Looking ahead: The stakes for Ukraine and the world
Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe, answers some key questions about the war.
Heading into year three of the conflict, where do things stand for Ukraine and what should people know about the country’s capabilities to sustain its fight against Russia?
On this second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the mood in the country and in the capitals of its Western supporters is notably grimmer than a year ago. Kyiv’s summer counter-offensive failed to help it recover the 18% of its territory still occupied by Russia. Ukraine’s Western supporters are struggling to provide it with the arms and ammunition it needs. And while the European Union finally managed last year to agree on a 50 billion euro aid package for Ukraine, the Biden administration’s 60 billion dollar support package is held up—perhaps indefinitely—in the U.S. House of Representatives. Russia has made small territorial gains in recent days (although at a high price), and continues to bombard Ukrainian cities with drones, as well as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s resilience remains astonishingly strong—but the lack of ammunition means more and more bombs get through.
You just came back from this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC). What were your major takeaways from the gathering?
The news of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Siberian jail on the conference’s opening day cast an awful pall over the conversation—as was surely intended by the Kremlin. (Russia has not been invited to the MSC since the invasion.) American divisions on supporting Ukraine were very much in evidence; some European participants reported that U.S. representatives had made dire warnings about the future of U.S. support in private.
European leaders clearly understand that they are facing the greatest set of strategic challenges of their lifetime, and several signed security assistance agreements with Kyiv just before the MSC. But they, and especially their German hosts, the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, appear unable to muster the political energy for a truly joint response within NATO or the EU. French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk did not even attend the conference. Ahead of June elections for the European Parliament, in which far-right parties hope to make decisive gains, and NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, D.C. in July, that seems like a terrible missed opportunity.
Finally, while Germany has made extraordinary strides—it is the largest supplier of aid to Ukraine in Europe and is planning to send a permanent combat brigade to Lithuania—Chancellor Scholz’s admonitions that “other Europeans” should do more are highly unlikely to gain him friends in Paris, Madrid, or Rome.
Why should individuals care about the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine?
As a former journalist who has traveled to former war zones in Africa, the Balkans, and Afghanistan, and covered war crimes tribunals, I want to say: all wars are a profound offense to human dignity. But to speak of a “war between Russia and Ukraine”—as is often done—is to suggest that somehow both sides are to blame in this conflict. Whereas Ukraine is defending itself valiantly against an unprovoked, illegal attack by a nuclear-armed, great-power invader—Vladimir Putin’s Russia—which has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine since the first day of the invasion on February 24, 2022.
Putin and other Russian regime leaders continue to overtly threaten not just Ukraine but other European nations (the Baltics, Poland) who are members of NATO; and Russia is engaged in political warfare through disinformation and efforts to stoke fear and division throughout Europe. Only a few days ago, a Russian military defector was murdered in Spain, an act that clearly signaled the lethal reach of Russia’s secret services.
It is thus a terrible mistake to think that if only the Ukrainians were willing to make concessions, this war could be ended swiftly with a ceasefire and a territorial division, creating a new stable equilibrium on the Eurasian continent. Putin has made clear again and again that he will accept nothing but the obliteration of Ukraine as a sovereign nation. And if Putin is not stopped, this conflict could turn into a regional conflagration, with potential ripple effects around the world. Much, much more than Ukraine is on the line here. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, looking grim and exhausted, said in Munich: “Dictators do not go on vacation.”
