Nicolai Petro: Europe knows Ukrainians are pocketing support money – but Ukraine’s fight buys Europe time to prepare for war

Ukraine’s strategy has always been to convince the West to put boots on the ground, its only hope for victory, says renowned Ukraine expert Nicolai Petro

^{Nicolai Petro. Source: The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy}

Originally published on Marker.sk in Slovak and English

As the conflict in Ukraine intensifies and the last Donbas fortress cities are evacuated, the widely felt optimism of the summer regarding Ukraine’s military prospects has all but faded. With air defence ammunition in short supply – and NATO countries no longer willing to part with their own supplies despite appeals from President Zelensky – Ukraine’s skies are largely open. And this at a time when Russia’s missile production has increased dramatically, and its new jet-powered Geran drones are proving much harder to defend against. As a result, strikes on Ukraine’s military and transport infrastructure are weakening the country’s fighting capacity. Manpower problems also continue to be a major issue, with Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov recently stating that Ukraine needs to mobilise 30,000 troops per month just to maintain current levels.

Analysts, however, have been quick to point out that the military situation is only one of the many acute problems facing Ukraine today. Economically, the recent bombardment of its Black Sea ports has effectively landlocked the country and stopped all seagoing traffic, which had accounted for roughly 90% of the country’s trade and agricultural exports. This – combined with ongoing Russian attacks on its energy and other vital infrastructure – now threatens to bring the Ukrainian economy to its knees as it heads into what is likely to be its worst winter yet. Financially, the country has long been running on European life support and now faces a reported $30 billion budget gap that Europe cannot fill, prompting fears that social payments and military wages could be suspended.

Politically, Ukraine’s ongoing corruption scandals have moved into the president’s office itself and engulfed some of Zelensky’s closest advisors – while among the populace, there is a growing and increasingly violent rebellion against the conscription press gangs that are dragging men off the street for military service. All these and many other critical problems (a fuller list here) have prompted speculation as to how long Ukraine can hold out before something gives way, potentially forcing its leaders (among other things) to negotiate an end to the war on Russia’s terms.

In order to better understand the nature of the volatile situation in which Ukraine now finds itself – and what all this might mean for its future as a nation – I spoke with Nicolai Petro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island. Fluent in Russian from his youth, Petro served as Special Advisor for Policy in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs at the US State Department in the early 1990s, as historic events were unfolding. Since that time he has written extensively on Russian foreign and domestic policy. And since 2008 – when he was invited by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences to come and talk about “future visions” of Ukraine – he has taken a special interest in Ukrainian politics, returning often to the country for lengthy stays as a visiting scholar. In addition to many articles and appearances, he has recently published a highly acclaimed book with the curious title: The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us about Conflict Resolution.

With all the severe problems the country is facing, how are ordinary Ukrainians feeling about the war effort at this point?

Well, we know there have been two million desertions or draft evasions, according to the previous minister of defence. There are now more people that have deserted or avoided conscription than have served in the Ukrainian military. So that’s the situation among the soldiers. If we were to ask the citizenry – judging from the surveys we have – we’re now at about two-thirds in favour of negotiating an end to the conflict. Now among senior military commanders, you hear different things. There are some who say: Look, this is indeed a hopeless situation. But when you go higher up, to the general staff and the commanders of armies, these are essentially political appointees. So there would have to be an extraordinary catastrophe to lead them essentially to rebel against the decisions of the political elite. They would have to say: I as a military leader must now assume responsibility for the salvation of the nation. That’s basically a military coup, and there’s no tradition of that in the Russian or Ukrainian military. It would also require a level of coordination that I’m not aware of them having.

And what about the top political leaders? Could any of these terrible crises cause them to reconsider the wisdom of continuing this war?

It would take a particular crisis aimed at a critical leader, in this case, Zelensky. There’s no other critical leader in Ukraine. And it has to be something that would change his thinking and give him a way out. In other words, you can put all the pressure you want on someone – but if it’s all stick and no carrot, then he’ll see it through. From the way people who know him describe him, he’s very stubborn and has a very high opinion of himself. He thinks he can manage any situation and turn it to his advantage. That’s his conviction.

And the other political leaders?

Well, look at it from their perspective. Everybody in a senior position is living, if you will, their best life in wartime. Maybe their loved ones are already abroad. Maybe they have a dual citizenship. A lot of their assets are already going abroad. And as a result, their life is not the life of the average Ukrainian under bombardment. And just this past week, the Rada passed a law mandating security protection for all senior officials and for the president and his family, for the rest of his life. So that’s what they’re thinking about.

