A path to Ukrainian peace: Beyond exaggerated expectations

The protracted, attritional war that Russia has waged against Ukraine for nearly three years has led analysts and political leaders alike to ponder how to end this war as soon as possible and achieve a lasting peace.

Increasingly, proposals are emerging to apply a model similar to the one implemented in Germany after World War II. Adapting to Ukraine would mean that it would never relinquish the annexed territories, and the West would never recognise these territories as Russian.

However, Ukraine would accept the reality that it cannot reclaim the occupied territories through force and would commit to a non-violent approach.

In exchange, Ukraine would demand concrete, not merely symbolic, security guarantees that Russia would not repeat its aggression against Ukraine.

Just recently, both Czech President Petr Pavel and outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have expressed themselves along a similar vein. So, what is preventing the implementation of such a solution?

I would say that a problem lies in the exaggerated and unrealistic expectations held by Ukrainian citizens and a significant part of the democratic world.

This is a common phenomenon within the political sphere. Unrealistic expectations can be inadvertently cultivated not only by populists but also by well-intentioned politicians who make excessive promises to their constituents.

Such expectations pose a significant risk, not merely to the politicians who propagate them, but more importantly to the communities they represent, as these communities may find themselves on a perilous path with limited options for reversal.

Can we really make Putin kneel?

It appears that Ukraine has experienced precisely this phenomenon. The initial Ukrainian successes, including the defence of Kyiv against a blitzkrieg (a rapid invasion by Russian airborne troops at the outset of the war), the defence of Kharkiv, and the subsequent daring counteroffensive, led both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and parts of the West to experience euphoria and to foster expectations of a Ukrainian victory over Russia, with Western support.

These expectations included the notion of expelling Russian forces from all occupied territories, including Crimea.

The West is also to blame for creating these exaggerated, unrealistic expectations. Some leaders hoped to persuade Putin to back down or at least suspend his operation. In the case of Ukraine, the granting of EU candidate status was considered by many to be something that was not even on the table.

Talk of the West’s vast economic and military superiority also contributed to the illusion that, eventually, Putin will kneel.

However, it seems to me that President Zelensky also made a key mistake by not involving the Ukrainian parliamentary opposition in solving the problem.

On the contrary, there have been reports here and there that Ukrainian border guards have not allowed the leader of the opposition, former President Petro Poroshenko, to leave Ukraine.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has repeatedly expressed his criticism of the president. There are no known joint negotiations by the wider Ukrainian political leadership to seek a common solution to the key issues of the war.

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I believe Zelenskyy should do this

And that’s how misinformation spreads. For example, the idea that these are various nationalist, if not outright fascist, units of Ukrainian fighters who are preventing President Zelenskyy from making any compromises.

In reality, it is the Ukrainian president himself who has manoeuvred himself into a position where the opposition will not proactively help him, and his voters will have a hard time understanding a potential change of approach to ending the war and thus will also have a hard time accepting any compromise.

Therefore, I believe that the president of Ukraine should change his approach, first and foremost towards the representatives of the Ukrainian political opposition.

Instead of the pompous global peace summits that are doomed to failure in advance, instead of the “victory plans” that President Zelenskyy is presenting to world leaders (which, it seems, are just a new version of older demands), he should organise a peace summit at home, in Kyiv.

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He should invite the parliamentary opposition to the negotiating table, lay his cards on it and try to find a broad political consensus among Ukrainian leaders in an open discussion on the future arrangement of relations with Russia.

Agreeing on necessary compromises

Undoubtedly, the price for such a change in approach could be a demand from the opposition to participate in the governance of Ukraine. There may also be other political demands.

In any case, the upside of such demands would be substantial: a broad political consensus among the Ukrainian political elite, which would begin to address Ukrainian citizens in a common, unified language.

Only in this way is it possible to agree to the compromises that are necessary to end the war and establish a sustainable peace. At the same time, these compromises in no way mean capitulation or resignation to a part of Ukrainian territory.

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Mikuláš Dzurinda is president of Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the EPP-affiliated think-tank, and former prime minister of Slovakia.

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