On the Brink of Historic Failure
On the Brink of Historic Failure
Western Policy towards Ukraine
Western policy towards Ukraine and Russia’s war in Ukraine is teetering on the edge of epoch-defining failure. The root of this potential catastrophe lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of Russia’s motivations for invading Ukraine. Western leaders have been blinded by mirror imaging—the assumption that others think and act like we do—failing to grasp the cultural, historical, and strategic drivers that guide the Kremlin’s approach. This failure is not just an academic mistake, sadly; it is one that is having devastating real-world consequences and will continue to do so unless properly addressed.
The Bleak Reality on the Ground
The mood in east Ukraine is grim. Every conversation with friends seems to reveal another name added to the list of the dead. People in their thirties attend far more funerals than weddings. Death is an ever-present companion: ordinary activities—getting your nails done, shopping for books— are interspersed with casual conversations about mortality. Death feels imminent but unpredictable, creating an uneasy anticipation that veers between frantic living in the moment and paralysing despair
Sumska Street, Kharkiv city centre
To avoid the paralysis, I try to do useful things: source money for jammers for sniper friends, help volunteers to find a new car, or write papers to inform government strategies. But generally only the first two activities feel at all useful. Measuring impact is difficult when outcomes are elusive.
In the meantime, Ukrainians keep fighting, not because of some abstract choice, but because survival leaves them little alternative. Russia is not an unstoppable force and they are burning through resources rapidly in anticipation of the U.S. elections. But while they cannot maintain this pace forever, they still have more resources than Ukraine.
Sniper friends filming a ‘report’ video to thank donors
The Real Difference: Control of Fate
Perhaps Russia’s greatest advantage over Ukraine is its control over its own destiny. Ukraine may have Western allies with far more resources than Russia, Iran or North Korea, but without the will to really use or commit those resources, they aren’t worth as much as they should be. It’s why, even now, as North Korean soldiers are coming to kill Ukrainians, Western leaders wring their hands over whether to provide permissions to Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles against Russian sites of destruction.
Whenever the West discusses aiding Ukraine, the spectre of "escalation" looms large—often with an implicit focus on nuclear escalation. But this is a narrow view. There are risks on both sides: if we allow a larger state to use nuclear blackmail to devour a neighbouring country, the consequences will be catastrophic, triggering widespread nuclear proliferation. No path forward is free from terrifying possibilities. Ironically, it is the mindset of de-escalation—arguably better understood as a refusal to engage in deterrence—that has made nuclear proliferation so much more likely.
Back in the UK, the terror of what’s happening in and to Ukraine can feel isolating. Being deeply involved in the war makes returning home feel like sitting in a hospital waiting room, watching surgeons having a natter while your loved one bleeds out. The urgency and panic you feel isn’t about restoring the patient’s full health; it’s simply about keeping them alive long enough to be saved.
In this context, Western editorialising about whether Ukrainians should give up their hopes to regain Crimea or the 2014 borders feels irrelevant. Victory, as it stands, feels distant. There’s no path to ultimate success right now because the West lacks the political will necessary for Ukraine’s victory, which would require NATO membership and a restructuring and mobilisation of Western military-industrial complexes. In the total absence of any willingness to take these steps, an intermediary strategy is needed desperately. So why is this urgency absent from the conversation?
General Zaluzhnyi’s speech at Chatham House yesterday spelled this all out politely but starkly. The West missed an opportunity but it could still avert a disaster if it opens its eyes.
Mirror imaging is one of the greatest obstacles to understanding Russia’s approach to the war. This cognitive bias leads Western policymakers to project their own values and logic onto Russia, for example, assuming that sanctions or diplomatic pressure would work as they might in a democracy. Or refusing to give up on the notion that the elites will one day grow tired and get rid of Putin. As exemplified by the UK’s Londongrad and Germany’s Nordstream dalliances, Western attempts to appeal to Russian elites, assuming they could influence Kremlin decisions, were deeply misguided. Far from giving the West leverage, these relationships only gave the Kremlin leverage over us. The idea of courting “good Russian elites” persists, even though the structural factors binding them to Putin remain firmly in place.
Mirror imaging alone is not the issue; there is also wilful blindness. To use the flawed WWII analogy, always so helpfully on hand, nobody would seek to understand Nazi German war aims by looking only at what happened to Britain, which was not occupied. Instead, one would examine their stated aims and actions in the territories they occupied. For some reason, the same logic is not applied to Russian war aims. This oversight is tragic and somewhat unforgivable because even a brief look at the occupied territories reveals Russia’s true objectives. For those interested in learning more, Zmina has several excellent reports on human rights, passportisation, torture and disappearances in the occupied territories.
Inside a school in Izyum bombed by the Russians (deoccupied territory)
Looking at the reality of life under Russian occupation, you observe Russia’s systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian identity in these areas. You see that it is not just a geopolitical land grab; it is also an effort to culturally, ethnically, and historically subsume Ukraine into Russia, to destroy Ukraine as a distinct national and cultural identity.
Holodomor memorials are dismantled. History textbooks are rewritten to erase Ukrainian national identity and instead promote a narrative of Ukraine as historically part of Russia. Across the occupied territories, Russian authorities have renamed streets, squares, and public institutions with Soviet or Russian names, replacing Ukrainian cultural markers with Russian ones, reinforcing the idea that Ukraine is not a legitimate, independent nation.
Inside the Zaporizhzhia regional state administration bunker
Settler colonialism from the Russian Federation, combined with millions of Ukrainians fleeing the territories is leading to massive ethnic cleansing. Statistics are difficult to verify but Krym SOS estimates that around one third of the current population of Crimea moved there since 2014. In a recent meeting in Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov and the team from Melitopol discussed the large numbers of Russians arriving from Buryatia and Tuva to their city, lured by abnormally high wages offered by the Russian government.
