• It has become widely accepted that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia. ... As the war’s three-year mark approaches, Ukraine simply cannot overcome Russia’s structural advantages—people, economy, and land—even with help from its Western partners.
• The question now is how to get Russia to agree to a cease-fire and negotiate an end to a war it is currently winning. The prospect of long-term Ukrainian neutrality after the war could bring Russia to the table.
• Coupled with the false but firmly held narrative in the Russian security establishment that NATO broke its promise not to expand the alliance to the east, the prospect of Ukraine in NATO is an invitation for Russia to continue its murderous campaign.
• That leaves Ukraine two paths forward. The first is the path that Ukraine is on now—a slow, grinding, and open-ended fight with the growing risk of a major breakthrough by the Russian army that would then leave them no choice but to accept Putin’s terms for negotiations. The other path is to offer Putin a compromise to satisfy some, but not all, of his conditions and enable him to claim victory while preserving Ukraine as a sovereign state...The prospect of long-term Ukrainian neutrality after the war could bring Russia to the table.
• Ukraine could develop its own blueprint for security policy. Neutrality or nonalignment should not keep it from maintaining trained, highly capable, and well-equipped armed forces backed by a large pool of trained reservists.
• NATO allies have to recognize that their new frontier—the Iron Curtain, the inner German border, the East-West divide—runs from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and along the border between Ukraine and Russia.
• The standoff with Russia will require NATO to mobilize its resources in ways that it has not done, even during the Cold War. Support for Ukraine needs to be an integral part of this effort. Ukraine’s and the West’s ability to succeed in this new Cold War will be the true indicator of victory in the hot war that is being waged now.

Read the full article at the Council on Foreign Affairs website.

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by AP Photo/Virginia Mayo.