By Jeffrey Sachs, CommonDreams, 10/20/26

This proposed settlement—designed to help end a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation—addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms.

The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine’s statehood, meet Russia’s security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order. As another round of negotiations gears up in Norway, I propose a settlement concluded as a single package, signed by Ukraine and Russia, adopted by a vote of the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter, and guaranteed jointly by the five permanent members of the Council together with other states that choose to join. The proposal rests on the principle of indivisible security set out in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.

The package would have four core commitments.

The first is Ukraine’s permanent neutrality, adopted in a constitutional law on the model of Austria’s law of 1955, which would return Ukraine to the founding choice of its Declaration of State Sovereignty of 1990. Ukraine would join no military alliance and host no foreign bases or forces, whether of NATO, the European Union, their member states, or Russia. Neutrality would not mean disarmament, and Ukraine would retain armed forces for its own defense.
 

The second is that Ukraine would pursue its candidacy for membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state, with a neutrality protocol in its accession treaty on the model of Ireland’s, and Russia would affirm that Ukraine’s membership in the EU is consistent with Russia’s security.

The third is an armistice line drawn along the line of contact on the date of signature. Each side would exercise de facto jurisdiction on its side of the line, neither would recognize the other’s territorial claims, and both would renounce force in any future adjustment. This formula is compatible with both countries’ constitutions, which bar or severely restrict the cession of territory.
 

The fourth is the end of NATO enlargement eastward. At signature the North Atlantic Council would declare that NATO will not admit Ukraine or other new members in Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus, withdrawing the Bucharest pledge of 2008.
 

The settlement would take effect as a permanent end of hostilities on signature, not as a temporary ceasefire, and its provisions would be implemented in stages under international verification. No element would be negotiated in isolation, and no party would be asked to make a concession in advance of signature.

The territorial arrangements are designed to address the concerns and claims of both sides. Ukrainian forces would withdraw from the part of Donetsk region that Ukraine now controls, which would become a demilitarized special zone. Russian forces would not enter it, the existing local civil administration would continue to function, and its final status would be left to negotiation. Russia would withdraw from the areas it holds in Dnipropetrovsk region and from the Kinburn Spit. A Northern Security Zone would be demilitarized on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and Russian forces would leave the areas they hold in Kharkiv and Sumy regions as Ukrainian forces withdraw from their side. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would remain under Russian control with IAEA safety oversight and would sell an agreed share of its electricity to Ukraine at cost.
 

A demilitarized belt would run along both sides of the armistice line, with heavy weapons and long-range strike systems withdrawn to agreed distances, and mutual ceilings on forces would apply in the border regions on both sides. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, commercial navigation would be free for all Ukrainian and Russian ports, and attacks on shipping and ports would be prohibited.
 

The settlement in Ukraine should also begin the repair of European security as a whole. NATO and Russia would agree on a moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Europe, refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any additional state, and restore the NATO-Russia Council. Normal diplomatic relations would be restored on both sides. The parties would convene the first summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2010 to entrust the OSCE with monitoring the settlement, verifying arms limits, and overseeing the provisions on rights.
 

Questions of language, education, culture, and religion would be resolved according to European standards, with the Russian language treated on the same basis as Ukraine’s other minority languages, and Russia would accept the same obligations toward Ukrainian speakers and religious communities on its side of the line. All obligations concerning extremism and incitement would be mutual and monitored by the OSCE. Prisoners of war would be exchanged on an all-for-all basis, detained civilians released, and separated children reunited with their families.
 

Sanctions would be lifted during 2027. Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets would also be released, and private property seized or immobilized on both sides would be restored. An international reconstruction fund administered by the European Investment Bank would finance reconstruction on both sides of the line, with contributions from all parties, Russia included, in a common effort rather than as reparations. Gas transit through Ukraine could resume wherever there are willing buyers, without any commitment by the European Union to purchase Russian gas.
 

A report of serious violation by an OSCE monitoring mission of unarmed observers from states outside NATO would trigger consultations among the guarantors and referral to the Security Council. Ukraine would lift martial law and hold elections under OSCE observation, and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada would ratify the settlement and adopt the constitutional law on neutrality, while the Russian Federal Assembly would ratify it at the same stage.

This proposed settlement addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms. Europe has been largely absent from the design of the peace. By putting forward such a framework, European governments can take the lead in building Europe’s indivisible security and help end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation between nuclear powers.