The most brutal and stark evidence of Russia’s war against Ukrainian identity is its forcible relocation of at least 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia. Some of these children are given new Russian names, adopted by Russian families, and taught to reject their Ukrainian identity. In many cases, they are sent to "re-education camps" where they are indoctrinated into believing they are Russian. This process makes it impossible for Ukrainian families to locate their children, as their original identities are erased. Russia celebrates these kidnappings as acts of "protection" and "rescue," framing its genocidal actions as humanitarian efforts. Even the lucky children, who get to stay at home, are subjected to incessant re-education under occupation, as detailed in Opora’s excellent report ‘Pushkin’s strong embrace’.
Why Putin Started the War and Won’t Stop It
Any effort to resolve the war that does not take into account Russia’s aims - the systematic destruction of a separate Ukrainian identity - is detached from reality. Putin's repeated assertions that Ukraine is not a legitimate nation, encapsulated in his 2021 essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians," underline this genocidal intent. He has repeated similar assertions many times. Anyone interested in learning more can visit this archive (in English) of all of Putin’s references to Ukraine.
Putin’s vision of Russia plays a crucial role in understanding why he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and why he is unlikely to stop it. For Putin, Ukraine is not merely another state but an inseparable part of Russia's identity and history. His geopolitical vision centres on restoring Russia's "great power" status, which demands the reincorporation or at least de facto subjugation of Ukraine. To abandon Ukraine would mean abandoning Russia's claim to historical and geopolitical legitimacy.
Over the past decade, Putin has shown he is willing to weaken Russia to achieve his goal: erasing Ukraine’s independence, which he sees as an affront to Russia’s geopolitical destiny. His broader vision is to restore Russia as a great power, reshape Europe’s political landscape, and reunite Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Giving up on Ukraine would mean abandoning this agenda, to which the Kremlin has committed immense resources. It has also restructured Russian society, economy, and education around war.
Putin believes he can endure Western pressure and continue the war, confident that the West will eventually grow tired. He is willing to weaken Russia economically and socially if it means achieving his broader geopolitical and cultural goals, as seen by his indifference to the impact of international sanctions.
A Personal Reflection
Personally, right now, I think Putin is right. He is committed to winning, and the West pretends that winning or losing isn’t really definable, that there is ambiguity, a fudge to be found. But that ambiguity is in our head.
Many will and have criticised Zelensky’s Victory Plan for being detached from reality, totally undeliverable. But I don’t think it is detached from reality, so much as detached from the Western perception of what is possible. If you look at what this war is really about, what Russia’s motivations are (and they have consistently stated them so you don’t need to be a Putin whisperer to work it out) Zelensky’s Plan is probably the only viable option for Ukraine’s victory. But to understand why, you need to understand what the war is about. And I don’t think leaders in the West ever did.
As per my thinking above, negotiations remain unlikely unless on terms of Ukraine’s capitulation. Russian officials consistently state their starting points for talking as taking all of the five Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Crimea—it claims as its own (its minimum demand for negotiations), Ukraine’s demilitarization in varying forms, and denazification (which can be practically understood here to mean banning, even prosecution, of elite forces and a veto right over Ukraine’s policies towards Russia). Any freezing of the conflict that could be made possible by Russian weaknesses would last only as long as needed for Russia to regain strength while using hybrid methods to undermine a traumatized Ukrainian society and politics until it has de facto control.
Northern Saltivka, a working class district on the outskirts of Kharkiv
The Impending Consequences
Despite their bravery, on the war’s current trajectory, there will come a time when Ukrainians can no longer fight for reasons obvious to anyone who looks at a map of the two nations. The consequences for Europe will be deeply unpleasant. If Russia wins, even in a weakened state, its military power poses a long-term threat to European security, as it would likely undertake semi-deniable military actions in Russian-speaking regions like Daugavpils (Latvia) or Narva (Estonia), probing NATO’s Article 5. Ukraine’s defeat would reorder the world to Russia’s benefit. Alongside these alarming threats, there would be secondary security concerns and economic costs that make a strategic shift in Europe paramount to our prosperity, security, and national cohesion.
What Would It Take for a Shift in Strategy?
Clear Objectives and Vision
The two most obvious things needed for a successful strategy are clear objectives and vision: Define clear goals and ensure they align with a broader vision. This should reflect a long-term aim, serving as a roadmap for how to get from where you are today to your desired outcome, combined with an honest understanding of the environment—both situational analysis of Ukraine (not only military but also societal) and adversary analysis of Russia.
It feels like many Western leaders have eschewed this in favour of back-pattery and choreographed visits to Kyiv to affirm rhetorically overwhelming commitments. In general, there has been far too much focus in our political narratives on ambiguous concepts and the notion that we are the good guys who care for international law rather than nation-states acting in our collective self-interest. I think this self-interested angle is what is missing from the conversation—it is what hinders the definition of clear goals. If we understood the likely trajectory of this war and what that means for our nations, we would quickly change tack and develop a strategy that wasn’t as utterly devoid of meaning as “stand with Ukraine as long as it takes.”
Looking Ahead
In the next post, I want to be more constructive and offer up some suggestions of what an intermediary strategy to stop the bleeding might look like. Two months ago, a commander of an elite force provided feedback on a draft of this strategy. He said bluntly: “We don’t have six months, there are no motivated men left. We will just keep losing territory and slowly retreating.” Time is running out and too many of those in power are staring at the mirror rather than the chaos exploding all around them.
Final Thoughts
Thank you for reading. If you also want to stop the bleeding, please donate to this fundraiser for a medical evacuation unit to save the heroes defending Kharkiv.
We have raised £2,000 of the total amount already, but still need £6,000 to help keep precious Ukrainian soldiers alive 💙💛