It’s Time for Ukraine to Accept an Ugly Peace

As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awaits cease-fire talks and negotiations to end Russia’s war in his country, he should reflect on an earlier chapter in this tragic conflict. In November 2022, just nine months after Moscow’s armies invaded Ukraine, Mark Milley, then the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a talk at the Economic Club of New York. His insights were controversial, but they offer clues about how to bring this war to an acceptable end.

Milley understood a brute fact about war: However entertaining the theatrics and the memes, outcomes in conflicts are determined on the battlefield—not by the narratives that politicians spin about them. Dismissing Ukraine’s rhetoric about recovering all the territory Russia had seized, Milley insisted that “victory is probably not achievable through military means” and offered a detailed analysis explaining why Kyiv’s surprise counteroffensive had reached its limits. According to Milley, Ukraine now found itself bogged down in a stalemate, and its best option was to seize a “window of opportunity for negotiation.”

Milley’s analysis recalled Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz’s oft-quoted explanation of the moral justification for the use of violence against other states: War is the continuation of politics by other means. Unless sending one’s citizens to kill and be killed advances a viable political purpose, it is not a worthy use of the military instrument of power. If Ukraine had reached the limits of what it could achieve through violence, then how could it justify continuing the war?

Then-U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration distanced itself from Milley’s remarks, and nothing came of his proposal. But a year later, another outstanding military commander came to the same conclusion. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, then Milley’s Ukrainian counterpart, led the army that defeated Russian forces attempting to seize Kyiv in the early days of the war and drove them back in Ukraine’s counteroffensive. By late 2023, though, Zaluzhnyi reluctantly concluded that the time had come to say what in Kyiv was a forbidden word: “stalemate.”

After months of attempting to get Zelensky to recognize this reality, in an initiative for which I can find no precedent in the annals of military history, Zaluzhnyi went public. In a lengthy November 2023 interview with the Economist that was accompanied by an essay, he explained his position. As he put it, “the war is now moving to a new stage: what we in the military call ‘positional’ warfare of static and attritional fighting, as in the first world war. … This will benefit Russia, allowing it to rebuild its military power, eventually threatening Ukraine’s armed forces and the state itself.” Three months later, he was no longer the commander of Ukraine’s troops.

As this war enters its fourth year, U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance are confronting the same ugly realities. Assessing the facts, they seem to agree with Milley and Zaluzhnyi. If the initiative that Milley envisaged had been undertaken and succeeded in ending the war by early 2023, what would be different in Ukraine today?

More than 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed or seriously wounded may have been spared. Thousands more civilians would still be alive. Some of the more than 2 million houses and apartments that have been damaged or destroyed might still be occupied, and around one-seventh of the country’s energy infrastructure, more than half of which is now in ruins, would still be heating and lighting homes.

After three years of war, Ukraine’s economy remains almost 10 percent smaller than prewar levels. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of its citizens remain displaced, with some 15 percent of them having left the country entirely.

As Trump told Zelensky bluntly in the White House last month, “you’re not winning this.” Although Trump’s rhetoric was harsh, it captured the basic truth that without the vital lifeline of supplies from the United States, Zelensky’s forces simply cannot sustain the war. “You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump added.

The Trump administration’s position is not up for debate. The president stated repeatedly on the campaign trail, “I want the war to stop.” Last week, Elon Musk—whom Trump has tasked with overhauling the federal government—said on X, “What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose.” Every month that the war continues, Ukraine finds itself in a worse position.

Rather than attempting to deny brute facts, persuade an unpersuadable Trump to change his mind, or wait for a European Godot, Zelensky should now focus on what he and his brave compatriots have won. They have defeated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to erase their country from the map. Ukraine’s army has fought the second-most powerful military on Earth to a standstill. At this point, Zelensky’s team should make its best efforts to use the few cards that it has left to negotiate an ugly but sustainable peace.

