Whenever I come to Ukraine, I find words that have lost their essence elsewhere swell again with meaning. The fight for “freedom” is not a pretentious slogan here, but just what you do every day. “Sovereignty” is not a slippery abstraction, but the difference between deciding your own fate or having it decreed in Moscow.
It’s also in Ukraine that one realises that “freedom” and “sovereignty” exist in a collaborative relationship with others. Ukraine is now defending its neighbours’ freedom from an advancing Russia. Kyiv’s resistance is benefiting Taiwan’s freedom, too. Meanwhile, without help – especially from America – Ukraine would still fight on but, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admits, would find it hard. As speculations about negotiations and potential peace deals loom over 2025, the precise meaning of Ukraine’s relationships will need to be defined. What does being an “ally” really mean today? What is a true “security order”? Will peace just mean, in the words of Olga Myrovych, CEO of the Lviv Media Forum, that Ukraine should “rest in peace”?
Just as Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion has reinvigorated some words, so it has shown up the shallowness of others. Many of the concepts that organise our political imagination have turned out to be feeble when it comes to enabling action against Russia’s attack on the “international rules-based order”. Indeed, that phrase is increasingly only used with irony marks attached. Joe Biden tried to invoke a cold war 2.0 standoff between “democracies” against “dictatorships”. But plenty of democracies across the world see the invasion as a far-off problem they know nothing about. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union, speaks emotively about Ukraine being part of the “European family”; however, when it comes to security, the EU has thus far been well meaning but impotent. Meanwhile, Nato’s pledge of collective defence has always rested on America’s resolve, which now looks too erratic to rely on.
As Ukraine prepares for possible negotiations, its leadership is asking what “guarantees” its partners can give. If “international order”, “Europe” and even “Nato” are flaky concepts, how can guarantees be secured into something real? Ukrainians remember the Budapest memorandum of 1994, when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for promises from Russia, the US and Britain to respect its borders. Everyone fears a repeat of those empty words. Even if Russia agrees to a ceasefire next year, what’s to stop it rearming and attacking again? Russia’s intent to destroy Ukraine is centuries old; it won’t fade in 2025. In a world where so many familiar assumptions are crumbling, the only ultimate “guarantee” is for Ukraine to be well armed so that it can always resist a Russian invasion. In Kyiv this month, members of the European parliament subcommittee on self-defence, military intelligence officers, drone manufacturers, Ukrainian ministers and arms manufacturers discussed how to connect lofty political language to the reality of howitzers, drones and factory floors. The event, hosted by friends of the We Build Ukraine thinktank, was dedicated to how Europe can envision a common defence industry to deter Russia. Much of the talk was about supply chains. Ukrainian drone manufacturers, for example, worry that Chinese sanctions on microchips will limit their production – would Taiwan be a more reliable supplier, they wondered. In this framing, abstract talk of “partnerships” is made tangible through secure supply chains or “friend-shoring”.
The definition of economic blocs needs to change, too. “It was a sad revelation for us when we realised the EU is not a true union when it comes to industrial production,” one Ukrainian expert told me. “All the countries compete with each other. That’s a peacetime logic. In war, you need to direct and enable mass industrial capacity. Change regulations to make production easier; incentivise business to invest long term; unite university research with learning from the frontlines.”
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Ukraine can be at the hub of nations that recognise the Russian threat to their collective freedom, and that can change their industrial production and supply chain networks accordingly. These countries will probably be centred around north-eastern Europe, with Britain potentially in a vital role, but also will take in partners from Asia and beyond who see our existential interdependency. Instead of relying on ageing acronyms rife with political contradictions, Edward Lucas, of the Center for European Policy Analysis, says we need “coalitions of the willing, capable and threat aware”.
As this new network comes into being, it will also need to disrupt its adversaries’ network. A new report by the Open Source Centre details Russia’s reliance on howitzers to “kill its way” to victory in Ukraine. But the howitzers degrade fast without high-quality chromium to refresh the barrels. The chromium is supplied from outside Russia and so is vulnerable to highly targeted sanctions, export controls and more creative disruption. Russia also needs central Asian gun cotton to make the propellants that fire the artillery. A recent PBS investigative report from Simon Ostrovsky delved into mysterious explosions at a gun cotton warehouse in Uzbekistan. Were the Ukrainians responsible? The Americans? Or was it the Russians, angry that the Uzbeks might sell the gun cotton to western powers that help Ukraine? As this new industrial warfare becomes central, we will have many more stories about its shadow wars. Ultimately, script writers will need to focus on it, too: the new Bonds and Slow Horses will be dedicated to its invariable moral compromises, hidden heroism and dirty secrets.
Indeed, the idea that freedoms and military production are so interdependent may jar with the pacifist instincts of some progressives. But here Ukraine can offer a pointed lesson. Ever since she won the Nobel peace prize, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksanda Matviichuk has been gracefully explaining to the world that even though, indeed because, she is a human rights activist, she also advocates for Ukraine’s right to self-defence and to return fire inside Russia at the military bases that are being used to murder Ukrainian civilians. “International law” is also an empty term if it can’t be defended literally.
