Zelensky’s impossible choice – spiked

It was on 24 February 2022 that Volodymyr Zelensky made what remains the most fateful decision of his life to date. In the face of an all-out military assault on Ukraine from Russia, he rejected the surrender and exile that were on offer from the West and instead chose to stay and fight. He called – in the possibly apocryphal, but resonant phrase – for ‘ammo, not a ride’.

After three-and-a-half years of war, hundreds of thousands of casualties and the devastation of swathes of his country, Ukraine’s president faces another equally fateful decision about peace and war. And whereas that earlier choice seemed split-second and instinctive, the decision he has to take now will need considered calculation and fine judgements.

Ukraine’s president has been placed on the spot by the flurry of diplomatic developments in recent days. This began with the summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska and continued with the meetings at the White House between Trump and Zelensky, and between Trump and Europe’s so-called coalition of the willing. It is now spawning all manner of meetings across Europe.

Now, there are many qualifications that could be inserted here. The ball is surely also in Putin’s court, rather than Zelensky’s. But expecting any significant change in a Russian position that has remained largely unchanged since the start of the war is unrealistic. Economic pressure has had, and will have, no effect, so long as Russia regards the conflict as rooted in its security interests. With Russia advancing, albeit slowly, in the Donbas, Ukraine running short of trained troops, and the Europeans now required to fund supplies of new weapons, the military momentum is not with Ukraine. Zelensky thus finds himself facing that perennial end-of-war question, summed up as ‘land for peace’.

Ukraine’s official position has long been that there has to be a return to the 1991 borders (after the Soviet Union broke up) and that Ukraine’s constitution forbids changing the borders. This chimes with the European position that changing borders by force is unacceptable and would invite a global free-for-all. But nothing is quite as set in stone as it might look.

Before the recent White House talks, Zelensky did – fleetingly – hint that he might be open to conceding some territory. Constitutions can always be amended if needs must. The Europeans are also less concerned about territorial concessions in themselves than about the choice ultimately having to be Ukraine’s.

Specifically, Zelensky has to judge how much it is worth to Ukraine to end the bloodshed. Is it worth 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, which is what Russia currently holds? Or might ceding it further damage Ukraine’s security? Some aspects are intangible. What price national dignity? What about bereaved families who may object that their relatives fought and died in vain?

One way or another, though, territorial concessions look inevitable. For strategic and emotional reasons, Russia will not give up Crimea, which it annexed illegally in 2014. Nor will it give up much, if any, of the territory it currently holds in the Donbas. Indeed, Russia seems to be angling even for some territory there that it does not currently hold, for which it might give up some of its gains outside the Donbas. This is what Trump seemed to mean by the term ‘land swaps’.

Ukraine’s reluctance to give up this land is not just because Russia does not control it (yet), but also because it includes a block of so-called fortress towns that Kyiv sees as crucial for its security (which, of course, is why Russia wants it, too). That could potentially be part of the negotiation.

At least as big a consideration for Ukraine is the provision of so-called security guarantees, which remains the subject of a fraught debate among Ukraine’s allies. It also appears to have undergone some modification in discussions between Trump and Putin.

In Alaska, Putin appeared to accept the provision of ‘security guarantees’. This was interpreted as a possible concession to Ukraine. But it could also include the provision of security guarantees by the US to Russia. Security guarantees have long been a precondition for Zelensky even to contemplate peace talks, and Monday’s White House meeting was convened for that very purpose.

The missing element, for both the Europeans but especially for Ukraine, has been US support, preferably military support, to back up any such guarantee. Trump is now indicating that he could be open to US involvement, which could perhaps make territorial concessions a little more palatable for Ukraine.

There are other elements that could help sugar at least some of what would be very bitter pills for Ukraine. Any redrawing of the border could be de facto, not de jure. Russian control would be acknowledged, but not legitimised – just as the West never accepted the Baltic states as de jure part of the USSR. A security guarantee modelled on NATO’s Article 5 could at least partly meet Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO – the reddest of red lines for Russia. And any foreign troop presence in Ukraine could be under the auspices of the UN, or the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), to meet Russia’s adamant objections to involvement by NATO.

There are also some very practical, if problematic, arguments for Ukraine to cede the Donbas de facto to Russia. The region may be rich in minerals, but even before the devastation of the past 10 years began, it was largely a rust belt. If Russia wants it, let it pick up the bill. Any population exchange would be painful, but there are now far fewer people in the Donbas. At least one million have fled to Russia, with many others fleeing elsewhere in Ukraine or abroad. Of those who remain, by no means all would object to continuing Russian control – for reasons of history, language and culture. It could even be argued (very quietly) that Ukraine without the Donbas could be a more cohesive, more Ukrainian, country.

Ceding the Donbas de facto to Russia could also take several other Russian demands off the table: about rights for the Russian-speaking population, the status of the Russian language and recognition of the Russian, as opposed to the Ukrainian, Orthodox Church. Ukraine’s Russian speakers would now largely be Russia’s responsibility, while Ukraine would be freed of a population it sometimes sees as a fifth column.

Could, would, Zelensky be able to settle for such terms and remain president? Could he carry Ukrainians with him to what, in territorial terms, would be seen as defeat, if not actually surrender? Latest polls suggest that a majority of Ukrainians for the first time favour ending the war, although land for peace remains more contentious.

Zelensky could reasonably argue, however, that Ukraine would remain a viable sovereign nation: it would have fought for and retained key cities such as the port of Odesa and the second city, Kharkiv. There is still the prospect of EU membership (though more remote perhaps than Ukraine might hope). Finland’s president is on record as not recommending ‘Finlandisation’ for Ukraine – the tightrope Finland walked during the Cold War, where it retained its national sovereignty, while refraining from criticising the superpower on its border. But there could be many worse fates for a nation, looking at Finland, a thriving part of Europe, now 30 years on.

Of course, Zelensky could decide that the price is too high and choose to continue the war – essentially the choice he made in April 2022, ostensibly for want of those elusive security guarantees. There is also a view that Zelensky will do nothing that might jeopardise his presidency, and that his refusal to hold scheduled elections last year was less to do with martial law than with his own authoritarian tendencies. In which case, might he decide to go down fighting, as a tragic hero for Ukraine?

Personally, I suspect he would give up power in an instant if he thought there was an alternative that would keep an independent Ukraine on the map. Yet fighting on with inadequate US and European support could cost Ukraine far more than what Russia currently holds.

For the embattled Ukrainian president, every choice ahead is fraught with peril.

Mary Dejevsky is a writer and broadcaster. She was Moscow correspondent for The Times between 1988 and 1992. She has also been a correspondent from Paris, Washington and China.