Ask the Army Should Ukraine Surrender Ukrainian Land
We are publishing part of Elena Davlikanova's commentary for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.org)
The whole debate about territorial concessions shows that we are involved in the Russian narrative – presenting the war in Ukraine as if it were about land. But if we look at the map of the largest country in the world, it is crystal clear that Russia does not need more territory. This war is about the very statehood and sovereignty of Ukraine. This is what Lesya Ogryzko, director of the Sagaydachny Center for Security, says.
“If Trump doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes made by Obama – who accepted the annexation of Crimea, encouraging Putin to escalate his war on Ukraine – he needs to be smart enough not to fall into the same trap“.
The president of Ukraine is not the president of Russia. This is more than just the obvious truth – it is the essence of what makes a young democracy different from a despotic regime.
This also explains why President Zelensky has far more limited negotiating options than the Kremlin. International pressure on Zelensky [for territorial concessions] remains high. Putin can order his army to withdraw and is certainly capable of suppressing any dissident, but for Ukraine it is quite different.
Popular consensus is a central issue for the Ukrainian government. There is one consideration that is rarely mentioned in the Western debate about Ukraine and its options. That is the army. With a million men, the Ukrainian army is a critical factor.
When talking about the possibility of Ukraine accepting a de facto Russian occupation of its territory, we should ask the ZSU. Because this territory is their blood shed, their killed or wounded comrades.
Ukraine's armed forces are well disciplined during the war. And unlike Russia, there has been no coup attempt in Ukraine (reference: Prigozhin's rebellion). Yet there are signs of unease among the military about some of the proposals now being discussed.
Ukraine’s military does not want to trade territory. That would be tantamount to capitulation and would strike at Ukraine’s internal stability.
The Ukrainian military does not trust the Kremlin. They remember Russia’s betrayal of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, they remember Tuzla, they remember the “little green men” in Crimea, they remember Donbas and the full-scale invasion.
The Russian army has occupied only 1% more Ukrainian territory since 2023-2025. British military intelligence estimates that at the current pace of Russian forces, it will take more than four years and two million more casualties to fully occupy all four Ukrainian regions it claims.
Ukraine is not the only country facing a difficult choice, as Putin and his advisers in the Kremlin well know.