Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
More than anything else, the Munich Security Conference was founded to foster dialogue between adversaries. Yet, this year’s three-day gabfest was focused on exchanges between allies and friends rather than foes, and in formal sessions, there were earnest colloquies about Russia’s war on Ukraine and what next steps should be taken to help Kyiv.
Ahead of the gathering, some had warned that Munich would thus likely turn into an echo chamber of the like-minded this year. But it didn’t — certainly not in the margins or informal meetings. And it still remains unclear whether Ukraine’s partners are, in fact, singing the same song of unity.
Munich gave us the “chance to sense the mood, especially on the most important questions like how the war is going, and how our support is going, and how long support is going to last,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO in an exclusive interview.
But, at the same time, the conference reinforced rather than eased some of his anxieties — as well as those of his Baltic compatriots — about the staying power of all Ukraine’s Western partners. And this is because ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion — despite unprecedented Western sanctions and massive arms supplies — the allies haven’t really agreed on any clear war aims.
Ukraine, of course, has been consistent about theirs — namely, the restoration of all sovereign territory including Crimea, Russian war reparations and security guarantees. But in April and May, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi all floated ceasefire balloons.
Macron and Scholz have since hardened their talk. Last week in Munich, Macron said the time isn’t right for dialogue, and he hasn’t spoken with Putin since September. Meanwhile, Germany’s chancellor quipped in his speech on Friday about how laggardly the allies have been in supplying Leopard tanks. “Those who can send such battle tanks should really do so now,” Scholz said, relishing the cheeky role reversal.
Yet peace balloons still continue to be floated, even more surreptitiously than China’s spy blimps.
Did CIA Director William Burns waft one up at the Ankara meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin in November? Two Ukrainian officials say he did. Asking not to be identified for this article, as they haven’t been authorized to discuss the issue with the media, the officials also confirmed a report that in January, Burns had urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make as much battlefield headway as quickly as he could, because the scale of military support could start falling off.
Burns’ warning came after predictions that the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Congress would soon set out to reduce support. And a Zelenskyy adviser told POLITICO, Kyiv is worried that some in President Joe Biden’s administration would be happy to use Congress as an excuse to wind down military aid and encourage Ukraine to agree to pare down its war aims.
“I think both on Capitol Hill and in the administration, there are people who are looking to calibrate security assistance to incentivize the Ukrainians to cut some sort of deal, I’m afraid,” the adviser said.
Of course, that may go against Biden’s promise during his surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday that the U.S. will continue to back Ukraine for “as long as it takes” — but without defined war aims, even that presidential pledge could be blown off course, the adviser confided.
Meanwhile, for Landsbergis, the failure to not just clearly define Western partners’ war aims but even debate them in earnest has been a crucial omission. And this failure to discuss outcomes and objectives is leaving room for those who waver to waver even more.
“My main question is why haven’t we ever had a conversation about the end goal? The only discussions or ideas that get floated around are about negotiations and peace processes — and all that makes a lot of people in my part of Europe quite nervous. Okay, so we talk about victory, and we talk about standing with Ukraine to the very end — but let’s also talk about this.”
According to Landsbergis, military experts know exactly what’s needed to finish the job. “It’s mathematics,” he said.
But without having agreed on objectives, everything is ad hoc — without a real attempt to match equipment and munitions, missiles and armor — and it’s left to Ukraine to push for whatever it can secure. “So, we ambiguously commit to Ukrainian victory, but do not go into detail,” he added.
Interestingly, during a similarly fateful February in 1941, Britain’s Winston Churchill gave a take-stock speech to the House of Commons, noting that “In wartime, there is a lot to be said for the motto: ‘Deeds, not words.’ All the same, it is a good thing to look around from time to time and take stock, and certainly our affairs have prospered in several directions during these last four or five months, far better than most of us would have ventured to hope.”
Britain had been receiving some military aid from the U.S. at the time, and much like Ukraine today, it was on a just-in-time basis at best.
Landsbergis sees the current situation as similar.
“We’re approaching a very important period,” he said. Without defined war aims, he and other Baltic and Central European leaders are eager to at least secure defined arms and resupply commitments for the months ahead. “Let’s commit for the summer. Let’s commit for the next wave. Let’s commit for ammunition, let’s commit for additional tanks, let’s commit for additional howitzers,” he called.
The foreign minister also said that there are “people saying, look, ‘Russia has already lost, has lost strategically,’ and on this, I would completely disagree.” For him, a strategic loss means Russia undergoing a historic change and being “unable to continue the way that it has been for decades,” even if that means it creates the conditions for the breakup of the Russian Federation — although Landsbergis isn’t advocating for that as a war aim.
Rather, his point is that back when the Soviet Union broke up, there were leaders in the West urging the Baltic states and Ukraine not to declare independence, as they were fearful of all the instability and repercussions it might trigger. “People were so afraid, they couldn’t imagine a world without the Soviet Union,” he said.
And likewise, some now worry about the repercussions of the war leading to turbulence inside Russia and even its breakup. “So, should we stop? Should we ask the Ukrainians to put a moratorium on the regaining of their territory?” Landsbergis asked.
“That’s impossible.”