Security protection against other Ukrainians?

Well, yes, any potential threat. And there is obviously that potential threat connected with the charge of treason – which is how the decision to surrender or negotiate would be seen by the most radical nationalists.

But what are they thinking when it comes to the actual outlook for this war? Isn’t this potentially existential for Ukraine?

I actually don’t think this is an existential conflict for Ukraine, although they’re selling it to the Europeans as one. If we look at Russia’s entire conduct of the war – first there was the small number of troops that were used in the initial intervention. Then there was the very careful and I would say methodical effort to dismantle the Ukrainian armed forces and infrastructure – basically the war-making machine, built up and supported by the West – while at the same time keeping civilian casualties as low as possible. These are clear indications that this is not an effort to eradicate Ukraine. Now, we could debate whether this is changing. There are people in Moscow who say that Russia hasn’t taken the war effort seriously enough, because they haven’t taken seriously the intention of the Europeans essentially to eradicate Russia.

In any case, isn’t it becoming clear to Ukraine’s leaders that there is no real path to victory?

They probably know they’re losing. But look down the road a bit – what do we see? The Ukrainian strategy has always been to get the West into the war all the way. First the Americans, when they were on board, and now the Europeans. And the rhetoric of European leaders supports this idea, that they will come into the war all the way: This is an existential threat, Russia must lose – Russia must potentially be dismembered to prevent this sort of threat from rising again, and so on. So it’s all there. And European aid is being dribbled out.

A lot of people say that this “dribbling out” of aid is just enough to keep Ukraine fighting, but not enough to let them win. Is this deliberate?

So, look at it from Europe’s perspective. Why is this aid important? It’s important because it keeps Ukraine’s political and military elites loyal to the cause. Remember, Ukraine’s fight against Russia is buying time for Europe to prepare for its own war with Russia. Of course, Europe knows that a substantial portion of this money – according to the New York Times, at least $1.2 billion of it – disappears into corrupt schemes. It’s this systemic corruption, actually, that allows the current system to function as well as it does.

What would happen, then – I know it’s unlikely, but hypothetically – if Europe’s political situation changed, and it simply switched off its support for Ukraine? And the Americans stayed out? What would Ukraine do in that scenario?

Well for one thing, it would more clearly define those people in Ukraine who really want to fight to the bitter end. According to surveys that number is as high as 20 percent, but I think the actual numbers are probably much lower, and this would clarify it.

Then there’s always the possibility of something else occurring to give Ukraine hope – it may be small, but it’s out there. There are State Duma elections coming in Russia. What if Putin loses big? What if opposition figures then begin to put pressure on him, and to focus the issues on the war in Ukraine, the negative economic effects of the sanctions, and so on? That’s always been a key talking point of Ukrainian government officials – that we can apply enough pressure on Russia to change the calculus of the regime.

And then there are the November midterm elections in the United States. If Trump’s party loses, then it’s assumed that the Democrats, who are more supportive of Ukraine, will reintroduce funding. Trump will be a “lame duck” president and will have no alternative. Now, will it be enough support to make a difference? Maybe not. But again, one thing can lead to another. If the support is given, and Ukraine still loses, then – given the existential nature of the crisis – what choice is there but to send troops to the region? This is the thinking.

Okay, so let’s say Europe or the US gets directly involved, and the war turns in Ukraine’s favour. And at some point a Russian defeat becomes imminent. What would that defeat look like? We’re talking about the most well-armed nuclear state on the planet, and one that is absolutely determined not to lose. What would Russia do, if it really was facing defeat? Would it just lay down and die? Is there anyone in the West asking these questions?

There wasn’t in Iraq. There wasn’t in Afghanistan. There wasn’t in Vietnam.

But Russia has nuclear weapons.

I often think that the rhetoric of the European leaders is looser than they would ordinarily allow it to be, because they assume that Putin is the adult in the room, and that he is too responsible and too knowledgeable to want to engage in a nuclear conflict. Therefore, they can embellish and make all sorts of claims about Russia, and not take them seriously – because, in fact, Putin is a serious and responsible international actor and would not do that. There is an argument that has been popularised by Sergei Karaganov – an analyst and senior advisor to the Kremlin – where he says: What we need to do is wake up the Europeans to the potential danger of putting us in a corner. We need to send a shot across the bow with a tactical nuke, as a reminder to the political leadership. Karaganov doesn’t want nuclear war. But to avoid it, he says, we may need to remind them – in the same way you teach a child to avoid flames by putting their hand near it. Now, Putin hasn’t endorsed this idea. But what both Putin and Lavrov have said recently, is that if there is a direct war with Europe, it will be very short. Which seems to imply a devastating strike, with no holds barred.

