Western leaders offer underwhelming response to Zelenskyy’s victory plan
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy finally presented his widely touted victory plan last week, but there is little indication that his ambitious proposal has captured the imagination of Ukraine’s Western partners. Instead, the somewhat muted reaction has underlined the current limitations of Western support for the Ukrainian war effort.
Western leaders had the perfect opportunity to back Zelenskyy’s victory plan on October 18 when they gathered in Berlin. However, the meeting between US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer failed to produce any specific commitment to Ukraine’s recently unveiled blueprint for a sustainable peace.
This underwhelming response was particularly telling as Zelenskyy’s victory plan is essentially a concrete list of steps that Kyiv would like to see from the country’s allies to ensure a fair peace for Ukraine. The strategy Zelenskyy outlined last week also marked a pragmatic shift, with the emphasis on forcing Russia to the negotiating table while adopting measures that will ensure Moscow is unable to renew the war in the coming years and threaten Ukraine once again.
Kyiv’s victory plan priorities include more weapons, the lifting of restrictions on long-range strikes inside Russia, and a formal invitation to join NATO. According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine could potentially end the Russian invasion within a year if the country’s allies get behind his vision for victory.
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While Western leaders consistently voice their support for Zelenskyy’s goals, some remain preoccupied by fears of escalation and appear deeply reluctant to do anything that might risk provoking Putin. While Biden spoke of “total unanimity” in Berlin over continued support for Ukraine, the lack of public backing for Zelenskyy’s victory plan suggested that differences on key issues have yet to be resolved.
Crucially, there was no progress on Ukraine’s request to allow air strikes against Russian targets using Western weapons. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom have all provided Ukraine with long-range missiles, but Kyiv has yet to receive the green light for long-range attacks inside Russia. The extended debate over the possible lifting of restrictions has already allowed the Russian military to move many of its most valuable assets out of range.
Ukraine has sought to persuade its partners by providing detailed lists of potential targets inside Russia while explaining why strikes could have a significant impact on the future course of the war. However, this has so far proved insufficient to overcome escalation concerns in Western capitals.
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The Ukrainian authorities are not relying entirely on Zelenskyy’s victory plan to reinvigorate their country’s war effort. With little sign that Ukraine’s partners are ready to remove restrictions on long-range strikes, Kyiv is concentrating its limited resources on the development of domestic strike capabilities that will allow Ukraine to hit targets deep inside Russia without requiring Western approval.
Long-range Ukrainian drones have been attacking Russian military bases, armament production facilities, airfields, and energy industry infrastructure with increasing frequency throughout 2024. Recent successes have included a spectacular attack on a large Russian munitions storage site in the Tver region that sparked a blast large enough to register at earthquake monitoring stations.
While Ukraine’s Western partners hesitate, Russia’s authoritarian allies are escalating their involvement in the war. North Korea in particular has emerged as a key supplier of the Russian war machine, with Pyongyang reportedly providing Moscow with ballistic missiles as well as around half of all the artillery shells being used by the Russian military in Ukraine. In recent weeks, Ukraine has also accused North Korea of preparing to provide Russia with up to ten thousand soldiers.
The apparent lack of consensus over key points in Zelenskyy’s victory plan underlines the absence of a united vision among Ukraine’s partners over how best to end the war. While Western leaders remain determined to prevent Russia’s invasion from succeeding, they have yet to demonstrate a convincing commitment to Ukrainian victory and are still obviously constrained by escalation fears. This is exactly what Vladimir Putin is counting on as he looks to prolong the war and outlast the West in Ukraine.
Aleksander Cwalina is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.
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Image: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, US President Joe Biden, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron pose during a family photo session, at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, October 18, 2024. (REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/Pool)
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