Stopping the Killing

I interview Anatol Lieven about the Ukraine war.

Anatol Lieven is a policy analyst and journalist and author—he’s a visiting professor at King’s College London and he’s a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Lieven is a major scholar when it comes to world affairs and it was a huge honor for me to be able to interview him again—I also interview him in my 4 June 2022 piece.

Everyone should check out Lieven’s 6 January 2023 piece where he writes: barring “a breakthrough by either side, the prospect is that of an indefinite and bloody stalemate along the present battle lines, reminiscent in many respects of the situation on the western front in World War I”; the “question would then be how long it will take—and how many people will have to die—before both sides become exhausted and decide that there is no point in continuing the struggle”; the “scene would then be set for an unstable ceasefire such as has existed between India and Pakistan in Kashmir” or for “a much larger version of the ceasefire in the Donbas from 2015 to 2022”; and such “a ceasefire would be better than the present massive bloodshed in Ukraine”.

A ceasefire would—“unless accompanied by successful negotiations to reach a settlement or at least minimize armed tensions”—“be fraught with negative elements”; there’s “no realistic chance that a Russian breakthrough could lead to the capture of Kyiv”; it’s “not even remotely likely that Russia could capture Kharkiv”; “Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson to the left bank of the Dnieper River makes an offensive against the Ukrainian Black Sea ports of Mykolaiv and Odessa virtually impossible”; and “if Russia captures the whole of the Donbas region and strengthens its land bridge to Crimea, it seems highly likely that Putin would claim that key Russian goals (as set out at the start of the invasion) have been achieved, and that Moscow would then offer a ceasefire and peace talks without preconditions”.

And make sure to check out my 4 January 2023 piece where I talk about how broken the Ukraine-war discourse has been.

I was honored and thrilled to interview Lieven—see below my interview with him that I edited for flow and organized by topic.

Clarifications

1) Suppose that a ceasefire were implemented—would the boundaries remain jagged and arbitrary until a peace treaty were established? 

A stable ceasefire in Ukraine could lead to a limited redrawing of the front lines. And also to a demilitarized zone, which would separate the two sides and reduce the likelihood of future clashes.

You can look at examples from around the world. Korea’s Armistice Line runs where the fighting stopped—it’s the same thing in Kashmir. And Kosovo is a mostly officially unrecognized state, which also contains something resembling a de facto border between Mitrovica in the north—which is de facto part of Serbia to a great extent—and the other 90% of Kosovo. The line in Cyprus stops where the Turkish army decided it’d got everything that it wanted. And incidentally, Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus didn’t lead to Turkey being expelled from NATO, so evidently the Western conscience—and addiction to law—on such things has a flexible side. One of many such moments.

A long-term ceasefire along the existing lines would leave 85% of Ukraine free to do its best to move—with Western help—towards membership of the European Union. 

And it’s important to remember that—given Moscow’s ambitions at the start of the war—a permanent de facto settlement along the present battle lines would be very painful for Russia in addition to being extremely painful for Ukraine. The overwhelming consensus back in February—including in the Western intelligence community—was that Russia would conquer three quarters of Ukraine and turn it into a client state. After that, the assumption was that Russia would at least conquer the whole of Russian-speaking eastern and southern Ukraine—essentially half the country. But instead Russia has only managed to capture half of Luhansk and most—not all and not even the provincial capitals of—Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. That’s all that Russia has added to what it’s held since 2014—Crimea and the eastern Donbass. So it does have to be said that Ukraine has—with Western help—already achieved a historic victory. 

Remember also that this isn’t just a victory compared to Russian hopes—and Western fears—back in February. This is a colossal transformation in terms of the past 400 years of Russian domination of Ukraine—I don’t think the West sufficiently recognizes how significant this change is and the true extent of Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat.

2) And with a ceasefire in place, wouldn’t there be an urgent need to establish a peace treaty ASAP, given that a peace treaty would set the two sides up to relax tensions, shift resources from war to peaceful reconstruction, and ultimately even integrate with each other? 

There are indeed various negative consequences—just look at the situation on the Korean peninsula since 1953—of not having a peace treaty. For one thing, there will doubtless be episodic violence if you don’t have one—look at the long-term ceasefire in the Donbass from 2015 to 2022 or at the ongoing situation in Kashmir. 

