December 9, 2024

Report by BEARR Trustee Sam Thorne – November 6, 2024

Lecture title: “Ukraine – What Next?”

Speaker: Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

Followed by a Q&A discussion chaired by Sir Roderic Lyne, BEARR Patron and former British Ambassador to the Russian Federation 2000–2004

The BEARR Trust Autumn Lecture 2024 was delivered by military historian Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman on the topic of “Ukraine – What Next?” In the lecture, Professor Freedman gave his assessment of the current military and political calculus in Ukraine and Russia – and discussed the possibilities for either a cease-fire or negotiated settlement.

The BEARR Trustees were very grateful once again to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Redevelopment (EBRD) for sponsoring and hosting the lecture at their London headquarters – and to BEARR Patron Sir Roderic Lyne for chairing a Q&A discussion after Professor Freedman’s talk. As noted by the EBRD’s Marcus Warren in his welcoming remarks, the EBRD has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, investing in both state and private sectors to help the Ukrainian war effort and to ‘win the peace’ that must follow.

The lecture was attended by an audience of around 170 people. As usual, all proceeds from the event will contribute to the ongoing work of BEARR and our partner organisations across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including our Ukraine Appeal. Outgoing BEARR Chair of Trustees Nicola Ramsden reported that over £600,000 had been raised for the Ukraine

Appeal since February 2022, all of which has been allocated to local civil society organisations in Ukraine. These organisations play a vital role in providing essential supplies and social care for vulnerable people displaced and harmed by the war – and all donations, large or small, can have a major impact on their ability to operate.

On behalf of BEARR, Nicola thanked Professor Freedman for offering his time and expertise to address a question that he acknowledged straight away is pretty much impossible to answer – but essential to keep asking nonetheless: What next for Ukraine?

Few people are better qualified to speculate. Professor Freedman is an Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London, where he was a Professor from 1982 to 2014. He has also written numerous books on nuclear strategy and the cold war, and served as a member of the official inquiry into the United Kingdom’s military intervention in Iraq. He now comments regularly on contemporary security issues and in 2022 published his latest book, Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine.

With his son Sam, Professor Freedman has a Substack account, Comment is Freed, where he has posted an essay version of his BEARR lecture here. A recording of the lecture and the Q&A can also be viewed on The BEARR Trust’s YouTube channel here.

Professor Freedman considered three aspects of the current situation before broaching the ‘what next?’ question. These were: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’; the Russian military and political strategy; and the military balance on the battlefield, as it stood in October 2024.

Zelensky’s victory plan has five key elements, including an ‘immediate and unconditional invitation’ for Ukraine to join NATO and authorisation for long-range missile strikes on Russia. Professor Freedman noted that his plan very much depends on Ukraine’s international partners, in particular the United States. The plan also does not presume a series of offensives to liberate occupied parts of Ukraine: it implicitly requires Russia to ‘abandon its war aims and agree to withdraw its forces’. The emphasis is therefore on demonstrating to Vladimir Putin that ‘he cannot win even if it is harder to show that he is bound to lose’. Professor Freedman concluded that it is hard to see Putin accepting this and Russia withdrawing troops for as long as Putin remains in power.

The Russian strategy is also partly based on hopes for a ‘dawning sense of futility in the enemy capital’, on encouraging ‘Ukraine fatigue’ among Ukraine’s international backers and using its larger population and economy to outlast Ukraine in the fight. There is no peace offer from Moscow on the table, and Putin continues to reiterate his main demands: the handover of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea to Russia, and a formalisation of Ukraine’s neutrality, with no NATO membership. Professor Freedman argued that although there was much ‘doom’ in Ukraine and among its supporters about Russia being in the ascendancy, Russia also faces major problems, including an overheating economy, intense labour shortages and considerable ‘opportunity costs’ in terms of maintaining and developing infrastructure and the civilian sector.

As regards the military balance, Professor Freedman noted the ‘frantic pace’ at which Russia had been throwing people and resources into offensives all along the frontline in 2024. With Ukrainian units outgunned, outmanned and exhausted, Russia had recently made some limited breakthroughs. Russia continues to have an advantage in resources, particularly artillery and missiles, with Russian industry ‘working overtime to keep the front lines supplied’. On the other hand, Ukraine has had successes, particularly in using short- and long-range drones to destroy a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, hit oil refineries and mitigate a shortfall in artillery shells. Russia has lost more than 600,000 personnel, according to US estimates, and has lost tanks at a ‘remarkable rate’ that cannot be compensated by new production or refurbishment of older Soviet tanks. Neither side seems able to achieve ‘fast-moving offensives’ or to dramatically shift the military balance.

Having summarised the political and military background, Professor Freedman returned to the question of ‘what next’? What were the possibilities of a cease-fire or a full negotiated settlement?

Professor Freedman emphasised the impact that the US election would have on the calculus in Kyiv, Moscow and Western capitals (as, indeed, in Beijing and among Russia’s other supporters). At the time of the lecture, the US election was two weeks away. Donald Trump has since won the election, and the Republicans will also control the Senate and House of Representatives, so we will see changes – potentially significant changes – in US policy and approaches towards Ukraine and Russia. Professor Freedman felt that a key implication would be that Trump will probably open direct communication with Putin, that this engagement would have unpredictable outcomes and would ‘soon dominate all considerations’.

Whatever the terms on the table, negotiations would clearly revolve around Ukrainian territory, sovereignty and geopolitical alignment. Professor Freedman acknowledged that these are sensitive questions to discuss, as Western observers and non-participants in the war – but that it was a historian’s job to offer ‘dispassionate’ analysis. Such analysis can be important in helping to ‘identify the role that Western countries can play in supporting Ukraine to achieve a better outcome than might otherwise be the case’.

Professor Freedman argued that, as of October 2024, Ukraine felt it had ‘little choice to continue with the war’, given Putin’s intransigent demands and the cruelty of Russian forces to local populations in the occupied territories. That said, if and when negotiations started, he felt that Ukraine might accede to discussing some territorial concessions, for example in Donetsk and Luhansk, but only if it came with strong security guarantees.

Analysing the Russian perspective, Professor Freedman felt that there was probably a ‘hierarchy’ of territorial claims, reflecting ‘the order in which Putin thought about annexing’ the five occupied regions – and that at most Russia might negotiate around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. On the other hand, if Russia were to acquire these territories, it would be a ‘mixed blessing’, given the scale of devastation within them. By continuing the war, Putin was delaying the reckoning that he would face at the end of it: ‘for this gain was the sacrifice really worth it’? If the rump Ukraine remained independent, was able reconstitute its army and forge new political and security relationships with the West, even Putin’s propagandists would struggle to paint this outcome as a ‘great victory’.

Professor Freedman felt that Zelensky and Putin had contrasting approaches to ‘winding down the war’. Zelensky’s approach was to build on agreements about specific things: prisoner exchanges, grain exports, a cease-fire on targeting critical infrastructure, and so on. Whereas Putin’s preferred route would be to go through Washington – particularly once Trump is back in office.

Professor Freedman concluded: ‘I don’t know what next’. It would depend on big decisions in Kyiv and Moscow – but also on decisions in Western capitals. For the sake of European stability and security, it was therefore vital for Western governments to make strong, principled decisions, in support of Ukraine.