Chrystia Freeland: Give Ukraine back its future

by Chrystia Freeland, former Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine and Deputy Prime Minister of Canada (2019–2024)

Source: Project Syndicate

There is more than a little irony in the fact that Ukrainians are bleeding and dying for Western democracy and the European Union at a time when so many are losing faith in both. But they are – and they have shown that they can win.

For over a decade, much of the West has been pondering how to manage Ukraine’s inevitable subordination to Russia. Yes, we’ve said we stand with Ukraine. Yes, we’ve said that we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. And yet we have consistently failed to give Ukraine the support it needs to win. We have even repeatedly discouraged Ukraine from using its own resources as effectively as possible to defend itself.

It is time to change that half-hearted paradigm. We need to recognize that Ukraine can win and that a Ukrainian victory is in the interests of the geopolitical West (and if we don’t believe that, we should say so). And then we need to devise a plan for a Ukrainian victory.

Our defeatism started with the 2014 invasion of Crimea, when the West told Ukrainians to stand down and tacitly accepted Russian control of the peninsula. On the eve of the 2022 full-scale invasion, we prepared to support a long Ukrainian guerilla war against Russian occupation and were cautious about giving the Ukrainian government weapons that we assumed would only fall into Russian hands. As the Kremlin’s tanks crossed the border, we offered President Volodymyr Zelensky an escape route, so he could lead Ukraine’s government in exile.

Even after the Ukrainian people showed that they had the will and the strength not to be conquered, we have been collectively hesitant about giving them the tools that they need to win. Worse, we have even cautioned them against using their own weapons to maximum effect.

It is time to stop equivocating. It is time to stop settling for stalemate and planning for Finlandization. Ukraine can defeat Russia, and NATO allies and our Asian partners will be stronger if it does. So, it is past time to plan for success.

Fighting to win

It starts with Ukraine’s capacity for victory. Since the war began, Ukraine has consistently outperformed Western expectations. Kyiv did not fall. Ukraine, with no navy of its own, has destroyed much of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and broken through its maritime blockade. Ukraine has deprived Russia of control of the sky. And Ukraine has held Russia to an effective stalemate on the ground: in fact, Ukraine today controls more of its own territory than it did immediately after Russia’s full-scale incursion.

Ukraine, a country of 40 million, with an economy the size of the US state of Nebraska, is holding its own against Russia, with its 144 million people, oil production on par with Saudi Arabia, and the world’s second most powerful military, for the same reason the Allies won World War II. Ukraine is a democracy, whose highly motivated and well-educated citizens refuse to be defeated.

In practice, this means that the future of war is being invented on Ukraine’s frontline and by technologists working in its remarkably vibrant cities. Ukraine has turned itself into the world’s leading inventor, producer, and user of drones, and is constantly developing new ones and new techniques. Recognizing that the path to victory must include missile strikes that bring the war home to the Russian people – for example, by destroying oil refineries – and that hit Russia’s military arsenal and defense industries, Ukraine is developing and building its own missiles.

Ukraine can do so because this is a people’s war. Civilian donations are an important source of support for the military, and self-organized brigades, which compete to attract soldiers and financial support, are responsible for their own procurement and often manufacture their own weapons.

The West has consistently failed to see Ukraine’s strength because we are still largely in thrall to a sort of Cold War Orientalism. Our intellectual guides to the war are overwhelmingly scholars of Russia and the Kremlin, not of Ukraine. Our militaries are led by generals whose formative years were spent learning how to counter the Russian threat. Even more than 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is hard for us to fully internalize the reality on the ground: that what we thought was the second-strongest army in the world is now the second-strongest army in Ukraine.

The one exception to this blinkered vision comes from countries that were part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact. They understand Russian power – and Russian weakness – deeply and intimately, having learned their lessons the hard way, from the inside and on the periphery. They understand that Ukraine can win, and that Ukraine’s victory is in our interest. We should be listening to them with greater attention and greater humility.

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