Ukraine’s Victory Plan Is a Wake-Up Call to the West

We finally know what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Victory Plan is. The Plan outlines exactly just what needs to be done for Russia to lose and Ukraine to win. In doing so, it also highlights the obstacles the West must overcome if it’s serious about a Russian defeat and a Ukrainian victory.

Zelensky’s plan is thus a wake-up call to the West, a challenge that compels the West to admit that it, and not Ukraine, has failed to confront Putin effectively and to recognize that it must change its course if it genuinely wants Ukraine to win and not just survive.

As Zelensky said in his address to the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada, “The Victory Plan is a plan for strengthening our state and our positions.… It’s possible to realize this Plan. That depends on our partners. I emphasize: on our partners. The Plan definitely does not depend on Russia… Everyone in the world sees that Russia wants no fair peace. Putin is mad and absolutely wants only war. He won’t change…. But we Ukrainians together with our partners can change the conditions so that the war ends, independently of what Putin wants.”

Can anyone with an even minimal knowledge of Russia and Putin disagree with Zelensky? It’s been evident from Day One of the war that Ukraine can and will win only if the West wants it to. It’s also been evident that Putin is an imperialist war-monger and genocidaire with no interest in ending the killing. Finally, it’s been obvious that negotiating with Putin is pointless, given his determination to destroy Ukraine and continue with Russia’s imperialist expansion.

It follows that, as Zelensky says, “for our partners to support Ukraine is to ensure that a rules-based world order will be maintained.” In contrast, “if Putin attains his mad geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic goals,” this will encourage “other potential aggressors.”

As a result, “It’s quite practical for our partners not only to help us survive but also to win the war for our life. In so doing, our partners will help themselves no less.”

Ukraine’s Victory Plan, Explained

Zelensky’s Plan has five components: the first four outline what the West must do if it wants Putin to lose, while the fifth suggests what some of the payback could be.

The first point is an immediate invitation to join NATO. “For decades Russia has exploited the geopolitical unclarity in Europe—the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member. And this tempted Russia to encroach on our security.”

Zelensky is spot on in stating that NATO’s enlargement just short of Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova created an impossible security problem for them. How should they maintain their independence when the West effectively left them exposed to Russia’s predations? Belarus joined Russia. Moldova is still trying to please both Russia and the West. Ukraine opted for an indifferent West and is now paying the consequences. An immediate invitation would, as Zelensky notes, signal to Putin that “his geopolitical calculations have failed.”

The second point concerns defense. Zelensky rightly emphasizes that Ukraine needs more and better anti-aircraft defenses, investment in Ukrainian missile and drone production, in-time access to satellite and intelligence data, and permission to use long-range Western missiles against Russia. None of this is new, but the West needs to be reminded, again and again, that these steps are imperative if it’s serious about victory.

The third point concerns deterrence: “Ukraine proposes to deploy on its soil a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package that will be sufficient to protect Ukraine from any military threat from Russia and that will narrow, as much as possible, the variability of Russian actions to the following prospects: either join an honest diplomatic process for a just end to the war or be guaranteed to lose the ability to continue the aggressive war as a result of Ukraine’s application of the deterrence package.”

Just what the package contains is unclear, but, given that this point includes a secret addendum that was distributed to the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, the contents presumably refer to the emplacement in Ukraine of Western armaments capable of inflicting serious damage on Russia. Critics will argue that Zelensky is asking for an escalation of Western involvement in the war—and they’d be right. But Zelensky would be equally right to argue that the war cannot be won on the cheap, and that increased Western involvement would only be in response to North Korea’s and Iran’s involvement on the Russian side.

Point four requests Western investment in Ukraine’s economy in general and its “strategic economic potential” in particular. Who can disagree?

Point five offers the West a quid pro quo: “After this war, Ukraine will have one of the most experienced and large military contingents” with “real experience of modern warfare, successful experience of using Western weapons and versatile experience of interaction, of course, with our partners, with the NATO military.”

Thus, says Zelensky, “We envisage, if the partners agree, to replace certain military contingents of the armed forces of the United States of America, which are stationed in Europe, with Ukrainian units.”

Ukraine as the gendarme of Europe? Why not? America may want to withdraw from the world, Europe will prefer to sip a cappuccino, and Ukraine will have an oversized army capable of defeating Russia.

Although most of Zelensky’s Victory Plan contains little new, its novelty and importance consist in bringing the obvious and unstated into one packet and boldly stating what everyone knows but is afraid to admit: that the war can end on the West’s terms only if the West wants it to end on the West’s terms.

Ukraine is doing its bit: holding off a massive Russian army and paying the price with lives. Now it’s the West’s turn: either support Ukraine as much as it should or suffer the geopolitical disaster that Putin’s victory would represent.

About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl

Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”