So that gets back to my question: Is there anyone in Europe giving serious thought to what Russia would do if it really was pushed into a corner and facing defeat?

From a European perspective, these are scenarios that we can avoid thinking about for now – by just doing more of the same. Life in Europe is not so bad. Leaders come, leaders go, our economies are suffering, but it’s not an amputation. It’s only a slow drip, a slow loss of energy. I will see it through. All the members of my entourage – the elite and their families – will see it through. Maybe a generation or so from now, it’ll be a different Europe – a much poorer Europe because of these decisions – but I’ll be long gone. I think there’s that calculus.

So is there no one in Europe who says: I’m worried about the consequences of our actions today for the next generation, and the generation after that?

Only Putin says that. Putin is making the case that this unfortunate conflict is the result of a long series of pressures that we Russians were forced to respond to. Because if the patterns that have been established had continued over the next generation or two, we would then be in a vulnerable position where we could not defend ourselves. And that’s particularly true with respect to Ukraine. If at some point in the future Ukraine really became a bulwark for NATO, a weapon aimed at Russia, then we wouldn’t be in any position to respond. So we are actually responding now, at a time when it is most convenient for us to do so. Now assuming this is accurate – that it reflects Putin’s actual strategic vision – then it certainly makes sense for him to reject in principle a mere ceasefire, and to insist instead on a negotiated peace settlement – one that settles all the issues between Russia and Ukraine, and also Europe. And the crowning cherry on that cake would be a new pan-European security framework in which both Russia and Ukraine would be full members. That would resolve the issue, or would at least lay the framework for that resolution for future generations. But there’s no one in Europe now even willing to talk about negotiating or having a dialogue with Russia.

So what do you see, then, as the most promising approach out there for actually resolving the current conflict and bringing it to an end?

Well, if you actually want to end the conflict, it can be ended very quickly by a direct negotiation between Ukraine and Russia – in which the Europeans and the Americans are told by both sides to “butt out”. The last time Ukraine and Russia did have direct negotiations – early on in the war, in Istanbul and elsewhere – there was an interesting thing that happened. During the course of the meetings, the Russian and Ukrainian delegates – to the astonishment of the Europeans present – started to make jokes and to get along. Because essentially, they understood each other better – far better – than either of them understood the Europeans. Now, do the Europeans want to end the current conflict, or do they want to take advantage of it? Do they want to squeeze every last drop out of the Ukrainians that they can? Of course they do. But that is not how the situation gets resolved. It gets resolved through direct negotiations. The Ukrainians and the Russians need to say: This is not your issue – let us two resolve this issue.

But it seems the Ukrainians will have no incentive to do this as long as Europe continues to support them militarily.

Which is why at the very top of the Ukrainian political hierarchy, the strategy has not changed: get the Europeans directly into the war as soon as possible. And for them to get into the war, two things have to happen. First, we need to get them fully committed to our cause, and to see that Ukraine is fighting for Europe’s security. And second, we need to really lose – and be seen as losing – because then Europe will be forced to commit fully and to send troops. And that’s still the ultimate hope, and probably the only hope, for a Ukrainian victory. Or at least something they can claim to their population is some sort of victory, even if it doesn’t reconstitute the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Whatever settlement there is, it has to be sold as a victory to the Ukrainians and the Europeans. And that can be almost anything – although there are probably some limits to what is plausible.

So let’s say – again hypothetically – that Europe decides it’s best for Ukraine and Russia to work this out between themselves, as you say. They tell Ukraine: We’re backing off. We’ll help you with reconstruction, humanitarian stuff. But militarily, we’re out of here. And the Americans are out of here. Nobody’s supporting you militarily. What do you think would happen within Ukraine?

First, it would have to be believable, a public declaration of intent at the highest level – that we still support Ukraine, but we support it now to reach a negotiated settlement with Russia, and we will no longer encourage or give Ukraine a blank cheque to continue the war. That time is over. Now, there are voices in Ukraine that have argued all along that it’s a hopeless dream to expect Europeans to become involved in this fight. And so I think that if Europe really did this, then what would happen is those voices would gain strength. And there would be tremendous pressure on the political leadership to reach out and have direct negotiations with the Russian leadership. That’s what would happen. The military, I think, would follow suit – but that’s a different kettle of fish. Especially because the nationalists are semi-integrated into the military structure, and retain a great deal of their own unit autonomy and their ideological mission in Ukraine.

