There is only one way this vile war in Ukraine is going to end – and that is when Vladimir Putin finally realises that he is not going to win.
He is never going to kill the Ukrainian love of freedom. He is never going to crush them or beat them into the ground – not when he has already lost over a million dead and injured, and when in the last catastrophic year, in spite of all his boasts, he has gained less than 1 per cent of Ukrainian territory.
He faces an increasingly exasperated American president and a growing squeeze on his oil markets, and the economic costs are really starting to bite.
The resourceful Ukrainians are now making their own highly effective Flamingo missiles and are getting better and better at hitting important targets in Russia itself.
Putin’s losses in the ground war are far higher than Ukrainian losses – sometimes at a ratio of five or even ten to one. That is not sustainable in the long term, even for a country the size of Russia.
All this Putin knows; and yet he is a deeply cynical man. He still calculates that it would be better – above all better for him and his regime – to fight on. He still thinks it is worth it to feed more men into the grinder.
He still thinks that in a brutal contest to see who can suffer the most, he can outlast the Ukrainians and outlast the patience of the West. He thinks there is therefore no need to negotiate, and that he can hurl a metaphorical V-sign in the direction of President Trump.
Well, he is wrong in his calculation, but we need to show him he is wrong. We need to flip the switch in his head, and demonstrate that when it comes to backing Ukraine, the West is sincere and committed for the long term. We need to show that we really mean it when we talk about a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.
Putin will face massive reparations when the war in Ukraine concludes, Boris Johnson writes
As so often in life there is one thing that really talks – one thing that shows your commitment to a cause – and that is money. We are not even talking about our money, or money from any Western taxpayers. We are talking about Putin’s gold, the stupefying sums of Russian assets that were left improvidently in Western bank accounts in 2022.
We can take that cash, morally and legally, and give it to the Ukrainians, and we need to do it now. Britain is ideally placed to give a lead.
Readers may remember that there are about £228billion of Russian state assets in foreign bank accounts, of which the largest chunk – about £107billion – is in Belgium, in a bank called Euroclear. The Belgian finance ministry has been very skittish about handing over that cash to the Ukrainians. They should relax. The legal grounds for using Putin’s resources to help Ukraine are rock solid.
It was in February that the World Bank made a back-of-the-envelope calculation that the damage Putin had so far inflicted on Ukraine was worth about £457billion, and that number has obviously gone up in the months that have followed.
When this illegal and criminal war comes to an end, Putin – or whoever else is in charge in Moscow – will be on the hook for massive reparations. By unfreezing this cash now and giving it to the Ukrainians to fund their war effort, the West would be effectively handing them a loan – an advance on Russia’s inevitable bill for what was blatantly an unprovoked act of aggression.
The only circumstances in which the Ukrainians would have to repay that loan would be if the Russians actually do the right thing and pay Ukraine war damages.
International lawyers have been crawling over this plan for years now, and they are sure that it is not just morally right but legally bomb proof. This reparations loan is entirely justifiable. The chances of the Belgians losing some post-war legal action against Russia are vanishingly small.
The signs are growing that the estimable Belgian Prime Minister, Bart De Wever, is willing to go ahead. But just to reassure him, and to strengthen his hand with his colleagues, other European countries should agree as soon as possible to stand behind Belgium.
We should all agree that in the astronomically unlikely event of some European court finding against Belgium and in favour of Putin, we will pool our resources and rally round. It will not come to that. But it is clear – because this dispute has now been dragging on for three years – that we need to say it. If other countries can give the Belgians the reassurances they need, then there is a good chance that December’s EU summit will agree to release the cash. That would be a huge blow to Putin, and a huge morale boost to Ukraine. That is enough money, on its own, to keep Ukraine going for at least a year, and probably far more.
That disbursement would inevitably be followed by the £19billion of Putin’s cash that is held in EU bank accounts other than Euroclear – and it is likely that other large holders of Russian cash, such as Japan, would be encouraged to follow suit. We are talking about a tsunami of support for Ukraine, a total game-changer – and Britain can trigger it.
In all the justified focus on Belgium, we have forgotten that there are probably £11billion to £15billion of Russian assets frozen here in the UK. In the run-up to that EU summit, the UK should break the deadlock, set an example – and unfreeze our sizeable share of Putin’s money. We should unlock it now and make it over in the form of a reparations loan to the Ukrainians, to whom it rightfully belongs.
These people have been fighting and dying for almost four years, not just for their own freedom and their own democracy, but for the very principle of freedom in Europe. It is a disgrace that we have not sorted this out sooner.
It is now four years since Britain first showed a lead, by taking the decision to send the Belfast-made NLAW anti-tank shoulder-launched missiles to Ukraine. We were the first major European country to send lethal weaponry of that kind. We broke the taboo. In the hands of heroic Ukrainian troops, those NLAW missiles helped to turn the tide of the battle for Kyiv and to repel Putin’s forces.
The UK can show a lead again. We can prove to Putin the one big fact he needs to get: That we are with Ukraine for the long term, forever; and that it is therefore sensible for him to come to the table and end the carnage.
So let’s disgorge Putin’s cash now and give it to the people who have a complete moral and legal right to make use of it. It is one of the few things that Rachel Reeves can do that will cost British taxpayers nothing, save lives, and that will make the world unambiguously better and happier. So, it’s time to step up, Starmer. Unlock Putin’s London gold – and do it now!