Ukraine May Be Forced into Deal with Putin on His Terms

Ukraine and its allies must act quickly to ensure its troops have the weapons and training to fight Russia, or Kyiv may be forced into a deal to end the war that suits Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

"For too long, allies clung to magical thinking about Russia's weakness and Ukraine's ability to force the Kremlin into talks with battlefield success," Alissa de Carbonnel, ICG deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia, told Newsweek in emailed comments.

Ukraine's forces are on the back foot as Russian troops have advanced in the east, especially in the Kharkiv region, where Kyiv's outgunned forces faced ammunition shortages that an aid package passed by the U.S. Congress is hoped to shore up as the 27-month-old war continues.

As Kyiv and Moscow hope that its adversary will offer major concessions in exchange for peace, Ukraine must draft enough troops and wait for its backers to give it the weapons it needs to fight a long war, the Crisis Group think tank said in its report released Tuesday.

The ICG's report said that 2023 "underscored significant weaknesses in the hand that Kyiv is playing," and that Western support cannot be guaranteed, especially given political polarization on aid in the U.S.

"If the U.S. cuts back its assistance, Europe will need to fill the gaps," the report said, "while it is ramping up its capacity to do so, it still has quite a distance to travel."

But a pivot by Kyiv toward relying more on Europe would need allies there to overcome supply chain bottlenecks for weapons, as well as spend more on defense procurement, the ICG said.

The Crisis Group also described how Kyiv's allies will have to "walk a careful line" to scale up military assistance gradually, like the U.S is doing, "to shift Russian perceptions of the threat that aid poses to Moscow."

But just as important, it says, is Ukraine fixing its "broken recruitment and deployment system" and mobilizing and training frontline troops, which the country's authorities and military have not properly planned for.

"If Ukraine and its backers do not move fast to fix the problems, Kyiv may have little choice but to strike a deal on Russia's terms." Even if such a deal ended the fighting in the short term it would come at a "tremendous cost not just to Ukraine, but also to European security."

"If Ukraine and its supporters cannot both adapt and maintain their resolve, Kyiv will almost surely continue to lose lives and territory," it said, "it will then eventually have little choice but to cut some sort of deal."

The ICG noted that "diplomacy" would end the fighting and that Kyiv and its allies "should keep the fight going until Moscow is interested in a deal that not only ends the shooting, but limits Russian capacity for future aggression."

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for comment.

In recent days, Putin has signaled he would consider peace talks that recognize the current battlefield lines but will fight on if Ukraine and its allies do not agree, according to Reuters, citing unnamed sources familiar with discussions.

However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Putin was simply trying to derail a Ukrainian-initiated peace summit in Switzerland next month with "phony signals" about his alleged readiness to halt the war.

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