Well that was my next question – what about the nationalists? Even before the war, they were threatening Zelensky’s life if he dared talk to Russia.

Well, for many years now, including during the eight-year essentially civil war in Donbas, I’ve argued that if there is going to be social peace within Ukraine, the only way that’s going to happen is if the elected government demilitarises these vigilante groups and says: You cannot threaten the state. You cannot threaten Zelensky. You cannot threaten regional governors. You cannot be allowed to be a vigilante group outside the authority of the state. You can no longer be independent actors who are “safeguarding our well-being” in case the political leadership betrays the interest of Ukraine, as you see it. This is an incompatible structure within a society that aspires to the rule of law. So it has to be curtailed. And these people need to be de-fanged, and probably given other things to do. And in some cases, given prison sentences.

And how will the nationalists respond? They’re organised. They have weapons. Are they just going to say: Okay, that’s the end of it?

Well, no. At first, they would try to sabotage the process. It was the leader of the Right Sector, actually, who sabotaged the Geneva talks in 2015 by starting the military conflict that led to the secession of the Donbas. These were multilateral talks, with Russia’s participation, between the representatives of Donbas and the Ukrainian interim government. So I think this sort of thing will continue. And they will continue their independent efforts to assassinate civilian and military leaders on the Russian side. On the Ukrainian side, the most visible proponents of a dialogue with Russia will also be targeted, as they were during the early days of Maidan. And so there’s no alternative but to disband these formations, and not allow a rival military cohort to exist. And that means tackling head-on the nationalist leaders. This is made more difficult by the fact that many parts of the current government have endorsed elements of the nationalist agenda – cultural, linguistic, and religious.

So in the public eye, then, these nationalists could still defend themselves strongly on ideological grounds.

Yes, they will argue that it’s not just an attack on them as vigilantes, but it’s an attack on the entire project of Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian nationhood. And they will point to all the things they’ve done which they see as relevant to Ukrainian nationhood: the suppression of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the suppression of the Russian language, and the changing of the school curriculum to feature this new pantheon of nationalist heroes – including its Nazi-sympathising wartime heroes. All of this, they’ll say, is why they should be supported and not disbanded. Because – they’ll argue – if they take us out, then everybody will start speaking Russian again.

But don’t most Ukrainians speak Russian anyway, despite the restrictions?

Of course they do, in private – but now they’ll be speaking it openly again, in public. It’s funny, actually, and people joke about this. We have all these tapes from the corruption investigations, hundreds of hours of tapes of the political leadership – people from the prosecutor’s office, all these people in Zelensky’s entourage – they’re all heard on tape conspiring and being engaged in some sort of corrupt activities. And not a single one is speaking Ukrainian. Not a single one. They’re all speaking Russian – to each other. But as soon as you turn on the cameras, they switch to Ukrainian – because it’s expected of them, and it’s the state law. But amongst themselves – just as most school children in Kiev do during their breaks – they all speak Russian. They’re obviously much more comfortable talking in Russian than trying to figure out what that word is supposed to be in Ukrainian. It’s different with your average sort of shopkeepers, and so on. They come from rural areas, and there can be all sorts of mishmash linguistic combinations. But the political leadership and the urban elites have historically always been Russian-speaking, and that hasn’t changed.

Do you think there are many within Ukraine, even among the leaders, who maybe wouldn’t say it publicly, but who now recognise that following the West’s lead on this whole thing – and being willing to be used by the West as a frontline weapon against Russia – has been a terrible mistake?

Yes, I think there are a lot of people who think that. But in today’s context, they have no alternative but to “grin and bear it”. If the war were to end, of course, there are a number of political voices and analysts who would openly begin to critique the West – its duplicity, its dishonesty with respect to Ukraine. They will remember Boris Johnson and others, who all said: We will provide you anything you need to defeat Russia – and then didn’t do it. And even after the war this will be an ongoing issue – because I don’t think anyone believes that the fantastical amounts that are being sought for Ukraine’s reconstruction will actually be given to Ukraine. That’s just never going to happen. For one thing, the West doesn’t have that money. And anyway, why should we invest it in Ukraine – a Ukraine that is no longer openly fighting Russia, and therefore no longer buying time for Europe to rearm? And furthermore, a Ukraine that has such a long and distinguished history of corruption? We know that throwing money at Ukraine means a significant portion of it gets put into pockets, and distributed to senior officials and businessmen around the world. And knowing that, why would you give that much money to such a corrupt regime?

