One Way for Ukraine to Win: Let Putin Declare Victory
Ukraine can then say the same
Uttering one word, one man could end Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
With a single word, he could halt the fighting that, in 40 bloody months, has killed or maimed some 1,000,000 Russians and nearly half a million Ukrainians. He could ease the nuclear fears the conflict has stoked. He could relieve the strain on the Russian and Ukrainian economies—and allow the devastated landscape in eastern and southern Ukraine to finally begin healing.
That word is “stop.” And the only man who can say it is Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, on whose orders 200,000 Russian troops further invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
What will it take for Putin to say the word? That question, more than any other, informs Ukraine’s theory of victory as the wider war grinds into its fourth year and both sides show signs of exhaustion. Ukraine could defeat Russia militarily, effectively giving Putin no choice but to say stop—lest the Ukrainian army destroy whatever forces Russia might still have left following decisive losses in Ukraine.
Or Russia could defeat Ukraine militarily, satisfying Putin’s original conditions for victory. Putin could say stop because he’s gotten everything he ever wanted in Ukraine.
But there’s a third and arguably likelier outcome. Putin could order his armies to stand down not because they’ve actually won, but because Putin says they’ve won.
Putin could have said "Stop" at any point in the past, except for traditional Russian paranoia regarding the natural gateways into the Motherland - the eastern Ukrainian plain being one of them. We promised that NATO would never, ever seek to add territory to its east....and then added Chechia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Finland, and Sweden, all but the last two formerly belonging the the Warsaw Pact. Why should Putin ever believe anything the US says? US politicians have fed every bad dream Putin ever had.