But unfortunately, I see little hope of getting to a peace treaty in the foreseeable future, so I expect that the best we can hope for is a lasting ceasefire.

As for integration, I can see no prospect whatsoever now for a reintegration of Russia and Ukraine as societies. Personal and familial relations still exist between Ukrainians—including the many Ukrainian immigrants in Russia—and Russians, so hopefully those personal connections will be restored to some extent over time. 

3) Where would the ceasefire line be if Gideon Rachman’s proposal were implemented? Rachman writes in his 12 December 2022 FT piece: “neither Russia nor Ukraine is in a position to achieve total victory”; “the political positions of the two countries are too far apart to make a peace agreement possible”; and “both countries are suffering severe losses that could make a ceasefire attractive”. Rachman says that Lawrence Freedman—the author of the 2022 book Command: The Politics of Military Operations From Korea to Ukraine—“sees a possibility of ‘military to military negotiations on disengagement’” and “thinks the Korean armistice points to the possibility of ‘stopping the fighting, by separating the forces’”. 

These proposals imply—without directly saying—that the ceasefire line should run along the lines of battle, which at present stretch from the left bank of the Dnieper River round to the Donbass. 

And that’s indeed the most likely outcome, since the lines of battle seem—on balance—unlikely to change very much. Then again, it’s unwise to make firm predictions—we’ve been surprised so often during this war. 

4) Regarding a peace treaty, how relevant is neutrality at this point? Henry Kissinger says—in his 17 December 2022 Spectator piece—that a “process has mooted the original issues regarding Ukraine’s membership in Nato”. And that the “alternative of neutrality is no longer meaningful, especially after Finland and Sweden joined Nato”. 

The reality is that Ukraine is a military client state of the US at this point. 85% of Ukraine is—in purely military terms—part of the West. So neutrality would mean no American bases and no NATO membership but also wouldn’t lead to Russia dominating Ukraine militarily. The real point of a treaty of neutrality would be simply to give a Russian leader something that he could spin as an accomplishment—the Russian leader needs to be able to claim that he’s achieved something in fighting this disastrous war, which has been such a catastrophe for Russia. That’s why neutrality is important. 

And by the same token, the reality is that Ukraine can’t ever join NATO unless NATO is prepared to go to war. NATO would have to be ready to send its air forces into Ukraine and send its navies into the Black Sea, either of which would—I’d say—absolutely ensure some sort of Russia nuclear response, though it wouldn’t be a full-scale bombardment of the US. You go back to the old Cold War question—in the last resort, would the US risk its very existence for the sake of Hamburg? And in this case it wouldn’t be Hamburg—it wouldn’t even be Warsaw initially, but instead NATO airfields in Poland. My sense is that the European will would simply collapse at that point and that you’d have millions—possibly tens of millions—of people on the streets of Europe demonstrating for a ceasefire and a peace settlement. So that’s why there isn’t going to be NATO membership for Ukraine. 

But we’re talking about the elements of an eventual peace settlement, which is—I think—very far away. 

I just got back from Pakistan—I’ve been going there for 37 years now. Kashmir has—throughout those 37 years and during the 40 years prior to that—been dragging on, and on, and on, and on. People have been trying to improve relations, calm tensions, achieve a peace settlement, and prevent nuclear war—I’ve participated in numerous exercises and meetings. There was one occasion—under President Musharraf—where it seemed there really was a chance of a peace settlement, though it was blown for a whole set of reasons that I won’t go into. 

One should never give up hope. We might—at some stage in the next six months or so—be able to move towards a ceasefire. But a peace settlement is going to take much, much longer. 