Moscow Times, 10/19/26

President Vladimir Putin on Monday approved a major reshuffle of top government officials, coming weeks after Russia held parliamentary elections that handed the ruling United Russia party its largest-ever majority.

The proposed personnel changes would replace nearly half of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s deputy prime ministers, according to independent journalist Farida Rustamova.

Rustamova said Dmitry Grigorenko’s removal from the post of chief of government staff was unexpected given his role as Mishustin’s “right-hand man” and his position being among “the most important in the government.” 

Mishustin’s spokesman later said Grigorenko himself had requested to be transferred to another post. Mishustin nominated First Deputy Finance Minister Irina Okladnikova to replace Grigorenko. If lawmakers approve her candidacy, she will become the first woman to ever hold the position of chief of government staff.

In other notable changes, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov will go on to serve as a deputy prime minister in addition to remaining in his role at the Finance Ministry, a post he has held since 2011. Siluanov previously held a dual position as deputy prime minister from 2018 to 2020 under former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Russian political analysts described the reshuffle as “a major strengthening of the fiscal leadership” as officials focus on increasing state budget revenues. The lower-house State Duma must now approve the nominations.

Transportation Minister Andrei Nikitin was nominated to become deputy prime minister tasked with overseeing the development of Russia’s transportation sector, among other things. The vacancy was left open after Vitaly Savelyev resigned following his election to the State Duma in late September.

Dmitry Yadrov, head of Russia’s civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia, was tapped to succeed Nikitin as transportation minister.

Primorye region Governor Oleg Kozhemyako was also nominated to serve as deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District. He will replace Yury Trutnev, who sources told the Vedomosti newspaper could be appointed to another Kremlin post.

The reshuffle follows State Duma elections last month, which renewed the ranks of parliament and came as Russian officials scramble to find new sources of economic growth amid strained government finances, increasingly burdensome taxes and high interest rates.

State Duma leadership was reportedly alerted over the weekend to hold last-minute meetings on Monday to approve the cabinet nominations and schedule confirmation votes. Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin later announced that votes on the nominations will take place on Wednesday.

By Ian Proud, Substack, 10/19/26

I have wanted to write an article for sometime about the differing fates of Russia and Ukraine since the onset of the conflict in 2014. The headline is that Ukraine has never made up the difference in increased trade with Europe having cut its trade with Russia to the bone since 2014. This has inadvertently meant that Europe has had to inject significant sums of capital into Ukraine just to prevent its currency from collapsing as the war has gone on. Russia has diversified its trade away from Europe such that its export model is as strong today as it was in 2014, giving it the liquidity it needs to underwrite the war effort.

Key finding:

• Ukraine exported 24% less and imported 46% more in 2025 than in 2014. The war has driven up imports while exports never recovered from the signing of the DCFTA and have been hampered by the war effort.
• The yawning trade deficit Ukraine has built since the war started has placed greater strain on European sponsors to provide the capital Ukraine needs to prevent its currency collapsing, in addition to providing funding to meet its fiscal requirements.
• This funding challenge for Europe will persist after the war ends until Ukraine can become self-sufficient in boosting exports and/or attracting sufficient foreign investment to offset its trade deficits.
• Russia’s export strength and consistent surpluses have been unaffected by war. After the Ukraine crisis started, Russia started to diversify its major energy exports away from Europe, allowing it to weather the progressive reduction of exports to Europe. Indeed, Russia gained a huge windfall in 2022 from surging energy prices. There is no evidence that sanctions have impacted Russia’s export model in a significant way.
• Russia has already started to reaccumulate FX reserves after the oil price collapse of late 2014, until before the war started. Following the immobilisation of $300bn in Russian FX reserves, Russia started to accumulate reserves in monetary gold, to sanction-proof future earnings. Russia now has liquid reserves of over $420bn meaning the immobilisation of its foreign currency reserves is no longer an economically limiting factor.

Detailed analysis

Russia’s export model in which it runs consistently large trade surpluses has ensured it can generate the reserves of foreign currency and gold which have undoubtedly helped to bankroll the war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s trade deficit has yawned since the war started, requiring continual injections of European capital to prevent its currency from collapsing.

