Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelenskiy lives in a world of productions, PR, simulacra and, therefore, delusion. Hence, the bizarre content of his so-called Victory Plan as presented to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on October 16th. It contained five points, each out of touch with the real world in its own way (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2024/10/16/7479937/).
The first point is Ukraine’s immediate admittance to NATO. This is none other than an extension to the level of the absurdity of his policy of trying to bring the alliance into the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War as an open and direct combatant party. Despite repeated escalations, the reluctance or hesitation to grant Ukraine the right to use Western-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia demonstrates the limits of Western commitment. So does the reduction of Western weapons and financial assistance to Ukraine, and repeated claims by Western leaders that their countries weapons reserves are depleted, and the lack of a war time production plan demonstrate that the West will not fight Russia directly any time soon, no less immediately, as granting Ukraine NATO membership would soon lead to. Moreover, Western leaders have repeatedly rejected this idea. Saying that Ukraine’s membership in NATO was only “in the future” and that even another country might be admitted prior to Ukraine, new NATO Gen Sec Rutte Mark Rutte poured cold water on any “immediate” NATO membership for Ukraine the day after Zelenskiy outlined his Victory Plan to the Rada (https://apnews.com/video/north-atlantic-treaty-organization-ukraine-brussels-volodymyr-zelenskyy-vladimir-putin-6b02a7cb1f724cbf8af78b574d642a41).
The second point includes many of the faults of the first in that it calls for the West to build up Ukraine’s defensive and, crucially, offensive military capacity as a deterrent to Russian aggression and, more importantly, to allow Kiev to turn the war back onto Russian territory. This point includes Western approval so that Kiev can use long-range missiles provided by the West to attack targets deep inside Russia (www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/news/2024/10/16/7196331/). To this point is attached a secret protocol, the contents of which are known to the leaders of the US, UK, and Italy (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2024/10/16/7479922/). Thus, Zelenskiy is proposing that NATO engage in attacks on Russia directly as an alliance or by one of its members, Ukraine. In short he is proposing that NATO with Ukraine as a member wage war against Russia.
To be sure, building up Ukraine’s defense to such a level that it could spearhead a NATO attack on Russia with any hope of success would take at least several years, by which time Ukraine is unlikely to exist. Pushing the war onto Russian territory has just been tried in Kursk to disastrous effect, with Ukrainian troops on the verge of encirclement and destruction. Assuming an existing Ukraine, such a plan would require the West virtually to transition to a war economy if to have any prospect of success, with all the catastrophic effects for the parties which adopted such a decision and likely for domestic stability that would have as well. Most dangerous is Zelenskiy’s reiteration of his plea to be allowed to hit deep inside Russia with long-range missiles, which can only be undertaken by using Western targeting and other technical means data and Western military officer-operators. Putin has said this would establish the countries in the armed forces of which these operators serve as combatants in the war and legal targets for Russian retaliation.
The third point is the ‘containment’ of Russia by way of the deployment of non-nuclear, long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine. This point has the look of a post-war military strategic initiative and also has a secret protocol attached. The prospect of such a move by the West was one of the causes of Putin’s decision to begin the present ‘special military operation.’ Thus, as with the first three points the ‘Victory Plan’ is a road map to escalation and a direct NATO-Russian war; again, a long-standing goal of Zelenskiy since February 2022.
The fourth point is for the West to help rebuild Ukraine’s military-industrial base, as another means of protecting Ukraine and containing Russia. This point also has a secret protocol and likely pertains more to any post-war period, since Russia will have no trouble destroying any new military-industrial plants during the war.
The fifth point is also post-war oriented, stipulating that the forces of what should become Europe’s leading military power – Ukraine – as a surrogate for American power on the continent. It is proposed that Ukrainian forces would replace American forces across Europe. Thus, NATO would become Ukrainian-oriented and Ukraine a veritable European superpower. This point has the scent of many ultranationalist and neofascist visions of a Great Ukraine, master of an eastern European “Intermarium” stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. This smacks of a certain megalomania in Zelenskiy’s thinking that supplements his Victory Plan’s delusions. This may be fine for a sitcom or even a film manuscript — a geopolitical feel-good’ story — but not the real world of cut throat self-interest and lessons learned and hardened by the crooked, cruel path of human history.