5) Can one reasonably say that what you or other pro-diplomacy people want Washington to do means “forcing”—or “imposing”—anything on the Ukrainians? Charles A. Kupchan writes in a 2 November 2022 NYT piece: it “is time for the United States and its allies to get directly involved in shaping Ukraine’s strategic objectives, managing the conflict, and seeking a diplomatic endgame”; “prudent avoidance of war between NATO and Russia necessitates” direct “U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s operational planning”; “Mr. Putin’s effort to subjugate Ukraine has already failed, and pushing for Russia’s total defeat is an unnecessary gamble”; the “United States and its allies also need to be concerned about the rising economic and political threat that a long war poses to Western democracy and solidarity”; sooner “rather than later, the West needs to move Ukraine and Russia from the battlefield to the negotiating table, brokering a diplomatic effort to shut the war down and arrive at a territorial settlement”; “transitioning from war to diplomacy provides hope of ending the killing and destruction, containing the mounting risk of a wider war between Russia and NATO, and reducing harm to the global economy and democratic resilience on both sides of the Atlantic”; and the “mounting risks that the West faces in Ukraine necessitate that the United States and its NATO partners get more involved in managing the war and in setting the table for an endgame”. I’m not sure whether Kupchan’s piece calls for “forcing”—or “imposing”—anything on the Ukrainians. 

The Ukrainian government isn’t compelled to take Western advice—nothing should be imposed on them. 

But it’s also not fair or reasonable to say that the West should be compelled to keep giving Ukraine billions of dollars of military and economic aid—nothing should be imposed on the West either. And the Ukrainian government is—of course—overwhelmingly dependent on this Western aid. 

Prospects

1) How and why have the perceived prospects for a peace settlement changed since June? You say in my 4 June 2022 piece that we “already know most of the basic elements that the peace deal will have to include”—“the fundamental question is how many people inside Ukraine and outside Ukraine will have to die before we implement what we know we will have to implement sooner or later”. 

A few things have happened over the past six months. 

First, Russia has—legally according to Russia, but illegally according to everyone else—annexed two Ukrainian provinces that it’s occupied since the start of the war. It hasn’t actually even managed to capture or keep the two provincial capitals, so these are very limited areas. But this annexation does create an immense additional barrier to any formal peace settlement. 

Second, the Ukrainian army has continued to make considerable progress in its counterattacks—Russia has been driven from whatever it held in Kharkiv, forced to withdraw from the port city of Kherson, and prevented even from occupying the whole of the Donbass region that Putin cited as one of his key reasons for going to war. So Russia has been doing very badly militarily. 

Third, the Ukrainian government and army have repeatedly declared that their goal is to retake all of the territory lost since 2014—including Crimea—and that this goal is non-negotiable.

Fourth, Russia has called up 300,000 conscripts, though of very uncertain quality. 

And fifth, Russia’s economic decline has so far proven to be surprisingly slight—the West was hoping for something like a 30% decline, whereas 4% is the general analysis. Meanwhile, the sanctions have—along with Russia’s response to them—done enormous economic damage to Europe. 

Will that damage push Europe toward peace? That depends on how bad this winter—and if the war continues, the next one—turns out to be. We also have to see who becomes US president in 2024. One shouldn’t forget that a good deal of the Western European agreement with—or subservience to—the US has been due to the Biden administration being in power instead of the Trump administration.

But above all, the future will be decided on the battlefield. Ukraine will—without any question at all—attack again in an effort to get back all of its lost territory. Ukrainian failure might mean Ukrainian support for a ceasefire. Ukrainian success would—on the other hand—raise the acute issue of what Crimea’s future will be. And therefore of whether Russia will use nuclear weapons to defend Crimea, which some well-connected Russian friends have said to me would be a very real possibility. The question would be—in this scenario—whether the Biden administration or the Europeans would step in and say: “OK, you’ve now gone far enough—you’ve recaptured all of the territory you’ve lost since February. Now it’s time to stop.” But of course, telling the Ukrainians to stop doesn’t guarantee that they will—you hear many messages saying that the Ukrainian army is actually determined to go on.

We can’t say what will happen on the battlefield—we’ve been surprised so many times already. So far the Ukrainians have surprised us with their resilience and successes, but I suppose it’s possible that the Russians might surprise us. And I’m told from Moscow that the Russians will offer a ceasefire—and kick the territorial issues down the road for negotiation—if they can capture the whole of the Donbass. It then becomes a question of whether the Ukrainians would accept that. 

I think we’ll probably face months more of heavy fighting. Much depends on how bad the winter is—that’ll determine whether there will be further offensives in the winter or whether both sides will build up their reserves for the spring. But certainly come the spring there will be extremely heavy fighting again in Ukraine. And meanwhile, Russia is doing everything in its power to destroy as much as possible of the Ukrainian economy. 