This helps to explain by Russia can sustain the war for longer; it doesn’t need to take on significant new debt, its debt remaining low at 20%. Ukraine can only fund the war and keep its national accounts in balance with European money that cannot be guaranteed long-term and which, in any case, has increased Ukrainian debt by an average of 20% of GDP each year since the war started. This is not sustainable.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement of 2014 has disadvantaged Ukraine because it forced a choice away from trading with Russia.

The starting point for this is the signature by Ukraine of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with Europe on 27 June 2014.

Herman van Rompuy, then President of the European Council said that “stronger political and economic ties will bring greater stability and prosperity to the entire European continent.”

President Poroshenko said “over the last months, Ukraine paid the highest possible price to make her European dreams come true.”

Yet, the true price of this agreement has borne by Ukraine which saw its exports collapse and its imports increase, as it make a “sovereign choice” not to maintain trade links with Russia.

That was a catastrophically bad choice. Russia had accounted for around 25% of Ukrainian exports prior to 2014 and that figure fell to less than 5% in 2021 before the war started. Ukraine did not make up that gap by increasing the volume of exports to Europe, which have remained largely unchanged.

Indeed, this same pattern can be seen in Georgia which has also seen no real increase in exports to the EU after it signed the DCFTA. The EU uses a number of trade dispute mechanism and other non-tariff barriers to put blockages in the way of import growth from DCFTA partner countries.

So, by encouraging Ukraine to trade with Europe and not with Russia, Europe has imposed a deadweight economic loss on Ukraine which took a sovereign decision to forgo a previously profitable trade relationship, to pursue a political goal of EU integration.

Moreover, since the war started, imports into Ukraine have surged leading to a progressive ballooning of its trade deficit. This surge in imports has been caused by Ukraine purchasing weapons from the US using borrowed European and domestic funds. So, Ukraine is borrowing money to create a trade deficit that needs to be filled with further inflows of capital.

Dragged into a persistent and growth trade deficit by war, Ukraine needs continued injections of foreign funds to prevent its currency collapsing.

The graph below maps the growth in Ukraine’s trade deficit with the corresponding growth in receipts classified as Secondary Income within its quarterly balance of payments. These inflows of capital as Secondary Income are injections from Europe (principally) that are vital to shore up Ukraine’s FX reserves and so prevent a run on the currency. The key point is that foreign funding to Ukraine is more than just a fiscal event and top it. It is a vital support mechanism in circumstances where Ukraine is unable to attract sufficient inflows of foreign investment during a time of war.

Russia simply hasn’t faced the same challenge, choosing instead to diversify its exports to other countries as Europe progressively shut down trade. Sanctions haven’t dented trade.

The graph below illustrates in an elegant way how Russia’s trade has changed and evolved since. Russia’s exports have gone through peaks and troughs since 2014, although the troughs have often been caused by global events such as the 2014 and 2016 oil price collapses and COVID,

The onset of the war in Ukraine caused a huge windfall in income from exports as oil prices surged. Despite the imposition of thousands of sanctions by western nations after the war commenced, Russia’s exports have remained highly resilient. This is down to Russia’s diversification of its exports towards countries in Asia.

In short, despite many headlines in western mainstream media of sanctions ‘denting Russia’s war economy’ there is no substantive evidence that this has been the case.

Russia’s export model continues to be an engine room that provides the liquidity it needs to fund the war without taking on significant new debt. This gives it a significant advantage over Ukraine and its European backers in the ‘war of attrition’.

Russia has accumulated reserves since the war started to make up for the immobilisation of $300bn in FX by western nations. Russia now invests in monetary gold to sanction-proof its assets.

Finally, I have been commenting for some time that Russia started the process of accumulating Foreign Exchange Reserves in 2017 as it shifted its monetary policy to embrace a weak rouble to maximise rouble income from exports and as it undertook a number of dollar purchases via the Finance Ministry. You can see this reserve accumulation in the graph below.

After the war started, following the large windfall in earning from exports in 2022 and still solid trade figures after that, Russia continued to accumulate reserves. However, following the freezing of its foreign currency assets, it has chosen instead to store its reserves in monetary gold, to sanction proof them.

While Russia would undoubtedly like to see the return of its immobilised assets after the war ends (big question mark) it has nevertheless built up a significant financial buffer to the tune of over $420bn in reserve assets in addition to those assets that remain frozen.

This deep well of reserves undoubtedly helps to underwrite Russia’s war effort without the need for significant borrowing. Russia’s debt today sits at around 20% of GDP.

