Published in 2023 by The Henry Jackson Society

The UN and other international organisations and human rights bodies have documented extensive evidence of war crimes, including the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia for which Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, was issued with an arrest warrant by the ICC. [...] The first is that public support in Russia for the war against Ukraine is declining.11 Candidates for Putin’s ruling United Russia Party were ordered to drop pro-war slogans in the September 2023 Russian elections because of the growing unpopularity of the so-called special military operation.12 With Russian casualties estimated by both the West and Ukraine at over 200,000, and the negative impact. [...] Mick Ryan, retired Major General in the Australian Army, and frequent commentator on the military aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, argues that ‘the West should make explicit that its goal is a Ukrainian victory achieved through a Russian defeat.’17 It is in the national interests of the West to support the military defeat of Russia. [...] On the eve of Russia’s invasion, both Western governments and the Kremlin believed Russia had the second-best army in the world and Ukraine would be quickly defeated.34 The US, UK and a small number of other Western governments therefore only sent weapons such as Javelins and NLAWs to be used for guerrilla warfare under a Russian occupation of Ukraine. [...] A quick end to the war would open the door for the rebuilding of post-war Ukraine with the use of Russian assets frozen by the West which would encourage many refugees to return home.