2) How bleak is the territorial situation? You say in the June piece that there’s “been no Russian claim—so far—to anything beyond Crimea and the Donbass”, but that’s no longer true. You have a 30 September 2022 piece about the “Russian government’s move today to annex the territories it has occupied in Ukraine”—you say that this “Russian action greatly complicates the search for an eventual peace settlement”. 

I can’t imagine—right now—an actual peace settlement. But you don’t need that for a lasting ceasefire—you get the ceasefire and then you negotiate and negotiate and negotiate over the territorial issues. 

You can point to situations—like Cyprus since 1974, Korea since 1953, the Indo-Chinese front line since 1962, or Kosovo since 1999—where there’s no war but also no peace settlement. In Kashmir you’ve had long periods of semi-ceasefire—between India and Pakistan—with much shorter periods of intense warfare. And unfortunately, the ceasefire in Kosovo produced an unstable outcome where Serbia and most of the international community haven’t recognized Kosovo’s independence—a NATO peacekeeping force has had to protect Kosovo, protect Kosovo's remaining Serbian minority, and prevent a new war. 

Regarding Cyprus, you’ve had peace on the island, but there’s still no agreement on the status of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. That’s maybe the best possible outcome for Ukraine, since the Republic of Cyprus managed—amazingly—to join the European Union despite the lack of any reintegration agreement.

It’s unlikely that a ceasefire in Ukraine would be as stable as that one—in Cyprus, one side had an overwhelming military advantage and also had achieved all of the territorial gains it wanted. But even Kashmir or Korea is better than the full-scale warfare we see going on now in Ukraine. So a ceasefire is way worse than a peace settlement but way better than nothing at all. We can—once we get a ceasefire—try our best for an actual peace settlement. 

The Battlefield

1) What can Russia actually do through attacking Ukrainian infrastructure? Noam Chomsky writes in his 22 December 2022 Truthout piece: 

I claim no military expertise. I do follow military analysts, and find most of them supremely confident, with opposing conclusions—not for the first time. My suspicion is that General Milley, former chair of the joint chiefs, is probably right in concluding that neither side can win a decisive military victory and that the cost of continuing warfare is enormous for both sides, with many repercussions beyond.

If the war goes on, Ukraine will be the primary victim. Advanced U.S. weapons may sustain a battlefield stalemate as Russia pours in more troops and equipment, but how much can Ukrainian society tolerate now that Russia, after many months, has turned to the U.S.-U.K. style of war, directly attacking infrastructure, energy, communications, anything that allows the society to function? Ukraine is already facing a major economic and humanitarian crisis. As the war persists, Ukrainian central bank officials fear that “People could flee Ukraine in droves, taking their money with them, potentially crashing the national currency as they seek to exchange their Ukrainian hryvnia for euros or dollars.”

Chomsky cites the 15 December 2022 WaPo piece “Russia is destroying Ukraine’s economy, raising costs for U.S. and allies”. 

First, the attacks can wear down the Ukrainian people’s will. 

Second, they can badly damage Ukrainian munitions production and make Ukraine even more dependent on Western aid. 

Third, they can do so much economic damage to Ukraine that the West will have to go on and on pouring massive sums of economic aid into Ukraine in order to keep Ukraine going. 

And fourth, they can make joining the European Union a more and more remote prospect for Ukraine. 

But there’s a view in the American establishment that Ukraine offers the chance to degrade—at very low cost to the US—the Russian Armed Forces and Russian power. And this view doesn’t suggest a great deal of concern about—or attention to—the suffering of the Ukrainian people. So if that’s your perspective, it doesn’t really matter how many Ukrainians or Europeans freeze as long as America goes on funding the Ukrainian army and providing it with heavy weapons—the populations are irrelevant. 

I’m reminded of a conversation that I had way back in 1989—in Islamabad—with a US diplomat. I tackled him at a party and said: “Look, the Soviets are leaving—they’ve shown that they really are leaving. So why are you still pouring money into the Afghan mujahideen, who we know by now are profoundly problematic, deeply extremist, at odds with one another, and so forth?” And he said: “Getting the Russians to leave is not enough—we want to inflict the kind of humiliation on them that they inflicted on us in Vietnam.” There wasn’t a single scrap—not the slightest element—of concern for Afghanistan or the Afghan people in what he said. It was totally irrelevant to him how many of the Afghan people died in the process. 