In 2021 Ukraine’s debt sat at around 49% of GDP. Today it sits at around 110% of GDP.

By Uriel Araujo, InfoBrics, 10/16/26

Black Sea shipping is in crisis, adding pressure to a global economy already absorbing Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz disruptions. Commercial vessels face rising risks, insurance costs have climbed, and tanker freight rates have surged.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, ports, oil facilities, and vessels associated with Russian trade, expanding the conflict’s geographical scope. Grain, oil, fertilizers, and other commodities move through these waters, including shipments for non-belligerent countries.

S&P Global reported on October 9 that tanker freight rates rose sharply amid attacks, sanctions, and security concerns disrupting Russian energy exports. According to maritime security consultancy Ambrey, Kyiv expanded its campaign beyond naval assets and oil infrastructure to merchant ships trading with Russian ports.

In November 2025, attacks had already expanded to commercial vessels, particularly oil tankers, in the open sea. In May 2026, Ambrey attributed strikes on three Russia-linked tankers inside Turkey’s exclusive economic zone to Ukrainian naval drones.

By July, targeting expanded to dry-bulk carriers, general cargo, container ships, and roll-on/roll-off vessels. In September, insurers widened the high-risk zone. Ambrey data shows 45 merchant vessels struck outside the previous war-risk area in 12 months, 31 after July 1, 2026.

Ambrey’s finding is that Ukraine-attributed strikes (on Russia-linked shipping far offshore) helped drive insurers’ growing risk perception across the Black Sea.

Russia has responded by also conducting strikes in the Black Sea. As Modern Diplomacy puts it, Moscow has made any Black Sea truce conditional on Kyiv ceasing attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

This is, after all, a proxy war of attrition, marked as it is by considerable military asymmetry. Russia possesses a larger population, defense-industrial base, strategic arsenal, air force, and navy, as well as greater resources for prolonged warfare.

Ukraine, despite developing formidable drone capabilities and long-range strike capacity, remains heavily dependent on Western assistance.

Global Firepower’s 2026 ranking places Russia second and Ukraine twentieth. The military asymmetry is therefore considerable.

The hard truth is that, notwithstanding any legitimate criticism one may have of Moscow’s campaign, Russia has refrained from employing its full destructive capabilities.

Such restraint, particularly in the war’s early stages, may have reflected not only humanitarian and military calculations but also (on Moscow’s end) awareness of historical and cultural ties between the two countries – which may have a psychological effect on decision-makers.

Kyiv, in contrast, since the 2014 ultra-nationalist revolution, has launched an anti-Russian campaign to distance the nation from Moscow. Even so, 42.6% of Ukrainians still regularly spoke Russian in December 2022, despite the war and media censorship restrictions.

Former US diplomat Chas Freeman and retired US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor have both argued that Moscow exercised restraint.

Poland’s Centre for Eastern Studies likewise noted in June 2022 that Russia had refrained from systematically destroying key infrastructure – while the US Congressional Research Service observed that the initial bombardment was more limited than expected.

For comparison, Bono Vox performed in Kyiv on May 8, 2022, less than three months after Moscow launched its campaign. One could hardly imagine Bono performing in Baghdad shortly after the US invasion! Or in 2011 Libya, for that matter.

The broader point here is that the Russian Federation retains substantial military advantages, despite Ukrainian advances, but Western support has enabled Kyiv to sustain a prolonged war of attrition – increasingly targeting Russian energy.

In August, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian and Iranian-linked vessels in the Caspian Sea risked expanding the conflict into a vital Russia-Iran logistics corridor.

The attacks risked further “proxifying” the conflict by aligning Kyiv with US and Israeli interests against Tehran, potentially merging the European and Middle Eastern theaters – a scenario that never materialized.

In any case, Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure continue amid mounting political pressure, with Trump even saying it is “time for Ukraine to get new President.” I’ve commented before on Zelensky’s resilience, despite several reported plots against him.

The Ukrainian leader has shown a habit of acting unpredictably, sometimes behind his Western patrons’ backs. In 2023, leaked documents revealed wild Ukrainian plans that risked widening the conflict. More recently, attacks on Russian refineries drew attention amid rising diesel prices and reports of moves angering Washington.

