The concessions Putin demands from Ukraine – to bring about only a ceasefire, not a peace plan – would give the Kremlin not just territory it cannot take on the battlefield, but would surrender all defensive capability for when Moscow decides to show it still wants Kyiv – and Donald Trump, along with those in his rogue regime, is on track to side with the murderous tyrant.
In the wake of President Trump’s Alaska meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, commentators have expressed their shock with the unfairness of the putative “peace” plan apparently agreed to by the two potentates, as it involves Ukraine handing over several of its cities with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants to murderous Russian occupation in exchange for nothing at all.
These objections are valid, but they miss the point. The territory that Putin is demanding contains Ukraine’s fortress line. If it is surrendered, all of Ukraine will be rendered wide open to invasion by the Kremlin’s forces.
The Putin-Trump deal thus precisely mimics the suicidal October 1938 Munich Pact forced upon Czechoslovakia by Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler in collusion with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, and Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. In that deal, Czechoslovakia was promised peace and security, provided it handed its heavily fortified border provinces to the Nazis.
Lavrov Demands Russian Language Rights as Core Condition for Peace
However, once that was done, Czechoslovakia was rendered helpless, and within six months, the entire country was overrun and occupied and ceased to exist as an independent state.
The same “deal” is now being offered to Ukraine. As the widely respected military analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have pointed out, the breach in Ukraine’s defenses entailed by the abandonment of its line of fortress cities would be irreparable, as the terrain behind that line is unfavorable for defense. To quote ISW:
“ISW continues to assess that a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk Oblast would degrade Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and defense industrial base (DIB) and put hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian civilians under Russian occupation.
“ISW continues to assess that surrendering currently unoccupied areas of Donetsk Oblast to Russia would position Russian forces extremely well to renew their aggression against Ukraine on much more favorable terms, having avoided a long and bloody struggle for this territory and given Russia the opportunity to build up manpower and weapons stocks.
ISW previously noted that allowing Russia to occupy the remainder of Donetsk Oblast would concede Ukraine’s fortress belt to Russian forces, and this fortress belt also includes significant DIB infrastructure. Russian forces have notably been unable to advance to or envelop the fortress belt since Fall 2022. The Russian military command would almost certainly work to rapidly establish lasting positions throughout the fortress belt and utilize the fortress belt’s DIB for military production if Ukrainian forces withdraw from their positions in the Donetsk Oblast.
ISW also previously noted that the Donetsk Oblast border area is naturally poorly suited to act as a robust defensive line due to its few settlements, open fields, and natural obstacles such as the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers.”
This is why Russia has been willing to suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties over the past three years to try to break through there, and, having failed at that, is now pulling out all the stops to try to crack Ukraine open to conquest by deceit.
The similarities between Hitler-Chamberlain’s Munich 1.0 and the Putin-Trump Munich 2.0 deals go well beyond that. Munich 1.0 was not just suicidal for Czechoslovakia. It was suicidal for the Western allies as well.
By betraying Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain and Daladier deleted 35 well-equipped Czech divisions from the West’s order of battle, added the excellent Czech arms industry to the Nazi defense industrial base, and extended the border along which Germany could attack Poland, thereby rendering that country indefensible.
Accordingly, when Nazi Germany, having been greatly strengthened by these concessions, proceeded to invade Poland a few months later, the Western allies did nothing and allowed Poland to be eliminated.
This cut a further 50 divisions from the West’s forces, bringing the total allied losses to 85 divisions before the catastrophic battle for France (defended by a total of 94 French and British divisions) was even joined.
The strategic insanity of betraying Ukraine now is even worse. If we allow Ukraine to be sacrificed, what would happen?
For starters, the million-person Ukrainian military would be deleted from the West’s order of battle, Ukraine’s industrial and technical resources would be added to Russia’s, and Russia’s forces would be advanced geographically to positions from which it could readily invade the rest of Europe. So it would.
It is a fallacy to say that Russia can be no threat to the rest of the West, because it can barely handle Ukraine. Ukraine has stopped the Russian advance by deploying hundreds of thousands of troops into combat and taking tens of thousands of casualties, paying a price in blood that is far higher than the United States or any of our western European allies are likely to be willing to bear. It is only because of the existence, courage, and endurance of the Ukrainian military that the front lines have been made static, and the war reduced to a contest of technological virtuosity that the West could readily win.
With Ukraine’s military intact and holding the line, the Western powers could do a lot to help Ukraine win at virtually no cost to themselves, simply by providing Ukraine with broad access to their satellite communications, including both Starlink and/or other systems. Ukraine has drones with the physical capability to fly deep into Russia. What it lacks is the communication capability to control them there. If provided with satcom, and preferably, Western long-range strike munitions as well, Ukraine would be able to use its drones to interdict Russian internal transport, making Russia’s frontline forces impossible to supply, and paralyzing its entire economy.
This is not 1916. Ukraine’s armed forces don’t need to storm Russia’s trenches to defeat the invasion. All they need to do is gain the capacity to make it clear to Russia that it can have a few chunks of Ukrainian territory, or it can have an economy, but it can’t have both. Under those circumstances, Russia would have no choice but to withdraw.
But take the Ukrainian military out of the equation and everything changes.
With the Ukrainian military gone, NATO would have no countermove if Russia should decide to invade the Baltic States. But the situation is far more grave than that. Take a look at the map. There are just two countries barring Russia’s path into Europe: Poland and Ukraine. Poland has a small but fierce military and would undoubtedly defend itself if attacked by Russia. But take away Ukraine, and there are no serious armed forces blocking the Russian military moving southward of Poland, to Budapest, Vienna, and Belgrade, and taking Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria as well. Would we be willing to send half a million American soldiers to Europe to stop such an advance? Certainly not.
So it boils down to this. NATO needs an army. Ukraine has one. With it, Europe can be defended at minimal cost. Without it, Europe faces catastrophe.
Ukrainians and Europeans must therefore be completely realistic and not let a foolish hope that somehow Putin might keep any promise he might make blind them to strategic reality. If Ukraine or Europe agree to any terms that increase Putin’s power to demand more, he will demand more, and each demand met will make him still more powerful. If they make themselves helpless, he will slaughter them.
Munich 1.0 was not a peace agreement. It was a rape agreement. So is Munich 2.0.
The only way to get Putin to quit is to make him quit.
Dr. Robert Zubrin @robert_zubrin is an American aerospace engineer and author of 12 books, including most recently The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
