Speaking to the press on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference today, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expressed concern about Kiev seeking to retake the Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky has been in a full-court press to bring more lethal weapons to Ukraine as quickly as possible, not specifying why the urgency after receiving an arsenal from the Pentagon and NATO. “I think there’s more of a consensus out there that people realize that Ukraine is not going to militarily retake Crimea,” Smith said. Zelensky has said he plans to retake every inch of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including Crimea. Smith makes the point that any attempt by Kiev to battle Russia on Crime would escalate and prolong the conflict beyond anything imagined by the Pentagon.
Smith said in Munich that at some point there would be a negotiated settlement to the bloody one-year war. “Best case scenario is some sort of ‘One Ukraine’ arrangment,” Smith said. “The real question is, can we get security guarantees for Ukraine,” allowing the U.S. and NATO partners to assure Ukraine’s security in the future from a future Russian invasion. Smith said that partner nations would “continue to train and arm Ukraine so that Russia doesn’t just do this again, once they’ve caught their breath in a couple of years,” recognizing the need for prevention. Whether 70-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin agrees to any continuing military assistance to Kiev from the U.S. and NATO is anyone’s guess. One thing’s for sure, both sides have endured heavy losses during the one-year conflict, providing some incentive to settle the conflict at the peace table.
President Joe Biden, 80, has given Zelensky a blank check so far, not dictating how Kiev would use all the U.S. and NATO advance weapons systems. As Smith said, most Pentagon planners didn’t anticipate that Zelensky would use all the cash-and-weapons to reclaim Crimea, a territory lost March 1, 2024 when a Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed, pro-Western coup toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanykovych. Putin hosted the Sochi Winter Games at the time, forcing him to seize Crimea to protect his Sevastopol Black Sea naval base. Putin told Zelensky shortly after the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion that if he wanted to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and Russia sovereignty over Crimea he would pull back his troops to the level before the conflict. Zelenky rejected Putin’s offer, deciding to take on the Kremlin to get back his sovereign territory.
Zelensky has insisted he wants Russia out of every inch of Ukrainian territory, despite the fact that Putin had troops in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crime before the war started. So, Zelensky’s thinking has changed since receiving over $50 billion in U.S. cash-and-arms to prosecute the war. Smith recognizes the fact that Zelensky has become more ambitious with U.S. and NATO arms, deciding to extend the conflict until he completes his military objectives. “No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where the choose to fight . . . Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crime is at a minimum, at a minimum, demilitarized,” Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington said today. Demilitarizing Crimea would require a Battle Royale.
Biden and Zelensky have shown little interest in any Kremlin peace overtures, saying the conditions for peace involve Russian troops pulling out of Ukraine. Because Putin has a commitment to the Peoples’ Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, he has no intent of abandoning Russian-speaking enclaves that want no part of the Kiev government. Battling for Crimea would open up a dangerous escalation in the war, where currently it’s mostly at a stalemate with neither side making much progress. Zelensky hopes with new battle tanks and long-range missiles he’ll be able to drive Russian forces out of the Donbas region. So far, that strategy hasn’t worked over the last years, giving the Kremlin a chance to take more sovereign territory. Zelensky seems dug in his heels to continue to battle the Kremlin with U.S. cash-and-arms, without any attempt to settle the conflict at the peace table.
Biden and Zelensky have no real plan in Ukraine, knowing that Putin will not surrender to Washington and Kiev. Putin conceptualizes the Ukraine conflict as an attempt by the U.S. and NATO to break up the Russian Federation. Zelensky received a massive amount of arms before the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, prompting Putin to take his “special military operation” in an attempt demilitarize Ukraine. Pentagon officials and some members of Congress are beginning to see that the U.S. can’t underwrite the Ukraine War indefinitely. Zelensky’s answer to the lack of progress on the battlefield is to ask for more cash-and-weapons. At some point, as Smith points out, a negotiated settlement will end the conflict. Neither Zelensky nor Putin will get everything they want, forced to make some compromises on both sides. Right now, Zelensky still wants to fight with U.S. and NATO weapons.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet an Operation Charisma.
