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What Are the Chances for Peace in Ukraine Right Now?
What makes it so difficult to find a solution? Is Russia a threat to Europe? Five questions for Eurasia expert Anatol Lieven.
Jul 09, 2025
David Goeßmann: The talks a few weeks ago between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul came to nothing. What are the chances for peace?
Anatol Lieven: I see no prospect for an end to the war at present. Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on peace terms, and the Trump administration has not put forward a compromise proposal of its own. The Russian generals are reportedly telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will collapse by early next year, and Putin is willing to fight on, at least for a while. We will have to see what happens on the battlefield, and to the Russian economy.
David Goeßmann: What makes it so difficult to find a diplomatic solution for the Ukraine war?
Anatol Lieven: Ukraine will never legally recognize Russian sovereignty over the occupied territories, but cannot reconquer them. So a cease-fire will have to take place along the existing battle line, and the question of their legal status will have to be left for future negotiation—as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed soon after the start of the war.
In my judgement, internal political factors make it impossible for the Ukrainian government to make a peace offer that Russia could accept—just as the French establishment could not make peace with the Communists in Vietnam long after the war there was clearly lost. The Europeans are far too divided to make a coherent joint proposal. So the initiative for peace will have to come from the U.S.
The only question is whether the U.S. can abandon it incrementally and peacefully, or if it goes down in blood and fire taking many other countries with it.
The European states will have to be consulted about the future of sanctions and the Russian assets in Europe that they have seized. But they are incapable of uniting behind a serious peace strategy.
David Goeßmann: In Europe and the U.S. it is feared that Russia will go beyond Ukraine and invade other European countries? Your take on that.
Anatol Lieven: Russian military capabilities and intentions vis a vis NATO have both been hugely exaggerated. Even hybrid moves (which are not "war") have so far been very small and in the nature of warnings not serious attacks. Russian nuclear bluster has been intended to deter NATO from intervening in Ukraine, not as the prelude to a Russian attack on NATO.
David Goeßmann: NATO has decided that each member state should spend 5% of its GDP on military and related infrastructure. How do you assess this unprecedented militarization?
Anatol Lieven: These figures are absurd. Five percent of E.U. GDP would be approximately $900 billion a year—as much as the U.S. and almost three times the military budgets of Russia and China put together. That is quite unnecessary, and impossible. This is an empty bribe to U.S. President Donald Trump to keep the U.S. committed to Europe, not a serious strategy.
David Goeßmann: The struggle for global primacy continues under Trump, see the bombing of Iran or the confrontation with China. Where are we heading?
Anatol Lieven: The desire for universal U.S. hegemony (also known as the "Wolfowitz Doctrine") is a megalomaniac project that cannot possibly be sustained for long. The only question is whether the U.S. can abandon it incrementally and peacefully, or if it goes down in blood and fire taking many other countries with it.
Among the nuclear-armed powers, we can hope that the fear of nuclear annihilation will stop them from going over the brink into war with each other. The example of India and Pakistan shows that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) can actually work—for without it, India would have invaded Pakistan long ago. But the liberal dream of a global "Democratic Peace" is dead as a nail, killed by Israel and the U.S. itself just as much as by Russia.
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NATO's 5% Pledge: An Obscene Betrayal of Global Needs
Presented as a historic step, in truth this increased level of military spending represents a major step backwards for humanity and the common good.
Jun 26, 2025
At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backwards—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors.
This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by U.S. President Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that “target.”
Now, with Trump back in the White House, NATO leaders are falling in line, setting a staggering 5% target that even the United States—already spending over $1 trillion a year on its military—doesn’t reach. This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business.
This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business.
Countries across Europe and North America are already slashing public services and yet they are now expected to funnel even more taxpayer money into war preparation. Currently, no NATO country spends more on the military than on health or education. But if they all hit the new 5% military spending goal, 21 of them would spend more on weapons than on schools.
Spain was one of the few to reject this escalation, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez making clear that his government would not sacrifice pensions and social programs to meet a militarized spending target. Other governments, including Belgium and Slovakia, quietly pushed back too.
Still, NATO leaders pressed on, cheered by Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who fawned over Donald Trump’s demand that Europe boost defense spending. Rutte even referred to Trump as “Daddy,” a comment that—while dismissed as a joke—spoke volumes about NATO’s subservience to U.S. militarism. Under Trump’s influence, the NATO alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.
Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises.
Just before NATO leaders were gathering at the Hague, protesters took to the streets under the banner “No to NATO.” And back in their home countries, civic groups are demanding a redirection of resources toward climate justice, healthcare, and peace. Polls show that majorities in the U.S. oppose increased military spending, but NATO is not accountable to the people. It’s accountable to political elites, arms manufacturers and a Cold War logic that sees every global development through the lens of threat and domination.
NATO’s expansion, both in terms of war spending and size (it has grown from 12 founding members to 32 countries today) has not brought peace. On the contrary, the alliance’s promise that Ukraine would one day join its ranks was one of the triggers for Russia’s brutal war. Instead of de-escalating, the alliance has doubled down with weapons, not diplomacy. In Gaza, Israel continues its U.S.-backed war with impunity, while NATO nations send more arms and offer no serious push for peace. Now the alliance wants to drain public coffers to sustain these wars indefinitely. NATO is also surrounding its adversaries, particularly Russia, with ever more bases and troops.
Under Trump’s influence, the NATO alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.
All of this demands a radical rethink. As the world burns—literally—NATO is stocking up on kindling. When healthcare systems are crumbling, schools underfunded, and blazing temperatures making large swaths of the planet uninhabitable, the idea that governments should commit billions more to weapons and war is obscene. Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises.
We need to flip the script. That means cutting military budgets, withdrawing from endless wars, and beginning a serious conversation about dismantling NATO. The alliance, born of the Cold War, is now a stumbling block to global peace and an active participant in war-making. Its latest summit only reinforces that reality.
This is not just about NATO’s budget—it’s about our future. Every euro or dollar spent on weapons is one not spent on confronting the climate crisis, lifting people out of poverty, or building a peaceful world. For the future of our planet, we must reject NATO and the war economy.
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Ukrainians Need (and Want) an End to War
It’s time to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, so they can heal and rebuild.
May 28, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s expressed exasperation over Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine seemed to temporarily lift the spirit of pro-war European leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron, who said he hopes Trump’s anger “translates into action.” The U.S. isn’t likely to resume the massive military support it provided under former President Joe Biden. Under one scenario, however, it could conceivably sell weapons to NATO for Ukraine’s use.
The abandonment of peace efforts in Ukraine would be disastrous—especially for Ukrainians.
American citizens and those of other NATO countries have a moral obligation to demand peace—a just peace, but an urgent one.
Americans’ support for the war has softened somewhat, according to recent Pew polling, with 44% saying the U.S. has a responsibility to aid Ukraine’s defense and 52% saying it doesn’t. Sixty-nine percent, however, still believe the war is “important to U.S. interests.”
They don’t seem to understand the situation in Ukraine, the harm it is causing, the threats it poses to the United States—or the wishes of the Ukrainian people.
What Ukrainians Want
Chances are, most Americans didn’t see last November’s Gallup news report headlined, “Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War.” Or the Ukrainian poll which found that only 16% of Ukrainians wanted their country to “continue fighting until it wins the war.” This important information went all but unreported in American media.[1]
Their war-weariness is easy to understand. Ukrainians have already suffered more than 400,000 casualties. Two million Ukrainian residences have been destroyed or damaged, and nearly one-fourth of Ukraine’s population has been displaced, including 15% who have fled their homeland. Nearly 900,000 Ukrainians (the equivalent of 7 or 8 million Americans) are serving in the military.
Ukrainians are reportedly the poorest people in Europe. Today, one-half of Ukraine’s households reportedly live at a basic subsistence level; roughly 1 in 4 must “scrimp” for food. The government’s decimated finances have led to cuts in services, usurious tax hikes, and ever-worsening corruption.
To put it bluntly, they’re living in hell.
The Nuclear Scenario
And speaking of hell: This war also carries the very real risk of the first wartime use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As Germany’s new chancellor has confirmed, all NATO countries have lifted their restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles against Russia. That increases the risk of nuclear confrontation, which was already at an unacceptable level.
