Michel Foucher is a geographer and diplomat, having served as Head of the Policy Planning Staff and adviser to the French Foreign Minister (1997-2002), French Ambassador to the Baltic States (2002-2006), Ambassador at-large on EU affairs (2006), and Director of studies and research at the National Institute of Higher Defense Studies (Paris) (2009-2013). His most recent French-language books include Ukraine-Russie, la carte mentale du duel (2022) and Ukraine, une guerre coloniale en Europe (2022).

As the war in Ukraine rages on, whether we like it or not, it is us Europeans who have a front-row seat to the conflict but are not on its frontlines. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we are not there yet, as I believe that—after a ceasefire has been negotiated by the Ukrainians, Europeans, Russians, and Americans—it will be up to European leaders to provide the peacekeeping forces to guarantee Ukraine’s sovereignty and keep any further aggression at bay. A Minsk III scenario must be ruled out, and the Europeans must stop invoking the defense of Europe and commit themselves to implementing it as soon as possible. And it is on the demarcation line of the western Donbass that effective European security is at stake.

 

The prospect of independent Ukraine’s integration into the EU requires us to know how to play the role of border guard, since for the first time since 1957, the future eastern border of the Union will align with a frontline. The U.S. President Donald Trump is right when he wants to compel Europeans to abandon a posture of burden sharing for the sake of the task of “burden shifting.” He was elected on the promise to end wars involving American troops in distant theaters. Just as he demands that the regional powers of the Middle East deal with the Syrian crisis on their own, he will not hesitate to apply the same pressure on his NATO allies in Europe, who should finally start acting as a united regional power on the continent.

 

As scenarios for the evolution of the Russia-Ukraine war take shape, given both the realities on the ground—including slow advances of the Russian forces on the ground and the reluctance of Ukrainian authorities to authorize the recruitment of 18-25 year-olds to counter Russian numerical superiority—and Trump’s intentions to achieve “peace through strength,” it is important not to misunderstand the causes of the Kremlin’s military aggression, and therefore ignore the relevant scale of its war aims, which will be crucial to the settlement of the war.

Patrolling the outer EU border: NATO soldiers near Latvia’s border with the Russian Federation / Source: Shutterstock

Don’t Get the Scale Wrong

Of course, the Kremlin still thinks in terms of the old-fashioned Cold War theater, as the Russian December 2021 ultimatum reminded us when the country’s Foreign Ministry demanded the return of NATO’s military deployments to its 1997 borders. For its domestic audiences and that of what it calls the “World Majority,” Russia clings to the argument of a defensive and preventive operation against ongoing aggression by the collective West. This argument doesn’t hold water. We all know that Washington and Berlin have never supported Ukraine’s accession to NATO. Former U.S. President Joseph Biden has retained a Cold War mentality that makes him cautious, and all European experts familiar with the top echelons of U.S. decisionmaking have noticed the restraint, if not total reservation, of the American policymakers when faced with the risk of escalation. This is even more true of the leadership in Berlin. The only worthwhile negotiations will take place with President Trump in an attempt to “return to Yalta,” without consulting the Europeans.

 

But in reality, the relevant scale for analyzing the war in Ukraine is quite different. It’s that of the Russian World, which the incumbent in the Kremlin wants to bring together again, in all its imperial tradition. It is therefore a colonial war waged by a nuclear power. The adjective “colonial” only comes as a surprise to those who forget that not all empires have a pronounced maritime dimension, and that there are also land empires. Russia is certainly one such example, but so is China in its western third, Iran in its now compromised regional ambitions, and Turkey, whose leader is resuscitating neo-Ottoman rhetoric. I believe that the war against Ukraine is aimed at breaking a process of national emancipation. In this respect, Ukraine is in a way a latecomer on the map of Europe, the last-born among the last to emerge from the former Soviet republics—as is often the case, with great pain. Let’s not forget that one of the main repetitive features of Europe’s long history is the transition from empire to nation-state. If we accept this premise and remain mindful of what is at stake at the end of the war, then Ukraine’s friends can only be the guarantee of its existence as an independent, sovereign nation-state. This must be at the heart of any talks in 2025.

 

In other words, this is not primarily a conflict between Russia and its few allies with the so-called collective West (kollektivnyy Zapad), but a clash between a people unified by war and an autocratic center of power, which still dreams of empire and maintains itself through successive wars and incessant propaganda aimed at instilling fear in the psyche of allied countries. (GLOSA) Here’s a quote from Carl von Clausewitz’s On War (1832):

 

“War is nothing other than a duel on a larger scale. If we wish to grasp in a single conception the innumerable particular duels of which it is composed, we would do well to think of two wrestlers. Each try, by means of his physical strength, to submit the other to his will; his immediate design is to bring down the opponent, in order to render him incapable of any resistance.”

 

The Prussian strategist contrasted moral forces of the nation under attack with physical forces of the superior aggressor. In the face of an existential struggle, the adversary believes he has time on his side, and the backing of dubious allies (like North Korea, Iran, Yemen, and partly China), a temporal advantage, which the new U.S. President is determined to put an end to.

