless some intervening event occurs - such as Prigozhyn’s mutiny - a middle ground is more likely a frozen conflict for an indefinite future, which would allow Ukraine to forge its own future with the EU and NATO.
All of this is realistic and could happen within one year after the West, especially the US, starts to enforce existing sanctions and provides long-range weapons. Mark my words.
Alex Frishberg is the managing partner at Frishberg and Partners, Kyiv-based Attorneys at Law.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
Comments (11)
Here's an essential component of any peace with justice:
Russia must immediately return all, ALL of Ukraine's stolen children.
That grossly genocidal crime against humanity is enough by itself to condemn the entire Putin criminal regime, as last year's ICC indictments demonstrate. The official number is c.20,00 kinapping victims, but the actual count may be over 100,000. It's as much "rescuing orphans" as the Feb 24 invasion was solely a "special military operation," i.e. totally unnecessary and unjustifiable.
No justice, no peace. Slava Ukraini!
Ukraine’s terms for ending the war are simple:
Return all territory as it was in 1991 prior to the Budapest Memorandum (including Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, etc.
Compensate all damage, with a current estimate of between $650 to $800 billion,
Comply with the ICC ruling that declared Putin as a war criminal – remove him from office and send to The Hague.
DO YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS POSSIBLE ?...ARE YO FROM THE US , I AM SURE YOU ARE
@Chris, We have been living under the condition of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) for over 60 years, which means that any attack on a nuclear power will result in the total annihilation of the attacking power. It is suicide. Threatening to commit suicide is evidence of being psychologically unfit to lead a nuclear power, and Putin should be removed immediately on that basis.
@Chris,
Both China and India (along with USA, France and UK) spanked russia for threatening to use its nuclear weapons offensively last summer. The entire world will be be against russia if putin's thug regime uses nuclear force to steal another nations sovereign territory. Russia's cities would be vapourware if they used nuclear.....whatever was left of russia that was still useful would be divided up amongst more sane nations.
So as long as russians allow their madman to sit on his opulent throne, the russian people will need to get used to the karma that $110 billion (EU an USA) this year in new weapons can deliver to counter his crimes.
@PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP's MRGA majority in the GOP HOUSE voted against Ukraine aid (112 to 101).
Yes it is hard to believe. Putin serving republicans in the US House now outnumber the US patriotic Republicans. Still those 101 remaining non MRGA Republicans bravely defied putinrump and instead voted to pass the desperately needed Ukrainian Aid.
Sadly disobeying traitor putinrump will mean they are unlikely to receive campaign funds from the Republican National Commitee (RNC), whose putinrump crony lead Whatley (and daughter in law) now controls its funding (assuming its not used up paying putinrump's legal fees for his 91 felonies). Did you know that a few weeks back Whatley outrageously said Ukraine was a USA enemy? Revealingly, he left Russia off his list.
Fortunately beyond finally getting this additional aid package to Ukraine passed (with non MRGA putinrump obeying republican support), Biden has also increased US oil output to record levels (500K more barrels a day then putinrump during his term) and that's also depriving putin of war revenue.
Putinrump says that if elected he will not give Ukraine a penny. He wants to cede it to his buddy putin.
The war will end in less than six months upon President-elect Trump returning to the White House.
How?
President-elect Trump will restore America's dominant oil and gas industries. World energy prices will plummet. Oil prices will return to some $35 to $45 a barrel. Russia cannot make a profit. Putrid war dollars will dry up.
Once he is forced to withdraw his forces the United Nations should impose severe tariffs on Russia's oil and gas exports to pay for the reconstruction of the destruction Russia has wrought upon Ukraine.
2 further conditions:
- A 200km deep de-militarised zone on Russian territory from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
- The Kremlin and Red Square should be levelled and turned into a Peace Park dedicated to the victims of Russian imperialism.
Good article. I agree with the author except regarding sanctions. There is always some proclaimed "neutral" nation offering a sanction workaround for their own profit. Even supposed to Ukraine supporting institutes (EU, NATO, USA) have their putin supporting moles ..Turkey, Hungary, putinrumps MRGA cult...etc
More pragmatic is the second option proposed: "provide Ukraine with long-range drones and missiles, and to allow their use on Russian territory". The russians themselves need to feel the same pain they sow.
As also noted, the needless air defence delays caused by putinrumps MRGA (which includes Johnson) have cost Ukraine more lives and key infrastructure. The justification Johnson now offers for even allowing a vote on the bipartisan Senate approved Ukraine are the exact same as they were 6 months ago when approved USA aid ran out. Yet the package has less then MRGA first demanded (no border component)). The delay only served putins needs to entrench further. putinrumps' MRGA took it as far as they could.
Russia must not be allowed to steal a sovereign nations territory.....putins trolls can spew their whataboutisms all they want, but it will not change the fact russia is in violation of both International border laws and humanitarian / Geneva conventions. Putin is an indicted war criminal. That is who the MRGA support.
The western world keeps saying that they do not want escalation with Russia as a nuclear power ...This is one reason and even if true, they western capitalism and shadow hidden government takes an excuse as to not make Ukraine win fast through greater military assistance and tighter sanctions on Russia that leads to the collapse of such regime ...
This regime in Russia allows the western world to benefit from enriching its ultrarich capitals and international multibillion companies through selling weapons and more expensive commodities , printing trillions of dollars causing inflation, weakening Russia to have more influence and power over it plus limit the Chinese expansion and influence militarily and economically without direct involvement...The Chinese exports would be hindered and restrained through inflated raw material prices and higher price inflation ...
The dollar is a Freemason tool to have power and influence world wide related to large capitalism and sevret elites ...
Believe it or not and the western democracy is relative and imperfect despite being better than totalitarianism and dictatorship in several ways like having more freedom to change and adapt ...
On all fronts, Alex is wrong. Sanctions have never worked and will not work in the future.
The Bad Guys have allies (China) and other nations that depend on them (India).
In addition, Alex has little understanding of American politics or its personalities.
@Imokru2, The West , world capitalusm and China alike want also to benefit from protracted wars that weakens Russia economically and militarily. They sell weapons and enrich capitalists who posses shares of oil and Gold corporations ...They trade with commodities to benefit through wars...The West keeps literally printing dollars to send worldwide benefiting the US and its allies ...However , the West is careful also in containing or limiting the Chinese rise through prolonged wars looking like a stalemate...Wars reduce Chinese industrial exports through inflation and higher shopping costs plus higher oil prices ...
Russia is not Serbia and USA and Europe with Ukraine can't have a fool victory
against a nuclear power and a permanent member of security council with support from China. DON'T give hopes to people.
If the free masons or the world capitalism ( that influence world politics in hidden ways probably ) were not benefiting from selling weapons and selling higher commodity prices like grains, oil and Gold , they could allow that regime in the Russian federation to disintegrate and dissolve like the Previous Soviet Union. They could build or support a deep new petrosttoika ( restructuring and reformist inner movement ) inside Russia to sweep the older Regime away like Gorbachove in late 1980s and 1990s ...Agree or disagree ...Feel free everyone who reads this comment ...
@Chris, Idiot troll. If Russia starts a nuclear war, it will be destroyed. Threatening nukes & flying deluded shamans over war zones, are clear signs that Russia is desperate & its end is inevitable. Go back to Russia & tend to your turnips.