The absurdities and extravagant demands and expectations in Zelenskiy’s Victory Plan may explain in part – along with the domestic political needs of the impending U.S. presidential election — the delaying tactics being used by Washington to put off strategic decisions such as whether or not to pressure Zelenskiy to negotiate with Russia, to negotiate behind Ukraine’s back, or to change the political configuration (remove Zelenskiy) in Kiev. The U.S. Biden administration has been doing everything in order to delay until after the elections any decisions or announcements of decisions already made in relation to the future of its support for the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War and the Zelenskiy Maidan regime’s strategies.
First, in September the administration began postponing and still is any decision on whether or not to grant permission to Kiev to use Western-supplied long-range missiles in order to target deep inside Russia. There was an assumption that part of Zelenskiy’s Plan included granting such permission. Thus, the Biden administration requested that Zelenskiy submit a list of proposed targets presumably for Washington’s approval. Then the UK exerted pressure on Washington to approve such use of long-range missiles by Ukraine, and UK PM Keir Starmer even flew to Washington under the false assumption that he and Biden would announce joint approval of such use. However, Washington called off that meeting, and Starmer returned to London empty-handed.
The discussion of this and Zelenskiy’s ‚Victory Plan‘ was then put off until October 12th. The White House announced on September 26th: „On October 12, 2024, President Biden will host a leader-level meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany“ (www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/26/readout-of-president-bidens-meeting-with-president-zelenskyy-of-ukraine-4/). Then on October 10th the Biden administration announced that the US president would not attend the NATO Contact Group meeting in Ramstein scheduled for October 12th, ostensibly because of the hurricane threat hanging over the U.S. There indeed is a threat but it is not a hurricane and is not hanging over the U.S. per se. The threat is the defeat in the U.S. presidential election, and it hangs over the Democrat Party-Deep State cabal that is in the midst of an authoritarian revolution from above. Biden will now travel to Germany on October 17th but the NATO Contact Group summit in Ramstein has been put off until November (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2024/10/16/7480023/). The administration has whittled down the period before the election to at least three weeks and realistically until November. Who thinks that Ramstein will occure before the US election results are kn own? Moreover, instead of a three-day visit, as had been planned earlier, Biden will be in Germany for less than a day, and will hold several short meetings with leading NATO country leaders but not a spart of an official NATO meeting or one devoted to Ukraine or Zelenskiy’s Plan alone (www.reuters.com/world/biden-heads-germany-talks-ukraine-middle-east-2024-10-17/ and https://apnews.com/article/biden-election-germany-scholz-ukraine-democracy-bb4d92e39eec108ba526eb10f913f714).
So the administration can now put off any strategic decisions, including rejection of Zelenskiy’s absurd ‚Victory Plan‘ until next month—that is until November at the earliest. One can be sure they will not be announced before the results of the U.S. presidential election are known and perhaps significantly later. The last point is the case, because there could be an attempt to further delay matters until Biden leaves office, especially if Donald Trump is the victor in November. This allows the administration to avoid rejecting Zelenskiy’s Victory Plan proposals; a rejection which could have serious repercussions inside Ukraine, including political instability, a coup, and/or shift to negotiations with Moscow. All these would lead to accusations of failure and ‚the loss of Ukraine‘ being pinned on the Biden administration and by association his would-be Democrat successor Kamala Harris. In the meantime, Ramstein will approve a new package of assistance, military and financial, to Ukraine to ensure there is no full collapse of the front and/or regime until after Biden’s departure from office.
Nevetheless, difficult strategic decisions await decisionmakers in the West in order to soften the appearance of defeat at Russia’s hands. Otherwise, they confront a perhaps decade-long war supporting a Ukrainian underground, terrorist attacks, and a disappearing indigenous Ukrainian economy and society reduced to a shrinking western Ukraine as Russian forces cross the Dneiper River and grind through the land to Ukraine’s western, southwestern and northwestern borders, to Odessa in the south, Lvov and Uzhgorod in the west, and Lutsk and Kovel in the north. And all along the threat of direct war with Russia and nuclear escalation will hang over their heads and those of their electorates. To a significant degree, Zelenskiy and his delusions stand in the way of the West’s only reasonable exit path: de-escalation and peace, sans defeat and loss of face for NATO. Indeed, difficult decisions and bad options are the path ahead.
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NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.