Neutrality in exchange for occupied territory—with an ironclad Western defense guarantee if Russia attacks again—is the way forward.
By Vasyl Filipchuk, a senior advisor at the International Centre for Policy Studies and served as a Ukrainian diplomat from 1997 to 2012.
It was exactly eight years ago when Ukrainian political elites faced a similar question to today: What to do if the United States elected a president who wants a deal with Russia on Ukraine?
Not long ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedian in Ukraine. He made his living playing a fictional president on television. Then, by a twist of fate, he became the real thing. And before he had time to adjust to the role, history threw him onto the world’s stage, catapulting him from a middling entertainer into an international symbol of resistance.
The United States needs to redefine its role in world affairs, what does that mean and what will it take?
The liberal rules-based international order it built and sustained in the years after the Second World War is disintegrating at an accelerating pace.
After a period of comity following the end of the Cold War, great-power competition has returned with a vengeance, pitting the United States against two major revisionist powers, China and Russia, meanwhile, smaller powers cozy up to one or multiple members of this unfriendly trio.
