Ukraine à tout prix?

Recently, the Energy minister of Ukraine, Herman Haluschchenko, signalled that during the upcoming Winter, Europe is going to face "challenges never seen before". The prediction is accurate; what is not yet settled is the question of how far Europe is willing to go in order to defeat Russia in the Ukrainian battlefields. At the start of the war, the undersigned was fervently in favour of Ukraine's induction in the European Union, in virtue of her people's heroic resistance and upholding of values that Europeans hold dear such as democracy, national self-determination and civic freedom.

To this position I stand faithful. And indeed, six months on, the ideological dimension of the war is ever-prominent. The defendent fights for their national independence and the offender in order to restore their fallen geopolitical empire, irrespective of human cost, liberties and rights -- with complete scorn of international law and of principles of Justice. The stability of the UN-based post-war system of peaceful co-existence is at stake today in Ukraine and --even more so -- in Taiwan. It remains to be seen whether in today's world the gunpower of a mighty totalitarian state may still thwart the international legal order.

I fully understand that it is not 1945 any more. Global priorities nowadays include not only the sustainment of peace, even at the cost of justice (e.g. arbitrary border revision in order to appease a large power). In our time, people expect from the U.N. to preserve JustPeace -- peace established on the international rule of law. Nonetheless, if we want the U.N. system to survive as we know it and to really respond to the challenges of the day, we must pursue peace in Ukraine immediately, even if this means compromises on part of NATO as well.

The European Union is energy-dependent on Russia; it lacks an autonomous, common and dynamic diplomatic and military posture and it has been financially stagnated since the Great Recession of 2008-09. These parameters don't allow for Europe to sustain a long war in Ukraine. We already witness the first alarm signals: the French president no more commands a majority in the country's National Assembly; the German government crumbles; Italy and Spain might soon be governed by eurosceptic governments. And all this before the upcoming "Winter of Discontent", as the Economist has nicely labelled it. On the face of fuel rationing and of unprecedented price-hikes due to inflationary pressures, the public outrage of Europeans will be transformed into indifference for the fate of Ukraine and into decreasing sympathy for her embattled people.

Kiev won the short war but it is impossible for it to win a long war against Moscow. Despite Russia's remarkably harsh isolation, it continues to command the resources and military equipment necessary to carry on the war as long as it is needed for it to achieve something akin to victory to its own people. The Ukrainian resistance on the other hands is wholly dependent on NATO assistance. If the latter is suddenly cut due to infight in the Alliance or between European states, then the government in Kiev will lose its grip and the country will degenerate into a European Afghanistan, whereby a long-term guerilla war will fuel anarchy, famine and misery for Ukrainians and sustain a major security threat at the doorstep of the E.U. As time passes with the cost of the war being felt accross democratic Europe, the "Justice front" in this war will gradually lose momentum.

Forcing a peace treaty now, which will neutralise Ukraine and guarantee this neutrality through constitutional and other provisions, while retaining the territorial integrity and political independence of the country (excluding Crimea, the question of which must be considered separately), will be a victory for the international legal order. It will be the first time that a state as significant as Russia will not have illegally and unilaterally forced its will on a smaller, less powerful one, without having concurrently provoked a humanitarian catastrophe. On the contrary, if the war drags on for the next year or more, then there is now favourable end game. One of two things may happen: either the E.U. stands alongside America, having taken the risky decision of accepting the economic, political and social costs of supporting Ukraine until the very end, and puts too much pressure to the Kremlin, provoking the use of weapons of mass destruction by the Putin regime in order for the latter not to be outright defeated and to secure its position against a threat of an incestral coup d' état of the hawkish hard-liners, or the anti-Russian front collapses (especially in Europe) and the Kremlin goes on to conquer the lands that it deems as important. The latter would be truly catastrophic: Ukraine would then disintegrate, Donetsk will be connected to Transnistria with the Black Sea under Russian control and with millions of people accross the world, reliant on Ukrainian grain exports, being starved to death.

The European Union has less leverage in this war, compared to the United States. Europe is relying on Russian energy; it lacks internal political cohesion and its relations with Moscow are much more complex than they seem. By contrast with the U.S.A., the E.U. is in the proximity of Russia and must find out a neighbourly modus vivendi with the latter, irrespective of the outcome of the war. Who controls the nuclear codes and the gas flows in Moscow is of greater interest for Europe than for America. And contrary to Russia, the nation-states of the E.U. are democratic and economically progressed; they are not exposed to the Goebels-style propaganda of the Kremlin nor are they lured by a dictatorial personality cult as Russians are vis-à-vis their President. Therefore time runs against Europe. We must as soon as possible determine our stance in the Ukrainian war and the limits of our support for Kiev's aspirations, as we are evermore close to a very difficult winter. There are two ways to navigate the situation: either we pursue an immediate conclusion of peace, willing to make some sensible concessions, or we support Ukraine until the end irrespective of costs and outcomes -- à tout prix. That though entails the risk not only of a war concluded on terms completely opposite of those dictated by international law but of a conclusion that might come with consequences "never seen before".