First, he needs to understand that the most important player at the table is Trump—and that the U.S. president’s views are unlikely to change. Specifically, Trump disdains Zelensky (whom he believes provoked an unnecessary war and tricked Biden into paying for it); likes Putin (whom he sees as a strong leader); and doesn’t really care about Ukraine. The only surprise in Trump and Vance’s attack on Zelensky at the White House in late February was that the world got to see it because it occurred on TV. Zelensky will now have to earn a second audience with Trump, which will require a lot more than his recent public statement that he “regretted” what happened. He will have to demonstrate respect—with a capital R—for the United States and its president.

Were I counseling Zelensky, I would suggest that he practice groveling in a way that would make Mark Zuckerberg’s version of that act seem dignified. He should also take lessons from NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s masterclass in flattery during his meeting with Trump in mid-March.

Second, Zelensky should accept the geographical fact that Ukraine shares a roughly 1,400-mile border with a great power. It cannot escape the shadow of Russian power any more than Canada or Mexico can with the United States. It must therefore seek to survive within the de facto sphere of influence of its hostile neighbor. For perspective, Zelensky should review the history of relations of Canada or Mexico with the United States—not just recently, but also in the past three centuries, when Washington seized portions of both countries. Closer to home, he could study Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Finland—all of which offer lessons in deference.

Third, Ukraine’s alternative to hot war cannot be the “just and lasting peace” that Zelensky dreams of. Instead, it will likely have to be an end to the killing in an extended cease-fire or possibly an armistice similar to the agreement that ended the Korean War. That would leave Ukraine in a relationship with Russia analogous to the Cold War between the U.S.-led NATO and the Soviet Union from the late 1940s until the end of the 1980s. Putin will not give up his goal of dominating Ukraine, and Ukrainians will not give up their aspiration to recover the nearly 20 percent of their territory that Russian troops now control. In this version of cold war, avoidance of provocations, credible deterrence, and persistent vigilance will be the price of survival.

Fourth, to achieve the best insurance that he can get against Putin using a cease-fire as a respite to rearm before launching another invasion, Zelensky should forget about NATO. For Trump, NATO membership for Ukraine is simply off the table.

Fifth, Zelensky should be realistic about the security commitments that may be available to him. Europeans are actively talking about commitments from individual countries—but, of course, talking is what Europeans do best. The strongest proposal so far has come from U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who expressed Britain’s willingness to commit boots on the ground in Ukraine. Careful listeners will have noted, however, that Starmer insisted that this would only be possible if the United States commits to back up those forces—a prospect that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out when he told NATO that Europe must take the lead in providing for Ukraine’s postwar security. As Hegseth put it, any security guarantees “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5.”

If stretching for alternatives, Zelensky should consider Trump’s earlier suggestion that “China can help.” A peace agreement whose signatories and guarantors include not just Ukraine and Russia but also the United States, Europe, and China would be significant.

Sixth, the key issue on which Zelensky and Trump agree is that peace (or the absence of hot war) must be sustainable—not simply a respite for Putin to rearm. Trump is planning for a long legacy for his “Make America Great Again” movement. If he were to declare a “beautiful” peace deal that then exploded on his watch or that of his successor, that would be a major failure for him. It will be both a challenge and opportunity for Zelensky to make a case for specific elements of the agreement that could ensure sustainability.

Finally, Ukraine’s larger hope for a viable future lies in its relationship with Europe. A peace agreement should confirm its right to strengthen economic relations with the European Union on a path to membership. Over the next decade or two, the EU’s trajectory—from its economic growth to its military development to its role as a rising geopolitical player—vis-à-vis that of Putin’s authoritarian, security-first Russia will shape the chessboard on which Ukraine, caught between the two, can operate. If a lasting peace is achieved, Ukraine can hope to follow in the footsteps of West Germany, South Korea, and Finland to become a miracle of the 21st century.

By Graham Allison, a professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School.