Ukraine’s big day and Zelenskiy’s Plan B to end the war
Ukraine's president is due to present his "victory" plan to Biden today, but given it contains the same requests as always and will probably be rejected, what is Zelenskiy's real Plan B?
Ukraine’s big day
It’s Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's big day today. He is scheduled to meet with US President Joe Biden to present his “victory plan”.
Zelenskiy gave his address to the UNGA yesterday but didn’t say much that was new. He looks tired, even a little haggard, but he has spent the last few days speed-dating world leaders, to rally their support and presumably to poll their reaction to how a ceasefire deal could play out. There is definitely a feeling amongst observers that something is up and we are not being told everything that is going on. For example, Zelenskiy met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a closed meeting without even interpreters, which I can tell you is very unusual.
The plan has got a lot of hype, but from what we know of it (one request is to accelerate Nato membership, according to the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak) there isn’t anything new in the five-point plan (cut from Zelenskiy's original 10-point peace plan) and Zelenskiy has been asking for pretty much the same stuff since day one of the war. Bottom line is, the West has at best dribbled more money and materiel into the war over the last two years, and Biden is almost certain to say “no” to most of what’s on Zelenskiy’s shopping list.
By way of contrast, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the US with a similar weapons shopping list, he got everything he was asking for – and promptly too, according to US officials.
So why is Zelenskiy bothering to make all this fuss over the inappropriately named “victory list” – it’s quite clear from the battlefield reports that Ukraine is now in retreat in Donbas, if not actually losing.
bne IntelliNews contributor and journalist Leonid Ragozin penned a column that actually there is a Plan B to end the war, and argues the hype and the impossible demands are the point. Indeed, Zelenskiy needs to hype this list as much as possible as the louder he demands what he needs for victory, the louder the “no” will be. Then he can use that to blame the West's lack of support for being “forced” into talks with Russia and bring the war to an end. He has actually said several times, starting in August, and again two days ago during the UN meetings, that the war could end this year.
Ragozin makes the very good point that most Ukrainians live in Soviet-era centrally heated apartment blocks and when the power is out you simply can’t live there when the cold comes. There is no getting around this problem so the war will have to stop or another million people will have to leave Ukraine.
As a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more than 15 million residents of Ukraine require humanitarian assistance, according to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on September 24.
"Despite immense challenges, the United Nations remains fully engaged as the largest international presence in Ukraine. This year alone, and together with our partners, we have provided lifesaving aid to more than 6.2 million people. But, we need the support of the international community. Fifteen million people in Ukraine require humanitarian assistance — more than half of them women and girls," he said.
This is all speculation of course. There may be some secret plan that really does deliver victory and all this talk could be a mere ruse to distract Russia. But I doubt it. My understanding of how war works is that once you have passed the Blitzkrieg stage, a war is won by who can outproduce the other guy – and here Russia is way ahead of not only Ukraine but also all of Europe.
Ragozin goes through these arguments in more detail and also speculates that a no from Biden will be followed by a referendum asking for permission to give up some territory, an election to get Zelenskiy a fresh mandate and a ceasefire deal along the lines of the Istanbul peace deal in 2022, but with much worse terms. Then the reconstruction will start, but the issue of where the necessary circa $500bn will come from has still not been solved. Either Ukraine’s partners will come up with some serious money and Ukraine will enjoy a recovery boom, or they won’t and it will slip into obscurity as has happened with Belarus. Many in the EU will be happy with that as Emerging Europe has its own problems, and needs the money to fix itself.
We will be watching closely to see what happens, but this promises to be a vintage day in the Ukrainian saga.