It’s absolutely clear to me that some elements of the American establishment adopt this callous approach. But I think General Milley—for example—cares about the suffering populations. 

I also think he cares about the wider issues at stake, including the solidarity of the Western alliance—there are already fairly strong indications that the Europeans are increasingly aware that they’re suffering economically because of this war and that America is profiting from it rather handsomely. 

2) What do you think about the notion that Russia is pathetic in terms of ground operations but has a limitless capacity to bomb Ukraine? 

The Russian ground forces certainly have performed pretty poorly, though it must also be said that there simply were not enough of them to do the job they were given.

Russia has demonstrated a very great capacity to destroy Ukrainian energy infrastructure with missiles and drones. But Russia hasn’t yet tried to destroy cities for the sake of destroying them. It’s mostly bombarded places—like Mariupol and Soledar—that it was trying to capture and has used massive bombardment toward that end. 

Very interestingly, it hasn’t even tried to destroy the Ukrainian-government buildings in Kyiv—in contrast, America went for the jugular in Iraq and didn’t exercise any such restraint. 

We’ve seen heavy bombardment—going both ways—in the Donbass. There’s been extensive destruction in the eastern Donbass, which is one reason why the local population there is angry at Ukraine—it’s just like how people in cities Russia has bombarded are naturally furious with Russia. And now Russia is bombing infrastructure—above all, electricity and energy. But there hasn’t been any Korea-style or WW2-style carpet bombing of cities beyond the front lines. 

I myself doubt that the Russians would attempt to destroy Kyiv—Kyiv is a sacred city for the Russian Orthodox Church and has many historical religious monuments that the Russians wouldn’t ever want to destroy. 

What Does Ukraine Want? 

1) You say in the June piece that “it’s absolutely apparent that there are profound splits in the Ukrainian government”—to what extent is that still true? And what’s Zelensky’s own stance? You say in the June piece that “Zelensky’s own statements—let alone those of other Ukrainian officials—have become tremendously contradictory”, though maybe that’s no longer the case. It’s unpleasant to read the 19 December 2022 piece “Kyiv slams Kissinger over call to negotiate with Russia for peace”, though one of course has to approach political statements with caution and rationality.

The answer to that is I do not know—none of us know. 

Shamefully, the Western media is simply not trying to report on Ukrainian internal politics—we have more speculation about what’s going on in Moscow even though people have no way to find that out, whereas it would be possible to dig a bit when it comes to Ukraine. 

Suppose a ceasefire were—at some point—on the table with at least partial Western support. Would Zelensky back it or reject it? That’s the obvious question. I think we can be pretty sure that he would—if he backed it—face really serious opposition within Ukraine just like he did when he proposed peace terms back in March. But we simply don’t know what he would do in that situation. 

2) And what about the Ukrainian people? What’s their stance toward diplomacy? Jonathan Steele writes in a 15 December 2022 piece: 

The Gallup organisation organised a telephone poll of Ukrainians in September. It found that masses of respondents did not share the official line of flag-waving support for the military. Although 76 per cent of men wanted the war to continue until Russia is forced to leave all occupied territory including Crimea, and 64 per cent of women had the same view, the rest—a substantial number of people—wanted negotiations.

When the survey results were analysed according to Ukraine’s regions they were particularly telling. In areas closest to the front lines where the horror of war is felt most keenly people’s doubts about the wisdom of fighting until victory are highest. Only 58 per cent support it in southern Ukraine. In the East the figure is as low as 56 per cent.

Gallup’s findings are significant. What people tell pollsters in the privacy of a telephone call is more reliable than what they say when interviewed face-to-face by reporters, especially when the dominant media narrative consists of morale-boosting messages about Ukrainians’ resilience and impressive courage.

It is time for the Left to find its voice. We should publicise these opinion poll findings and call for a ceasefire. Let the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, by himself or through the appointment of an authoritative envoy, contact Kyiv and Moscow and try to broker an immediate cessation of hostilities. Take advantage of winter and the general reduction in military activity and freeze the conflict where it is.

At some point there will have to be negotiations about a political end to the war and a withdrawal of Russian forces but it will take months, if not years to achieve agreement. The priority is to stop the killing and this can be done at once. Let the Western Left, in solidarity with progressive forces in Ukraine and Russia themselves, take up the burden of campaigning for an armistice, in other words for peace.