This “wild-card” tendency risks triggering a dangerous spiral, with potentially disastrous consequences for Ukraine – and the global economy. Repercussions for food, energy, and fertilizer trade are already visible, while the danger of crossing red lines has arguably never been greater.

By Leon Vermeulen, Substack, 10/16/26

The Estonian prime minster, Kirsten Michal, ahead of the EU Council meeting: “The faster Russian refineries are blown to smithereens the better.”

Earlier this week, it appeared possible that Europe might awaken to the first building blocks of an end to the war in Ukraine.

The outline was incomplete, fragile and deeply contested: a reciprocal halt to attacks on Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the restoration of safe Black Sea trade, limited sanctions relief tied to Russian concessions and a negotiating process intended to prevent another catastrophic winter.

It was not yet peace. But it was an off-ramp.

That possibility has not merely been delayed. Europe’s hard-line security establishment is attempting to torpedo it before it acquires political momentum. The annual Warsaw Security Forum made that unmistakably clear.

While Donald Trump searches—however inconsistently and self-interestedly—for a transaction capable of reducing the conflict, Warsaw presented a competing vision. In that vision, peace does not mean rebuilding relations, establishing reciprocal security or ending the confrontation. It means freezing the battlefield while continuing sanctions, military pressure, political isolation and preparations for a future conflict.

Europe is being offered permanent confrontation and being told to call it peace.

Trump’s imperfect opening

Trump’s initiative deserves no romantic interpretation. His decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel was driven partly by American fuel prices and domestic electoral pressure. His demand that Ukraine stop attacking Russian refineries was not initially matched by an enforceable demand that Russia stop destroying Ukrainian energy infrastructure. His public attack on Volodymyr Zelensky and suggestion that Ukraine should find a new president were coercive and diplomatically crude.

But the motives of a negotiator do not determine whether an opening is useful.

Trump had identified several practical areas in which Russian, Ukrainian, European and American interests might temporarily overlap: energy security, Black Sea navigation, grain exports, sanctions relief and the prevention of further infrastructure destruction during winter.

Zelensky himself offered the essential reciprocal formula: Ukraine would stop striking Russian refineries if Russia stopped attacking Ukrainian energy facilities.

That was the opening to test.

Instead, the planned two-day Miami meeting ended after one angry day. Ukraine promised to continue attacking Russian refineries. European governments condemned the easing of sanctions and repeated that they would stand behind Kyiv. The possibility of a limited de-escalatory agreement was submerged beneath accusations of betrayal.

Then came Warsaw.

A peace designed to prevent peace

The Warsaw Security Forum’s 2026 report argues that Poland and the Nordic-Baltic countries should become principal architects of Europe’s future security order.

This is not yet official NATO or European Union policy. It is an advocacy report produced by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation with contributions from serving and former ministers, parliamentarians, diplomats, military figures and policy specialists. But it was launched in the Polish parliament, is being promoted across the region and is explicitly intended to shape government policy.

It must therefore be taken seriously.

Its proposed postwar order appears remarkably similar to Kyiv’s maximalist objectives. Sanctions against Russia should become effectively permanent. Dialogue must not be allowed to evolve into political normalisation. Russia must pay reparations. Frozen Russian assets should finance Ukraine’s reconstruction and integration into the European Union. Ukraine should be brought into both the EU and NATO.

These are not negotiating positions designed to meet an adversary somewhere between competing security interests. They are terms intended to formalise the permanent defeat, isolation and punishment of one party.

Whatever one thinks Russia deserves, Moscow will not voluntarily sign a settlement whose purpose is to preserve every mechanism of economic warfare, place Ukraine inside NATO and extend the strategic confrontation into Russian territory itself.

A peace proposal that no Russian government could accept is not a path towards peace. It is a justification for continuing the war.

The Kaliningrad gambit

The most dangerous proposal concerns Kaliningrad.

The report reportedly argues that an eventual settlement should include the demilitarisation of this Russian exclave, describing it as a strategic vulnerability within range of European missiles.

Kaliningrad is not occupied Ukrainian territory. It is internationally recognised Russian territory containing major military installations and serving as Russia’s principal strategic position on the Baltic Sea. Introducing its demilitarisation into negotiations over Ukraine transforms the prospective settlement from an attempt to end one war into an effort to restructure Russia’s defences under Western pressure.

Moscow has already warned that an attempt to isolate Kaliningrad could trigger the use of its entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons.