The New York Times recently published an investigation which revealed that the United States actively planned, armed, and helped carry out direct military actions against the world’s only other nuclear superpower—actions so reckless they even alarmed U.S. intelligence, which sharply raised its assessment of the nuclear threat.[2]
A War That Can’t Be Won
The Times report should have dominated the news cycle and changed the conversation about this war. It should have—but it didn’t. But then, little attention was paid back in November 2022 when Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the war was essentially unwinnable and that it was time to negotiate.
Journalists and war-promoting politicians have collaborated in downplaying both the horrors of this war and the impossibility of Ukrainian victory. That’s allowed the United States and its Western allies to extend this exercise in futility, while offering false hope to the Ukrainian people and expending their own resources on weapons abroad. It’s time to stop claiming we can help Ukraine fight until it “wins.”
It won’t win—not ever. To believe otherwise is to help NATO countries use Ukrainians as cannon fodder.
That’s not to deny that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war crime. It is, and any decent person should abhor it. But we must also recognize the real-world concerns and provocations that preceded it.[3]
Facing Reality
It was unwise—not to mention criminal—to mark the start of U.S.-Russian negotiations by murdering a top Russian general with a car bomb in a Moscow suburb, an act that appeared to be a deliberate “F— you” to both negotiating parties. Ukraine’s role in that attack—also illegal under international law—was affirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments afterward.[4]
Graham Allison, professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:
Rather than attempting to deny brute facts... Zelenskyy 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.
Allison writes, “Zelenskyy’s team should make its best efforts to use the few cards that it has left to negotiate an ugly but sustainable peace.”
Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft writes:
Most of the peace plan for Ukraine now sketched out by the Trump administration is not new, is based on common sense, and has indeed already been tacitly accepted by Kyiv.
Lieven adds that, given the details yet to be worked out, “it was unwise and thoughtless of Zelenskyy to declare immediately that ‘there is nothing to talk about here.’”
A Different Future
Ukraine needs and deserves more reassurances than it has been given so far. To be sure, any negotiated outcome will be painful, portending what Allison calls “an ugly but sustainable peace.” But these negotiations are Ukraine’s best hope. They are, in fact, its only hope. The only alternative is an even uglier procession of days, weeks, months, and years containing only death and destruction, with nothing to be gained and no end in sight.
Ukraine can still have a bright future someday, free of war and poverty. One possible future can be glimpsed in Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1989 proposal to the Council of Europe for a “common European home” that “replaces the traditional balance of forces with a balance of interests.”
As long as the war continues, however, Ukraine can’t move forward at all. American citizens and those of other NATO countries have a moral obligation to demand peace—a just peace, but an urgent one. That obligation extends to the many Democrats whose hostility to Donald Trump has deepened a needless partisan divide over this issue.
The United States must lead the West in shifting its focus—and its spending—from war to peace. Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction costs were last estimated at $524 billion over 10 years. It’s time to end the suffering of the Ukrainian people, so they can heal and rebuild.
We must help them in that recovery. But first, all Americans—Democrats as well as Republicans—must call for peace now.
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[1]. The Gallup poll represented a dramatic change in Ukrainian public opinion: 73% wanted to fight until “victory” in 2022, and 63% the year after. By November 2024, 52% of Ukrainians wanted to end the war. I only found these polls mentioned once in The New York Times’ news section—a reference to Gallup’s poll in the 23rd paragraph of a story headlined, “Ukrainians Fear Peace May Strand Them Forever From Lost Homes.” (It also appeared in an op-ed.)
[2]. The New York Times’ investigation of the U.S. military in Ukraine is a must-read. It documents the U.S.’ leadership role in planning, arming, and carrying out direct military actions against the world’s only other nuclear superpower.
“Until that moment,” the Times reports, “U.S. intelligence agencies had estimated the chance of Russia’s using nuclear weapons in Ukraine at 5-10%. Now, they said, if the Russian lines in the south collapsed, the probability was 50%.”
Ukraine is also the home of 15 nuclear reactors housed in four power plants.
[3]. The Geopolitical Economy website has done an excellent job laying out the United States’ shameful role in provoking conflict between Russia and Ukraine. (See, for example, here, here, and here.)
[4]. Zelenskyy celebrated and took credit for the killing, writing on Telegram that a Ukrainian intelligence official had “reported on the liquidation of persons from the top command of the Russian armed forces.”
Zelenskyy added: “Justice inevitably is done... Good results. Thank you for your work.”
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