How will the Russia-Ukraine conflict end?

It is difficult, almost indecent, to look beyond the suffering, shock and awfulness of what is happening in Ukraine. Armchair generals warn us that the worst is yet to come, as Putin’s frustrated invasion force flails brutally, armed with the most vicious weapons in human history. 

At some point, the Ukraine Campaign will be concluded. Invasion Day, 24 February, will live in infamy because after it, the world — or rather the assumptions by which we in “the West” have shaped it since the Second World War — will never be the same again.

Everything has changed because Russian tanks have rolled Westward over a peaceful neighbour. We have learned a lot about President Putin, who was until now viewed as a latent threat. 

That has demanded radical changes in our thinking about our security, starting with rapid early responses such as the re-armament by Germany and the mobilisation of the globalised financial system against Russia, energy excepted so far. 

What comes afterwards will depend totally on the, as yet unresolved, outcome of the fighting. The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman envisages three possible scenarios ranging from “full blown disaster”, through “the dirty compromise” to “salvation”. I am both more pessimistic and more optimistic.

There should really be a five range scale of possible outcomes with “Apocalypse” added at one end and “Triumph of the West” at the other. The worst-case scenario could be the one that arrives most quickly. Sheer brute force reduces Ukrainian cities to piles of rubble, as Putin’s forces did eventually to Grozny. Ukraine’s government is destroyed. But the occupation is unstable. 

Although Putin claims victory, as sanctions bite there is unrest in Russia at a high cost both in lives and wealth. As President Biden warned this month in his first State of the Union address, “when dictators do not pay the price for their aggression they cause more chaos. They keep moving.” 

This was one lesson from the history of the Nazis. Like a shark, to stay alive Putin may keep moving towards other neighbouring territories: Moldova, outside the Western Alliance or the Baltic states, which are members of NATO.

By this stage, Russian may already have used tactical nuclear weapons to hammer down the occupation of Ukraine. Kremlinologists note that Putin usually does what he threatens. Tactical nuclear weapons already feature in Russian war games. 

Russian biological weapons were deployed in the UK in the covert attacks on Litvinenko and the Skripals. In this scenario, the West would be drawn in to resist further Russian expansion; perhaps it will have engaged earlier, whatever has been said by our leaders, to impose the No Fly Zone, President Zelensky has asked for. World War III would move from cold to hot: a shooting war, only with much more powerful guns and new battle zones in cyberspace. 

The threat of nuclear weapons would also come into play one step down. With Ukraine’s defence reduced to insurgency, President Putin has already outlined his next demands.

Recognition of Ukraine as a Russian puppet statelet. No moves by Sweden or Finland closer to NATO or face “consequences they have never had in their history”. The removal of NATO forces and missiles from Poland and other former Warsaw Pact territories. It is difficult to see how any of this could be acceptable but Ukraine is currently paying the bitter price of the western allies calling his bluff.  

Biden stated explicitly this week, “our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but to defend NATO allies in the event that Putin decides to keep moving West”. 

So could there be brokered “compromise”, dirty or not, to restore an East/West stand-off? Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq show that it could be years before some semblance of everyday life is restored to ordinary people living in modern conflict zones. 

Often in the recent past, we in Europe and North America have merely looked on compassionately, wrung our hands, sent aid, dealt with refugees, all without threatening our daily routine – even when our own forces have been involved. 

Putin exploited that complacency to launch Russia’s attack on a neighbouring sovereign state in the belief that there will soon be a return to business as usual. He got away with it in Chechnya, Syria, Crimea, and Donbas, so why not now? 

Some who remember the Cold War hope that we can return to it. George Kennan, the American diplomat who outlined the theory of “containment” of the Soviet Union in the late 1940s, is again being lionised for saying in the 1990s that it was “a tragic mistake” and an “ill-considered decision to expand NATO” into Eastern Europe. Putin and Lavrov agree with him. 

General Sir David Richards, a recent British Chief of Defence Staff, has been arguing that supporting the Ukrainian resistance will only result in more bloodshed because Russia will win anyway. This attitude is of a piece with the decision taken at the 1980 NATO Summit in Bucharest to leave “an open door” to Ukraine and Georgia to become NATO members one day. 

As I reported at the time, this was a “mañana” invitation which effectively told Putin that we would not fight for them. Russia invaded Georgia months afterwards. Then came the 2014 occupation of Eastern Ukraine, and now this.

Brokered by China, it is possible that a deal could be done over the heads of the Ukrainians to return their country to 2008. But this is not 2008. 

Since then, there has been the EuroMaidan revolution and the election of President Zelensky. Ukraine has established itself as an independent country in the world’s eyes, which have been traumatised by millions of digital images of the consequences of the Russian attack.

There has never been a conflict in the full exposure of social media like this before, let alone one in Europe, involving people and places that look like us in the West. It is unlikely that Western opinion, particularly among younger generations trying themselves to bring up families, would tolerate a “dirty” sell out. 

Besides, as Russia experts keep telling us, Putin is more like a Tsar than a Soviet leader. He is not interested in being “contained” by foreign powers or “constrained” by a politburo in the Kremlin. 

For now, as President Biden noted, there “is a more united west”. Germany and France have had to abandon dreams about collaborating with Putin’s Russia. Though many challenges remain, the leaders of “Global Britain” have been reminded that Britain is a European power that needs to work with its neighbours. The UK was ahead in scepticism about Putin’s intentions, but the EU has been nimbler doing something about them. 

So long as Biden is in power, “America is back” at the head of the Western alliance. Cold warriors are already stressing how that would break up if Donald “Putin Genius” Trump were to make a comeback. Yet, some of Trump’s strongest allies supported the bipartisan “Never Yielding Europe’s Territory (Nyet) Act” of $850 million of immediate military assistance to Ukraine. 

Putin hasn’t won yet. The invasion has been botched and bogged down. Hundreds of demoralised Russian troops have been killed and taken prisoner. 

Some of their war machines are bogged down or abandoned. Key cities have not yet fallen. Even if Putin’s artillery and airpower pulverise Ukraine, it seems likely that he will not be able to consolidate a credible puppet government. 

Nor will that government be recognised and the sanctions against Russia taken off. If the pressure is sustained, eventual withdrawal and retreat by Russian forces are still possibilities. That is what happened to the Soviet Union and the West in Afghanistan. 

The final triumph of the West would not be brought about by Westerners. It will come when the Russians themselves dispense with a failed dictator who has brought his people and their neighbours’ grief and isolation.