Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy is due to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Lviv in western Ukraine on Thursday to discuss possible ways to end the war. This question of how to end the war is a hot topic of discussion and there are a variety of opinions on what Ukraine or Western countries should or should not do to encourage Putin to call off the invasion and bring his troops home.
In a discussion on the matter held by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in May, Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that Putin's strategic goal had not changed since the outset of the war, which is to "undermine and destroy Ukraine's ability as an independent nation that can develop democratically and integrate into Euro Atlantic institutions."
Polyakova also noted that Russia's tactics have changed after making slow progress during the first few months of the invasion. She slammed European countries for their weakened stance against Putin and demanded that they be pushed to contribute more to stopping the Russian advance. "Germany has delivered very, very little, despite its promises to deliver heavy weapons, and so have other countries, particularly, more in western Europe. So it's really European policy that needs to be adapted here," she said.
Charles Kupchan, a former special assistant to US President Barack Obama, argued that giving in to Russia should not be seen as a negative approach. "We hear that if Putin isn't defeated, he'll just do more. We hear that this is the front line of the West and if we don't kick them out of every inch of Ukrainian territory the rules-based system falls apart. I don't buy that. Anybody who talks about a territorial settlement is called an appeaser. You saw what Zelensky called [former US Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger after what he said in Davos.
Indeed, Zelensky was furious at Kissinger after the 98-year-old former secretary said Ukraine should cede territory to Russia in order to appease Putin and prevent the war from dragging on and hurting Europe.
Kupchan appeared to agree with Kissinger and said world leaders need to step away from the idea that Putin should surrender everything. "We need to change that narrative and begin a conversation with Ukraine and, ultimately, with Russia about how to end this war sooner rather than later," Kupchan said.
In an article he wrote for the United States Institute for Peace, Ambassador William B. Taylor, vice president, Russia and Europe at the institute, said U.S. support "should be military, financial and political." Taylor served as charge' d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv in 2019. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.
He quoted Zelensky as saying Ukraine will negotiate with Russia when Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russian army back to their positions of February 24, the day Putin initiated its invasion against Ukraine. Taylor said the United States "has committed $54 billion overall to aid for Ukraine. This immediate funding must be followed by a massive reconstruction effort." Taylor said the Ukrainians "will need several forms of political support" and need to go into negotiations "confident that they will be able, in the future, to live in security, free of threat of further Russian invasion."
"To be sure it will be secure in the future, Ukraine either needs to be accepted into NATO or it must be fully able to defend itself," he said. "The Russians are neither going away nor giving up their goal to eliminate Ukraine from the map... The United States and its allies need to reinforce the policy that Ukraine should enter negotiations only when Ukrainians determine they make sense. No nation should apply pressure - or even make suggestions - for another nation, especially one fighting for its very existence, to give up sovereign territory. Ukrainians will decide these questions."
Taylor concluded that if the United States and its Western allies provide sufficient military, financial and political support to Ukraine, then Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people "will have the ability to negotiate an end to the war, at a time of their choosing."
