What Western allies can do to end war in Ukraine

I will try to analyze what the U.S. and the EU could do right now to genuinely help end this war. The scenario of involving NATO troops in combat in Ukraine is deliberately excluded due to its unreality.

1. Expanding sanctions and adding energy giants Lukoil and Rosneft to the sanctions lists

These two companies alone account for almost half of Russia’s crude oil exports. Sanctions against them would significantly reduce the Kremlin’s revenues, and against the backdrop of a prolonged economic downturn, this would greatly complicate financing the war.

2. Strengthening enforcement of existing sanctions

First and foremost, this refers to controlling technological exports, similar to how the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) operated during the Cold War.

All technological exports from EU countries must be monitored from the first buyer to the final recipient. Today this process is practically uncontrolled, which is why we see American, French, and German components inside Russian drones. In fact, even the circulation of pharmaceuticals is regulated better than the supply of French optical sights or European machine tools. Exports to third countries suspected of circumventing sanctions (this list must be officially defined) should be strictly limited and subject to quotas.

3. Replacing the ban on capital outflows from Russia with restrictions

"War is expensive. The problem is that Russia still has plenty of money. After the ban on Russian capital movements, funds remained inside Russia and are effectively being used to finance the war. It would be more rational to allow limited access to these funds, but with a strict ban on their return to Russia."

4. Adoption of Lindsey Graham's bill

Even without the proposed 500% sanction tariffs on buyers of Russian oil, the bill includes many useful measures. For example, it would make U.S. sanctions — which are currently temporary and must be renewed annually by the president (Trump once extended both sanction packages) — permanent.

Permanent sanctions are extremely difficult for Congress to repeal. For instance, the Jackson–Vanik amendment, adopted in 1974 against the USSR, was repealed for Ukraine only in 2006, and for Russia as late as 2012.

5. Institutionally recognizing the Armed Forces of Ukraine as the foundation of the EU’s armed forces

At present, the EU has no army of its own. Events after 2022 demonstrated that even the national armies of most member states are practically non-operational. One example often cited is when not a single functioning tank could be found across all of Spain.

"Since polls in nearly every EU country show that citizens are not prepared to fight even for their own states, the most effective security guarantee for Europe would be to build its own army on the basis of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

In this case, the financing, training, support, and management of the Ukrainian army would be covered by the EU. The very fact that a Ukrainian soldier would receive the salary of a European serviceman would help both with replenishing personnel — including attracting foreigners — and with engaging qualified civilians in key military positions, as is practiced in the United States (for example, Mark Milley, who headed the U.S. Army Forces Command until the end of 2023, originally trained as a political scientist).

From there, one can move on to technical issues: dense mining of the entire front line to a depth of dozens of kilometers, development of domestic weapons production, including air defense systems and cruise missiles. But the starting point should be these five measures:

• expansion of sanctions;
• transforming temporary sanctions into permanent ones;
• stricter enforcement of compliance;
• encouraging capital outflow from Russia;
• creating an EU army based on the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in parallel with the development of the defense-industrial complex in both Ukraine and Europe.

These elements could, in fact, form the basis of future security guarantees.

Source

About the author. Mykola Kniazhytskyi, journalist, Member of the Ukrainian Parliament.

The editorial team does not always share the opinions expressed by blog or column authors.