Such warnings are dangerous and coercive. But they cannot responsibly be ignored while European strategists discuss closing the Baltic Sea, neutralising Kaliningrad and striking the systems that support Russian military operations.

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna recently stated that NATO could close Russia’s Baltic “lifeline” within hours if Moscow attacked the alliance. His statement was conditional upon Russian aggression, not a proposal for an immediate peacetime blockade. Yet describing the ability to create an “existential” crisis for a nuclear-armed state is hardly the language of cautious deterrence.

When each side openly discusses imposing existential danger upon the other, the distance between deterrence and catastrophe becomes dangerously short.

Manufacturing an Article 5 pathway

The report also recommends that sustained hybrid attacks should potentially be treated as an Article 5 contingency even when no single incident would justify activating NATO’s collective-defence clause.

This proposal could transform ambiguity into a pathway to war.

Cyberattacks, disinformation, sabotage, electoral interference, damaged undersea cables and unidentified drones are serious matters. Some have been credibly attributed to Russia. Others remain disputed, incompletely investigated or supported principally by intelligence assessments that cannot be independently examined.

Combining multiple uncertain incidents does not automatically produce certainty.

Yet the proposed doctrine would allow governments to aggregate a series of individually insufficient events until a political threshold for collective military action had been reached. Attribution could become cumulative. Suspicion could become evidence. Events that do not individually constitute an armed attack could collectively be treated as one.

This is especially dangerous when diplomatic relations have been reduced, military communication is weak and political leaders face incentives to attribute every unexplained incident to the same adversary.

Article 5 was designed to deter unmistakable armed aggression. Transforming it into a response to an accumulating cloud of “hybrid” activity risks creating a mechanism through which governments can slide into war without any single decision or event appearing to have caused it.

From online claims to physical attacks

Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius went further, publicly suggesting that Zelensky should strike more Russian data centres to protect European elections from interference.

That statement should have caused outrage.

Data centres can support government operations, military activity and propaganda. They also provide ordinary civilian and commercial services. The claim that recent attacks significantly reduced Russian influence operations has itself been challenged by specialists who say the internet-traffic evidence has been misinterpreted.

Nevertheless, a European head of government casually advocated additional physical attacks inside Russia as a response to alleged information operations.

This illustrates the elasticity of hybrid warfare. Suspected online interference becomes grounds for kinetic strikes. Those strikes provoke Russian retaliation. The retaliation is then presented as another hybrid attack, supporting stronger NATO responses.

Escalation becomes self-justifying.

Deterrence without diplomacy

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, used the Warsaw meeting to outline his “Theory of Victory.”

He promised that NATO would block, blunt and break any attack against an ally, striking not merely the attacking force but everything that supports, sustains and controls it. In formal military terms, this is a defensive doctrine. It does not amount to an explicit endorsement of attacks on Russian civilians. But its possible target set is extraordinarily broad.

Russian command centres, logistics networks, communications infrastructure and dual-use systems may also support nuclear forces. Striking them during a rapidly escalating conflict could be interpreted in Moscow as preparation to disable Russia’s capacity to retaliate.

The danger does not lie simply in NATO preparing to defend its members. Every alliance must plan for defence. It lies in combining expansive military doctrines with disappearing diplomatic channels, ambiguous thresholds and political demands that leave the adversary no acceptable path towards normalization.

Deterrence without diplomacy does not create stability. It creates two armed systems waiting for the other to make the mistake that confirms their worst assumptions.

The frontier becomes Europe’s centre

Poland and the Nordic-Baltic states have legitimate security concerns. Their geography, history and proximity to Russia understandably shape their threat perceptions. But proximity does not grant them the right to determine the acceptable level of risk for an entire continent.

The countries closest to a perceived threat may offer essential warnings. They may also possess the deepest historical fears, the strongest domestic incentives for confrontation and the least political room for compromise.

Making this group the principal architect of Europe’s relationship with Russia would place the states most sceptical of coexistence in charge of deciding whether coexistence may ever be attempted. That is not strategic balance. It is the regionalisation of fear into continental policy.

The larger European states would still retain formal influence. NATO decisions require political agreement, and neither Poland nor the Nordic-Baltic countries can independently activate Article 5 or impose their preferred settlement. But influence does not require formal control. It operates by defining the vocabulary through which every policy is judged.