It’s very interesting to see Steele’s comment that the results were “particularly telling” when “analysed according to Ukraine’s regions”. 

Ukraine is at war—it’s pretty difficult to find out what the feelings of ordinary Ukrainians are. There’s been massive repression of opposition political parties, of independent media, and of very large numbers of ordinary people—the Ukrainian government shouldn’t be blamed too harshly for this, given that a certain amount of repression is inevitable in these circumstances. 

There has indeed been a Gallup poll suggesting that a significant minority—especially in the areas closest to the fighting—would in fact be in favor of a compromise peace.

Trying 

1) How much could support for an option move the needle with Ukrainian public opinion? To what extent would Ukrainian public opinion change if Washington—and Zelensky himself—were trying to achieve a ceasefire? And what if Washington—and Zelensky himself—were trying to achieve an actual peace settlement? 

A peace settlement is for later on—the priority is to look for a ceasefire. For a reasonably stable ceasefire, you’d have to change both the Ukrainian government’s opinion and Ukrainian public opinion. But for a peace settlement, you’d have to change the actual governments in Ukraine, Russia, France, and possibly the US. And change the composition of Germany’s governing coalition as well. 

There have been opportunities regarding a peace settlement. We should’ve backed Zelensky before the war—he was ready to offer a treaty of neutrality but Washington wasn’t behind him. Or we should’ve strongly backed Zelensky’s peace proposal in March. 

But that possibility seems to have ended, so it looks like the initiative for a ceasefire will have to come from Russia or America. Or from France and Germany if large numbers of their citizens demand peace in order to end the economic suffering that the war is causing—the schedule of forthcoming elections means that the French and German governments don’t have to fear electoral backlash in the near future, though, so pro-diplomacy forces might have a disadvantage when it comes to putting pressure on European governments. 

2) Should pro-diplomacy people be deterred when they read—in the 19 December 2022 piece—the harsh comments from Kyiv in response to what Kissinger wrote? 

Of course not. 

Remember that all elected and appointed officials—in America, France, and Germany—have sworn an oath of loyalty to their respective countries. Those oaths are to the sovereign people in those countries—the American people, the French people, and the German people. These officials have not sworn an oath of loyalty to Ukraine. And in the end, these officials have to remember who elected them and for what purpose—I think that that’s the bottom line.

There seems to be a danger that the Ukrainian military will carry out a coup against Zelensky if Zelensky proposes a serious peace settlement—think about that a second. That means that we say we’re supporting Ukrainian democracy but nationalist extremists in Ukraine are ultimately—through the threat of a military coup against Zelensky—determining our policy. If that threat is real then it means we’re in a very, very dangerous—and also a very, very stupid—position where America and the West have made huge interests dependent not on Ukrainian democracy but on the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their most extreme elements. You do have to think about how often in the past America has allowed local allies—often completely undemocratic ones—to hijack its strategy in various areas. 

3) I want to talk about a broad point about diplomacy—isn’t it important to stress that we can’t know what the prospects for a goal are until efforts are made? You don’t learn what’s possible through armchair speculations, do you? A 2 December 2022 WaPo piece says: “If an enduring peace can be had through negotiation—and we won’t know if it can until we explore that prospect—then negotiations would be in America’s interest.” The idea is that you discover through trying—we “won’t know if it can until we explore that prospect”. 

You discover through trying—things can worsen in terms of the facts on the ground, but you certainly get nowhere without trying.

Again and again you hear this line that Putin has shown that he’s not interested in negotiations and not interested in a peace settlement. That’s totally untrue—Putin is interested in a peace settlement on certain terms that the Kremlin regards as sufficient. Foreign Minister Lavrov has stated that this means Ukrainian recognition of Russian sovereignty over the areas Russia has annexed—that’s obviously unacceptable to Ukraine, but it’s also dramatically smaller than what Russian aims were back in February, so it’s therefore simply untrue that Moscow is still committed to maximal goals in Ukraine. 

We don’t know what will happen in the spring. But given the Russian performance so far, it’s hard for me to imagine another Russian offensive to capture Kyiv or Odessa, except in the highly unlikely event that Western support for Ukraine were to cease altogether.