Back in the USSR

After a meeting of European leaders on Sunday, a spokesman for German Chancellor Merz voiced Europe’s readiness to take “the leading role in negotiations to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”  Conditions for a deal would include a cease-fire along the current front lines, “robust security guarantees” for Ukraine, and a continued freeze on Russian assets until Ukraine is compensated for war damages. The telling use of the phrase “full-scale invasion” reveals Europe’s preferred endgame: The territories seized prior to the 2022 invasion are a bargaining chip on offer to Russia. Europe is inviting Putin to take a limited win, keeping Crimea and occupied Donbas in exchange for an end to the war.  If Zelensky accepted this, it could only have come with promises to usher Ukraine into the EU immediately after any deal is reached.  Anything less would lead to his prompt ouster by an enraged Ukrainian populace.

The Russian President, with his usual malign puckishness, proposed the thoroughly suborned Gerhard Schröder as Europe’s representative, ample evidence that he does not yet consider Europe a power deserving to negotiate on equal terms with imperial Russia.  Putin is also aware that anything short of victory over Ukraine puts his continued rule and very life in peril.  Keeping only what Russia already had prior to the “full-scale invasion” in 2022 renders the subsequent sacrifices in blood and treasure for naught.  Virulent Russian nationalists and a battered military will take any such deal as a betrayal of their animating ideology and the Russian people.  Yet putting Putin at risk with a peace deal is clearly part of Europe’s plan. Her leaders have quietly embraced Stalin’s old truism: “No man, no problem.”  The man launched this war: If he is humiliated and ousted upon its conclusion, then Russia may resume its transformation into a “normal European state”.

This pleasing fable is belied by a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, “The Inertia of Russia War: Why Putin Can’t End the Conflict” by Seva Gunitsky and Jeremy Morris. While this journal normally caters to the extinct volcanoes of American foreign policy, it occasionally publishes essays meriting the attention of foreign ministries across Europe.  Gunitsky and Morris argue that “…after more than four years of conflict, Russia’s economy and society have been reorganised around war, creating a powerful set of domestic incentives that make ending the war difficult.”  The only thriving sectors of the Russian economy are associated with military spending. The armed forces monopolise state resources, and veterans expect privileged access to public support and government jobs. Urban elites are kept content with a grey market in imported consumer goods while unrest in the provinces is met with violent repression.