Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, officials across Europe have scrambled to craft a peace deal that could work for Ukraine. They know by now that, at the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in stopping his offensives, and they fear that shifting American priorities may leave Ukraine without a critical source of support. As a result, they are racing to find a way to provide Kyiv with security guarantees that could deter Russia and allow for an armistice.
In conversations about security guarantees, officials have tended to focus on a handful of measures: placing a small number of European troops in Ukraine to shore up the country’s defense (so-called reassurance forces), levying additional sanctions against Russia, and providing Ukraine with more weapons, including conventional ones. They have also mused about committing themselves, on paper, to Ukraine’s defense. Two of these actions—more weapons and sanctions—could take place before any cease-fire. The rest would go into effect only after the fighting ends.
These proposals have certain virtues. But by themselves, they are not enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security. Since the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Putin has been transparent about his objective—the destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation—and has subjected many people to almost unimaginable suffering in order to achieve it. He will not be deterred by words, a smattering of NATO troops, or by more agony (including if it affects Russians). In fact, he will not stop the war unless Russian troops literally cannot advance any further.
Right now, some U.S. and European analysts are pessimistic that Ukraine can completely halt Russia’s aggression, and understandably so. NATO countries, after all, have been arming Kyiv for years, and Moscow keeps making incremental gains. But Ukraine need not destroy every element of the Russian military to achieve strategic neutralization—stripping away the enemy of its ability to achieve its objectives. And the conflict has recently changed in ways that have made it easier to freeze. Today, the war is being fought less with traditional military equipment and more with newer, cheaper technologies that Ukraine helped pioneer. In fact, Ukraine has already done a great deal of what’s needed to deter Russia for good. But Europe must stop focusing on which traditional capabilities it should provide to Ukraine or on establishing written security guarantees. Instead, the continent should get serious about investing more in Ukraine’s war effort by flooding the country with more advanced technologies. It needs to invest heavily in the country’s sophisticated defense industry. It must cooperate more directly with Kyiv on matters of military manufacturing and on air defenses. Such measures will indeed be daunting, but not any more than NATO’s original effort to help Ukraine. And ultimately, Europe has little choice. They are the only way to bring peace.
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