 

The Kremlin’s objectives have not changed since the annexation of Crimea in 2014: to subjugate Ukraine, which was named “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”) after Catherine II; to rebuild a land of empire without borders; and to promote Russia as a “state-civilization” in the face of a so-called collective West “in spiritual catastrophe.” The war consolidated an autocratic system with no internal or external counterpoint. No group of Russian exilees has formed an alternative center of power. And domestically, a regime of voluntary servitude is imposed, impossible without the participation of those who resign themselves to it and accept it. Russian history teaches us that only military defeats provoke political ruptures: the failure in Crimea in 1856 led to the abolition of serfdom in 1862. The destruction of the Russian Eskadra by the Japanese fleet at Tsushima led to the revolution of 1905. The same occurred in February 1917 after the defeat by the German army, and in 1989 with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which served as a prelude to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

A Russian victory would be a major political and geopolitical setback for Europe. “Russia cannot and must not win this war, because then there would be instability on European soil and, because then, it would be the end of all confidence in the principles of international law,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in August 2023. A useful reminder to discourage attempts at appeasement—reminiscent of the errors of the 1930s in the face of Hitler’s increasing aggression—and to dismiss diplomatic euphemisms. Those who repeat that every conflict ends at the negotiating table forget that this was never the case in 1919 or 1945, when the conditions for peace were imposed by the victors. All other conflicts have ended in an unjust peace or no settlement at all, as was the case on the Korean peninsula, the disastrous consequences of which we are now seeing in the Kursk Oblast.

 

In the Donbass, these kidnapped children are being “re-educated” and taught lessons on “Nazi Ukraine” and the greatness of Russia. The new history textbook for the 11th and 12th grades, “History of Russia, from 1945 to the beginning of twenty-first century,” relays the Kremlin’s account of the “special military operation,” necessitated by the machinations of the West, led by the United States and NATO, to weaken Russian power. One of the authors of this report is none other than Vladimir Medinski, Russia’s former Minister of Culture, a key player in the rehabilitation of Stalin and appointed negotiator with Ukraine in 2022!

 

In short, the Russian leader’s strategy can be summed up in three matryoshkas: the “Russian World,” of which Ukraine must be part, willingly or not; mastery of the post-Soviet space (thus including Moldavia, Georgia and the others); and finally, the weakening of the West, judged as morally decadent and geopolitically outdated, in favor of a mythical Eurasia and the supposed Global South, which according to Fyodor Lukyanov is “fed up with Western domination of world affairs, and of which Russia would be the standard-bearer.” If Vladimir Putin succeeds in reconstituting the “Russian World” under his sway, the second nesting doll will become easier to absorb. The West made a serious error of analysis when it came to Putin’s remark on the end of the Soviet Union, which he presented as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. He did not regret the fall of a great power, but deplored the dispersion of the Russian World among half a dozen ex-republics that had become independent, where the fate of the native Russian speakers would inevitably be tragic—which was not the case. With their war of aggression, the Russian elites left the realm of European civilization and opted for vassalization towards the great Chinese power, which represents Russia’s true existential challenge. They will have to understand that there is no longer any place for empire in the European democratic space.

 

A Guarantee Pact for Ukraine with European Forces

At this stage of the conflict, the ultimate aim of talks aimed at freezing the conflict is not to sign a peace treaty definitively ratifying the territorial annexations that the Duma has unilaterally legitimized. Their purpose must be to establish a demarcation line on the ground, complete with a demilitarized zone on both sides; to obtain the exchange of prisoners and the return of deported Ukrainians, particularly children, as well as those that were forcibly detained; to prevent the Finlandization of Ukraine (without committing to integration into the Atlantic Alliance); to avoid a new Yalta pursued by the Kremlin; and to confirm the democratic government free to make its own political and strategic choices, including to pursue membership in the EU.

 

Finnish President Alexander Stubb rejected any return to Yalta, when great powers decided to divide Europe into spheres of influence. Instead, he advocates a “Helsinki moment,” basing future relations on the old continent on three pillars of international law: independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty, which implies choosing which organization you want to belong to.

 

Europeans cannot leave it to others to protect their security interests. And they must quickly clarify the nature of their military guarantees. This presupposes that the “hard core”—meaning the Weimar triangle enlarged to include Italy and Spain—the United Kingdom, and a few others (like Finland, Sweden, and Norway) propose a clear line of action to their partners.

 

We need to stop talking about defending Europe, we need to put it into practice. Quite simply, it’s a question of protecting both the sovereignty of Ukraine—even if it has been temporarily deprived of a fifth of its territory—and the future outer borders of the European Union, which coincide with a demarcation line. These forces will act as border guards. The prospect of EU membership and the deployment of mediation forces by European states would give substance to the necessary Guarantee Pact, reinforced by U.S. support. Point 9 of the Zelensky plan reiterated the obvious: “Ukraine is not a member of any alliance. And Russia was able to start this war precisely because Ukraine remained in the gray zone—between the Euro-Atlantic world and Russian imperialism.” Gradual integration into NATO and a reformed EU is the only credible horizon in the face of the risk of European fatigue, fueled by Russian information warfare.

 

Point 7 of the Zelensky peace plan refers to the establishment of a Special Tribunal to deal with Russia’s crime of aggression against Ukraine, and the creation of an international mechanism to compensate for all the damage caused by this war. Russia’s deportations of Ukrainian children have been confirmed by the Russian authorities, who present these actions as humanitarian evacuations: Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights put forward the figure of 700,000 children at a press conference in April 2023. This figure could not be verified but was repeated in July 2023 by Grigory Karasin, Head of the International Committee of the Council of the Russian Federation. The statement made by Sergey Kiriyenko, the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration, on August 20th, 2023, at the opening of an educational center in Pyatigorsk, provoked justified indignation: “If you want to defeat the enemy, educate his children!” These deportations provided the basis for the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against the President of the Russian Federation.

 

In September 2023, French journalist Florence Aubenas, upon her return from Ukraine, made this tragic observation: “What you have to understand in Ukraine today is that there is no Plan B. In the liberated cities, Ukrainians are still in a state of emergency. In the liberated cities, Ukrainians have seen what the Russians and their steamroller have done to Ukrainian identity. The Ukrainians can’t give up.” It’s up to the Europeans to take advantage of the decisive American momentum that lies ahead.

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