So among those people who now see reliance on the West as a mistake, do you think there are some who would also say that we shouldn’t have done so much to antagonise Russia? And that we should try now to establish good relations?

A few, but not many. Self-examination is never popular. Yes, the new generation of Ukrainian politicians is sceptical and suspicious of the West. We can blame the West for the disaster of Ukraine – you’ve proved that you don’t have our interests at heart at all. But that doesn’t make us pro-Russian.

Not pro-Russian, but pragmatically saying: Okay, we don’t like Russia, but we’re willing to try and get along as best we can.

A difficult argument, and a subtle argument, to make. I think for the foreseeable future – five years, maybe longer – the argument is going to be: “A pox on both your houses.” And: Ukraine first. We need to think about building “fortress Ukraine”, without excessive reliance on anybody – especially not Europe, because they stabbed us in the back. And not Russia, because they have proved to be less than brotherly to us and we’ll never trust them again. But the pragmatism comes into play in future generations – and here there is almost no escape, because of the common language, the common border, the common family ties. The question is, what will this relationship be like in a future generation? Now, if I’m Ukrainian and I have a national school textbook, and the textbook says: We were here before the Russians, Russia is a backwater to Kiev, everything that Russia ever did or invented or created was done by a Ukrainian – and they’ve always been jealous of us – if that’s the tone of the textbook, you’re going to get a poisoned generation in the future.

And what sort of textbook would you like to see instead?

Well, the alternative – which makes a great deal of sense historically, anthropologically and ethnographically – is to take the history of the Slavs as a single history. First present the Eastern Slavs as together, as one, up to a certain point. And then – after 800 years of joint formation and construction – break it down into what we have now, the national histories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

And is there an appetite for that?

Well, there is among professional historians, but they’ve been chased out right now, because of the nationalist agenda, and the nationalist monopoly on intellectual and cultural life. But eventually there is going to have to be that confrontation between those, on the one hand, who see Ukraine as a small parochial country devoted to the creation of some sort of 100% ethnically pure Ukrainian state – “Ukraine for Ukrainians” – and on the other hand, those who see it as a country that can be open to world events and trends and is part of the mainstream of world developments. It can’t be both. And many people who are very critical of this war and of Russia, nonetheless say that pursuing a parochial Ukrainian vision will be the death of us as a nation.

And would you want to venture a guess as to how that confrontation would turn out? I mean, who would come out on top?

It would be bloody. It would be fought in the streets for a while. One of the first prominent political assassinations in Kyiv, in the days after the Maidan, was the assassination of the Ukrainian writer, Oles Buzina. Now, Oles Buzina was a bit of a lightning rod. He would go on the talk shows, and he wrote these historical treatises explaining why things have turned out the way they have in Ukraine. He was from Western Ukraine, and he was – in his own words and mind – a proper Ukrainian, in terms of cultural and genetic pedigree. But he said: Look, to be honest, Ukrainians never had it so good as they did in Tsarist Russia – and so I am a Ukrainian who sees my identity as part of a larger pan-Russian identity.

And he was assassinated – presumably for expressing this sort of view?

Yes, but as I said a moment ago, there is almost no escape from this common identity. Actually the first real political party in Ukraine was the Russian-Ukrainian Independence Party – because you couldn’t define one without the other. The Russian-Ukrainian forces were an independent unit in the First World War. So this combination was always seen as together and related. It’s in all the historical documents, all the historical record. Any serious student of history doesn’t have to reach far to see the interconnections and interpenetration. So it’s not going to go away. You can’t burn all the books. You can’t burn all the historical records. They’ll remain somewhere. And those kinds of historical references will inevitably resonate with some part of the population – as long as there is any historical memory left. And this is such a big part of Ukraine’s history – the larger Eastern Slavic, “Rus”, Russian community – that it will inevitably find its way back into public discourse, when it’s no longer politically and personally costly to bring it up.

It sounds like you’re saying that ultimately, this Ukrainian nationalistic fervour will kind of fade into the background.

Putin put it very eloquently once when he said: Look, I don’t know when, but at some point, Ukrainians and Russians will meet again along their historical path.