The Foreign Service Journal, October 2022

30 OCTOBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Legalistic arguments may not be as wise as respect for and careful attention to powerful countries. to address these two apparent causes of Russian aggression. There is the historically rooted sense of a threat from the border regions and the more recent threat of new and insidious ideas of an open and democratic society. A settlement may have to include a Ukrainian promise of neutrality, at least over a period of years, and the commitment not to host joint military exercises with NATO. But I don’t believe that Ukrainians will accept any change in their liberal, Western-oriented society. In the end, events on the battlefield will determine whether Putin achieves such political concessions. There is evidence that he understands the potent Ukrainian nationalist sentiments in the west of the country, and he seems to be learning that pro-West, pro-Europe views are strong in the central and eastern regions too. This may explain Russia’s abandonment of the attack on Kyiv and concentration on the Donbas and the region between there and Crimea. With military success, Putin could annex more of Ukraine, but this would gain him a forcefully incorporated, long-term insur- gent region. For example, the series of explosions in August of a Russian military base in occupied Crimea that destroyed eight Russian warplanes is early evidence of a possible Ukrainian stra- tegic shift from reliance on a conventional army to more guerrilla tactics by local partisans. Amilitary stalemate and eventual with- drawal of his forces now seemmore likely, which would give Putin his minimal objective of a neutral Ukraine. Less likely, I would guess, would be a decisive Ukrainian victory, probably achieved over a protracted period of conflict, which would preserve the clearly West-oriented Ukrainian state and remove the threat of another Russian invasion. n