Bulletin From the Borderlands Special Report
Bulletin From the Borderlands Special Report
Zelenskyy Presents His "Victory" Plan
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Zelenskyy Presents His “Victory” Plan
As Ukrainian forces continue to lose ground on multiple fronts and the U.S. presidential election draws near, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has presented his much anticipated peace plan to the parliament. Late last month, Zelenskyy presented his five-point plan to U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. presidential candidate former President Donald Trump. In the past week, Zelenskyy has also presented his plan to the European Union's governing council and NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte. Known to most as the “Victory Plan," Zelensky’s plan hinges on a number of core tenets. These tenets include a guarantee of NATO membership, increased weapons shipments with no restrictions on employment, a comprehensive “deterrence” package, strategic-level economic agreements, and increased military-to-military cooperation with other European partner nations. However, many have criticized the plan for its ambiguous nature and its lack of specific details. This write-up will focus on three of these tenets and delve into the pros and cons of each.
Feasibility of Ukraine’s Bid to Join NATO
Likely one of the most talked-about points in the plan has been Zelenskyy’s repeated calls to join NATO. Due to the ongoing conflict, actual membership cannot happen until the conflict is over, but many have highlighted the perceived benefits of an invitation being extended to Ukraine before the cessation of hostilities. The invitation may serve as a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine’s backers in NATO are willing to go to great lengths to deter Russia from realizing their strategic goals inside of Ukraine. However, NATO decision-makers have yet to voice their full support for such an initiative and have so far only given tacit support for an eventual invitation. This isn't the only challenge in the way of Ukraine’s ascension to NATO. As evidenced by past events, NATO nations often find it hard to achieve synchronization on issues, especially when it pertains to their joint strategic outlook. Turkey and Hungary have already been reluctant to allow nations that aren’t belligerents in the Russo-Ukrainian War into NATO, which doesn’t bode well for Ukraine’s prospects. Given this dynamic and the elephant in the room, NATO’s rule about ongoing conflicts inside the borders of new applicants, it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will realize this goal before the cessation of hostilities and, like many of the presented points, doesn’t have much to do with gaining peace through a Ukrainian battlefield victory.
Increased Aid
One point proposed by Ukraine’s leader that does directly pertain to the situation on the battlefield is his call for a significant increase in weapons shipments to Ukraine. After last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive, which ultimately culminated in failure, many Western analysts and decision-makers assessed that Ukraine had failed to make the necessary doctrinal changes needed to realize significant gains during any offensive action against prepared Russian defenses. However, Ukrainian forces recently commenced a significant operation in Russia’s Kursk region that has all the hallmarks of Western Combined Arms Maneuver Warfare—a notable shift in employment from last year's unsuccessful counteroffensive. Ukrainian forces have utilized operational synchronization, violence of action, surprise, and a maneuver-oriented force to make considerable gains into Russia-proper. However, due to manpower constraints and the relative strength of Russian defensive lines elsewhere, Ukraine has been unable to conduct similar offensive actions at scale along the line of contact. While Ukraine’s unwillingness to significantly increase mobilization efforts has severely hampered their ability to conduct offensive operations at scale, many would say that Ukraine’s Kursk operation is evidence that they have taken into account the hard-learned battlefield lessons from last year’s counteroffensive. If true, this could justify a significant increase in weapons and material for Ukraine.
Additionally, Zelenskyy has repeated his calls to remove constraints on Ukraine’s employment of weapons supplied by Western nations. More specifically, the constraints on long-range precision fires supplied by nations like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Similar to the previously noted point, Ukrainian decision-makers have already urged Western authorities to relax the restrictions on the supply of weapons, and this has arguably been the country's most vocal demand over the last two years. The biggest issue that seems to bar Western powers from taking away these restrictions has been the potential for serious escalation from Russia. Long debated in global security and foreign policy circles, Russia’s red lines have been a heated topic of conversation as of late. Russia’s Russia often threatens, albeit ambiguously, limited nuclear retaliation against Ukraine when Western powers have stepped up the tempo of aid to Ukraine and/or walked back restrictions on weapons systems. Given that Ukraine has used systems of their own making to consistently strike inside Russia proper without a serious Russian escalation, it’s fair to assess that removing restrictions on certain precision fires given to Ukraine may not induce the visceral Russian response that Western decision-makers fear.
A Ukrainian Strategic Deterrent
Arguably the most important of Zelenskyy’s points has also been the most vague. The proposition? That Western nations deploy a non-nuclear strategic deterrent on Ukrainian soil in order to curb Russian aggression and/or work with Ukraine to realize this such a capability themselves. While Zelenskyy failed to elaborate, due to the apparent secret nature of the minutiae of the plan, from a birds-eye view, this proposal is rather late to the party.
Back in early February of 2022, Patrick Fox, a foreign policy and military analyst, highlighted a number of deterrence measures that could have allowed Ukraine to field a force that would have enabled them to beggar key Russian capabilities.
“NATO member states manufacture a host of various anti-ship missile systems that can be deployed from a variety of air, land, and sea based platforms. Providing these munitions to Ukraine, with the appropriate modifications to allow for their use from primarily ex-Soviet air (and possibly ground) platforms, turns the Russian lake into a potential shooting gallery. This is all to the good. Mere possession of such capability by Ukraine would force Russian caution in naval operations.”
- Let’s F*ck With Vlad Part 2, Patrick Fox
Now, almost three years into the war, Western powers have lost much, if not all, of the deterrent value of sending such munitions to Ukraine. Keeping in mind the aforementioned dynamic surrounding Western aid and Russia’s response, any strategic initiative that was to be gained from such a move is now gone. While long-range precision fires have greatly helped the Ukrainian war effort, and increasing Ukraine’s stockpiles of them will only potentiate this effort, any initiative to help Ukraine realize this capability on their own will take a long time. With the U.S. election right around the corner and a significant pivot in the United States’ geo-strategic outlook becoming an increasing possibility, Ukraine, more importantly European decision-makers, may not have the time to flesh out a comprehensive program to realize this goal.
Viability of Zelenskyy’s plan
While this article only covered three out of five core tenets of the “Victory Plan”, the last two, like the rest, largely rely on the commitment of European powers. A complex economic agreement and increased military-to-military cooperation with regional powers will rely heavily on Europe’s willingness to realize some form of an independent European security framework. More importantly, this would require them to significantly increase defense and industrial spending—something up until now key European powers, save Poland, have been reluctant to do.
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