Just over four years ago, in the days before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the United States and the United Kingdom warned the world that an assault was imminent. Intelligence was clear. What was less clear was whether Ukraine would survive it.
The prevailing assumption of many was brutal in its simplicity – Kyiv would fall within two weeks. When offered evacuation, President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered the line that redefined this war: “I don’t need a taxi, I need weapons.” It was not theatre. It was a signal to Ukrainians and to the world that Ukraine intended to fight.
Four years on, this conflict has already lasted longer than the Soviet–Nazi war on the eastern front during the Second World War. The scale of destruction is immense. Russia has lost over a million men to death or life-changing injury. Its economy is distorted and hollowed by war spending and sanctions. It faces a deepening demographic catastrophe. It has irretrievably lost lucrative Western energy markets it once relied upon. Far from restoring imperial greatness, the Kremlin has reduced Russia to the status of a junior vassal to China.
By contrast, Ukraine remains sovereign. By the most fundamental definition retaining independence, statehood and agency, Ukraine is en-route to victory.
It has not merely endured; it has innovated. Ukraine has become the world leader in modern drone warfare, reshaping battlefield tactics in real time. Ukrainian drones have destroyed 30% of Russia’s long range nuclear capable aircraft, thousands of miles into Russian territory. Ukrainian use of sea drones has driven whatever was left of the Russian fleet out of the Black Sea. Agility, decentralised command structures and technological ingenuity have made Ukraine the number one practitioner of contemporary warfighting. Waiting for years for the Tomahawk missiles that never came, Ukrainians have designed and are now producing their own better suited ballistic missiles, the Flamingos. Those missiles are being used very effectively against selected targets. The Ukrainian people have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not passive subjects of geopolitics but active defenders of their own destiny.
Vladimir Putin has no intention of stopping this war. His personal survival depends on its continuation. A continuing conflict, even show burning one, works very well for Putin. He will heighten repression at home, turning Russia into “North Korea light” to sustain the war machine if necessary. He will continue hybrid warfare across Europe, seeking to fracture Western unity. He will dangle fantastical, undeliverable “trillion-dollar” business promises to Washington to drive wedges between allies and pressure President Zelensky into territorial concessions.
Those territorial demands are a confession of indented future invasion. Since 2014 Russian occupation of Crimea, Ukraine has built some of the best modern defence lines in Western Donbass. So good are those defences that Russians were not able to take them for four years and never will. Thus, they demand Ukraine just surrender those defence lines. Without them Ukraine will find itself vulnerable to any future aggression, and Russians will use Western Donbass as a springboard for its continuing aggression against the West. In any case any territorial concession in Ukraine is a constitutional, not presidential matter, and thus requires a referendum. Every single poll in Ukraine confirms that there is no appetite for any land surrender.
At no point did Putin take any peace negotiations seriously. He is playing the fool, in his firm belief that the West with its democratically mandated regular change of leaders is impotent to outlast him. No Western country he believes can sustain helping Ukraine at the expense of its own social spending programmes.
This is where he is wrong. He very much overestimates the strain he is putting on the Western Allias. The Free World is agile and adaptable and to Putin’s dismay news headlines and public focus have very much been about Venezuela and Iran. Zelensky’s approval ratings in the United States remain above 65 per cent across political affiliations. Russia-Ukraine war has become a Republican issue for the midterm elections, and the electorate demands victory for Ukraine. That means no territorial surrender and tangible security guarantees, but better and cheaper in the long run, complete and utter military defeat of Russia pushing it back to its borders and keeping it within them.
Ukraine has already declared its willingness to be that necessary buffer that West needs against the Putin regime for as long as it lasts.
At home, President Zelensky support continues to strengthen. Ukrainians have proven repeatedly that they will not trade sovereignty for false peace.
Yet, this is precisely the moment when complacency would be most dangerous. War in the Middle East is rightfully commanding everyone’s focus. Political cycles in the United States and Europe are tempting politicians into short-term solutions. In that environment, short sighted calls to cut through Ukraine war knot Gordian style at Ukraine’s expense are becoming more audible and should be resisted.
The task for the West is therefore clear. We must keep putting sanctions pressure on Russia. Make no mistake the sanctions are working slowly strangling Russian economy and impeding its continuing ability for aggression. We must enforce those sanctions ruefully. We must continue delivering advanced weapons systems and ammunition to Ukraine. We must help Ukraine close its skies to Russian missile and drone assault on civilian infrastructure. We must help rebuild Ukraine’s shattered energy systems. We must support the construction of new homes, hospitals and schools to replace those barbarically destroyed. And we must help create the conditions for an avalanche of foreign direct investment once the guns fall silent.
Just as important, we must help Ukraine become a country its refugees want to return to not out of obligation, but out of opportunity and hope. Four years ago, many expected Ukraine to disappear. It did not. What happens next will decide whether borders in Europe can be changed by force and whether unprovoked aggression can go unpunished. It is our responsibility now too secure a stable and permanent peace on the continent.