Restoring Global Balance: The Path to a Lasting Peace in Ukraine

Source: Author’s Facebook page

The ultimate purpose of war is not victory on the battlefield, but the creation of a durable peace. History shows that conflicts erupt when the foundations of stability erode, leaving space for violence to replace dialogue.

Thus, the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the second half of the 18th century and the conquest of the Black Sea region by the Russian Empire established a long period of peace on Ukrainian lands, which lasted until the outbreak of the First World War. Similarly, the creation of NATO and the European Union ensured lasting stability in Western and later Central Europe after the devastating world wars.

A durable peace in Ukraine will become possible only when a new global balance of power emerges within the quadrilateral of the United States, China, Europe, and Russia. The central axis of tension lies in the rivalry between Washington and Beijing, while Europe and Russia act as secondary players, adapting to this dynamic. Once a new configuration of stable power and interest is established among the superpowers and their allies, the war in Ukraine will lose its strategic meaning.

Even if President Putin remains fixated on the idea of returning Ukraine to the so-called “Russian world,” the Russian Federation lacks the resources to achieve this goal. With a contingent of 700,000 soldiers, Russia could have attempted a short-term blitzkrieg, but it could not sustain a protracted, high-intensity war. As long as Ukraine retains the will to fight and receives Western support, it will continue to resist, regardless of the high cost. It is telling that since the beginning of 2023, Russia has managed to seize less than one percent of Ukrainian territory.

Nevertheless, the strategic objective of any war must be the achievement of a just and lasting peace. Ukraine’s defense, no matter how determined, cannot by itself provide such an outcome. What is needed is a vision of a peace settlement that would endure for decades and create conditions for Ukraine’s revival. Without this, the war risks turning Ukraine into a “European Afghanistan”: a heroic but exhausted nation, where the birth rate is 2.8 times lower than the mortality rate, and which has already lost more of its population during 34 years of independence than during the Second World War.

In this context, Putin’s recent meeting with Trump, the talks between President Zelenskyy and his European counterparts with the former U.S. president, as well as the proposal to involve China as a potential guarantor of Ukraine’s security, appear more meaningful and promising than they might initially seem. Ukraine faces a strategic choice: to remain the outpost of the West in its confrontation with the East, or to become a platform for dialogue and cooperation between them. It was precisely the latter option that ensured Finland’s post-war stability and economic success.

Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine can be contained either through confrontation — by positioning Ukraine as the spearhead of the collective West — or by transforming the country into a venue for balancing the interests of the European Union and China. This approach resembles the Turkish model, which places national interests at the center while leveraging the contradictions among global powers. The prerequisite for such a policy is a strong and capable state, able to assert genuine international subjectivity, so that decisions regarding Ukraine’s future are made in Kyiv, not in Washington, Brussels, Berlin, or Paris.

Ukraine is undeniably a part of Europe. Yet being European does not necessarily mean serving as Europe’s spear and shield. Ukraine’s role within Europe may take other forms, which do not require becoming the permanent counterweight to Russia.

As I have previously emphasized, the path to a durable peace in Ukraine may run through Beijing. While sincere gratitude must be expressed to Ukraine’s partners for the vital assistance that has enabled the country’s survival, the reality remains: for three and a half years, neither NATO, nor the United States, nor the European Union has managed to halt Russia’s war of aggression. Moreover, they have demonstrated no readiness to fight alongside Ukraine directly. This unwillingness is the principal reason why NATO’s doors remain effectively closed to Ukraine. And it is unlikely that even the cessation of the active phase of hostilities would make the Alliance more resolute or its European members more courageous.

Therefore, Ukraine must search for non-standard approaches to transform itself from a tectonic fault line of the old world order into a cornerstone of the new one. A state where the interests of East and West intersect not to divide and weaken it, but to strengthen its role and prospects.

Is this an extraordinarily difficult task? Certainly. Have we grown unaccustomed to thinking in such categories? Yes. For too long, the national inferiority complex has driven us to look for yet another patron, to shift responsibility for our future to outside powers.

This is true. Yet it is also true that there is no other path to lasting peace, which Ukraine so urgently needs. To avoid turning into a modern loca desert — a depopulated and desolate land — we must build a strong and effective state. Only such a state can articulate and implement its national interests in a way that neutralizes the destructive ambitions of foreign powers.

Once we recognize that the ultimate strategic goal is durable peace — achievable not through illusory “security guarantees” from those unwilling to sacrifice for our freedom, but through a balanced alignment of global players’ interests in Ukraine, we will begin to see a way forward. Without this clarity, Ukraine risks remaining forever the “spear and shield” wielded by others, instead of an independent actor shaping its destiny.

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