Negotiation becomes appeasement. Normalisation becomes capitulation. Restraint becomes weakness. Escalation becomes deterrence. Permanent confrontation becomes peace. Once those definitions dominate the debate, governments may technically remain free to choose diplomacy while becoming politically unable to do so.

Sabotaging the American off-ramp

This is why Warsaw must be understood in the context of Trump’s initiative. The report positions Europe’s eastern and northern flank to resist any American-Russian arrangement that does not preserve maximal pressure on Moscow and guarantee Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership. It attempts to establish in advance the boundaries of an acceptable settlement—and those boundaries exclude the concessions that any negotiation would require.

Trump may respond by reducing American intelligence support, restricting weapons deliveries or negotiating directly with Moscow over European objections. If he does, European leaders will face an impossible contradiction.

They will promise to sustain Ukraine without the United States while lacking the intelligence, air-defence stocks, logistical systems and industrial capacity necessary to replace America quickly. They will demand greater military expenditure while social services, infrastructure and household security deteriorate. And they will ask increasingly sceptical citizens to pay more because Europe rejected the most visible attempt to explore an end to the conflict.

Europe may possess sufficient theoretical wealth to prolong the war. It does not possess unlimited political consent.

Every additional billion will compete with healthcare, pensions, housing, industrial renewal and public services. Every further mobilisation measure will deepen public anxiety. Every refusal to negotiate will strengthen parties that argue Brussels has placed its geopolitical ambitions above the welfare of its own citizens.

The home front will become the decisive front.

The road returns to catastrophe

The Warsaw meeting does not prove that all Europe is calling for war. It demonstrates something almost as dangerous: the European security debate is increasingly dominated by people who call permanent confrontation “peace,” escalation “deterrence” and the exclusion of diplomatic normalisation a prerequisite for security.

The carefully guarded dream of an off-ramp has therefore not merely encountered another delay. It has been struck deliberately.

Europe has returned to the dead-end street: more sanctions, more weapons, more attacks, more military exercises, more nuclear signalling and less diplomacy. The remaining distance between that dead end and catastrophe is becoming alarmingly short.

War is not yet inevitable. But Europe is systematically dismantling the mechanisms through which war might be prevented.

A sustainable peace cannot be built by demanding Russia’s permanent isolation, inserting Kaliningrad into the settlement, expanding the meaning of Article 5 and treating diplomatic normalisation as a security threat. Nor can it be built by demanding unilateral restraint from Ukraine while Russia continues attacking its infrastructure.

Peace requires reciprocity, verification, compromise and an acknowledgement that security cannot be achieved by making the other side permanently insecure.

Trump’s initiative may be imperfect, transactional and motivated by American self-interest. It may ultimately fail. But the responsible European response should have been to test it, improve it and insist upon reciprocal obligations. Instead, Europe’s hard-line security establishment is attempting to ensure that the opening closes.

If it succeeds, Europe will not have defended peace against appeasement. It will have rejected an uncertain road away from war in favour of a familiar road towards catastrophe—and then insisted that there was never another route.

***

Poland eases engagement rules for pilots guarding against Russia

Politico, 9/28/26

Poland plans to make it easier to shoot down objects violating its airspace, Deputy Minister of Defense Cezary Tomczyk announced on Monday [9/28].

The change would add to tensions between Warsaw and Moscow, which are already running high after Russia has tested Poland’s defenses with a number of aerial incursions in recent weeks.

Speaking to journalists in Dęblin, Poland, Tomczyk said that pilots now have to not only “read the radar,“ but also “visually identify” an aerial threat before engaging it. “This means that the pilot must fly up to the target and see what exactly the object is,” Tomczyk explained.

The Ministry of Defense now plans to cancel the “identification“ requirement. “After the changes, the pilot or operational commander will only need to read the radar to make a decision about the shot,” the Polish minister noted. The change will save time, which means that “Polish fighter jets will shoot down drones and missiles flying into us from the direction of Russia faster.“

On Sept. 23, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter briefly entered Polish airspace from Russia’s Kaliningrad region. It penetrated about 300 meters into Polish territory and remained there for 42 seconds. Poland scrambled fighter jets in response.

“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is once again testing the readiness of our air defense,” The Operational Command of Poland commented on the occasion.

Poland has previously shot down Russian drones over its territory.

This time last year, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław said Poland would shoot down Russian jets if they breached Polish airspace, saying: “You have been warned.”