For Ukraine, it’s ‘Crimea or bust’

Eighteen months into the war in Ukraine, and the Biden administration still appears unable or unwilling to grasp that for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals, it truly is “Crimea or bust.” 

Ben Hodges, the retired former commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe, has long understood that the repatriation of Crimea is the decisive questions of this war, not only in terms of who wins but also of who controls the peace thereafter.

Crimea, if allowed to remain under Russian control, would live on as a double-edged dagger, with one side militarily aiming at the heart of Ukraine, and the other economically dominating the Black Sea and nearby Ukrainian ports in Odesa and Mariupol in the Sea of Azov.

Both vulnerabilities are existential in nature. This is why Ukraine cannot secure a lasting peace without retaking Crimea. 

Washington, however, is hinting otherwise with its slow walking of air and precision deep strike capabilities. Ukraine needs these, Hodges correctly argues, in order to set conditions and expel Russia from the Crimean Peninsula. 

President Joe Biden’s advisors seem to have a different perspective — one that suggests Ukraine cannot win. The best they hope for is to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

When discussing the then-impending Ukrainian counteroffensive in January 2023, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “I do think it’s very, very possible…for the Ukrainians to run a significant tactical [or] even operational-level offensive operation to liberate as much Ukrainian territory as possible.” Then, last week, he suggested Ukraine “achieve those objectives — maybe, possibly — through some sort of diplomatic means.” 

Milley conveniently left out two unspoken realities. First, Ukraine is being forced into that possibility only because of the White House’s dithering on giving Kyiv what it needs to win. Second, treaties with Moscow are worthless, as Ukraine has repeatedly discovered the hard way. In 2014, Putin violated the Budapest Memorandum, whereby the U.S., UK and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s security in exchange for Kyiv relinquishing its nuclear weapons. In 2022, Moscow violated the Minsk Protocols by launching Putin’s “special military operation.”

In pursuing an end to the war based on diplomacy or negotiation, the Biden administration is chasing fool’s gold. Putin will not negotiate under present circumstances on terms other than complete Ukrainian capitulation. Ukraine, needless to say, is nowhere near willing to oblige — and will not.

Zelensky made his conditions clear in a 10-point peace plan; two of his non-negotiable conditions are the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including Crimea, and the removal of all Russian troops.

Washington needs to understand that Kyiv sees no value whatsoever in negotiating with Putin. In 1997, Ukraine began entering into a series of lease agreements for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet naval base in Sevastopol, extending Moscow’s control until 2042. In 2014, Putin tore up those leases and illegally annexed Sevastopol, along with all of Crimea. 

Russia only respects blunt force. In its absence, Putin will continue to take as much as he can. When he can take no more, he will attempt to freeze the conflict until he can fight another day, as he did in Ukraine in 2014 — and prior to that repeatedly in Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria. 

Ukraine will negotiate; however, it must be at the end of a pointy spear. And the obvious primary target of that spear is clear to all, save perhaps the White House: Crimea. 

Zelensky and his generals are “all in,” and this war has become an all-or-nothing proposition for Kyiv. They will not, as Milley implied, negotiate for “as much as they can get” with partners who are not genuinely interested in a lasting peace. Rather, they are committed to repatriating every square inch of Ukraine, and in doing so on their timeline.

If Washington is not listening, it should be. Ukraine’s commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, made it crystal clear in mid-July that his forces will take the fight to the Russians in occupied Crimea. Zaluzhnyi resolutely stated, “As soon as I have the means, I’ll do something. “I don’t give a damn — nobody will stop me.”

Yet the Biden administration still tries to “West-splain” to Kyiv how to fight its war against a Russian army that Ukraine understands best. On Tuesday, “U.S. officials” were paraphrased in the New York Times saying that “Ukraine’s forces and firepower are misallocated” and that Zelensky should “concentrate on the front driving toward Melitopol, Kyiv’s top priority, and on punching through Russian minefields and other defenses, even if the Ukrainians lose more soldiers and equipment in the process.”

Hodges is having none of it. He has pointed out the limitations of an 8,000-mile “screwdriver from Pentagon to Ukrainian front lines,” while urging Biden to “trust the judgement of the Ukrainian commanders actually in the fight.”

Hodges has stated repeatedly that Crimea is “decisive terrain.” Zelensky gets it; and it is time Washington and Brussels get it too. The Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine’s hands, and ultimately under NATO’s Article 5 security umbrella, would be a generational strategic game-changer in the Black Sea region.

Biden deserves great credit for what he has done to date to defend Ukraine and to maintain a broad international coalition of support for Kyiv. But defending into perpetuity is not winning. Nor is it a winning strategy to keep repeating that the U.S. will support Ukraine “for as long as it may take.” Rather, it is a recipe for another “forever war” that risks losing the support of the American public. And indeed, this is exactly what Putin is counting on. 

Crimea is key to both victory and peace. It is why Ukraine keeps conducting deep precision strikes into the Crimean Peninsula to destroy bridges, fuel, ammunition and supply depots, command and control centers, training facilities and staging areas for personnel and equipment.

Kyiv will not be deterred by Washington, nor by the “unnamed officials” who keep criticizing Ukraine’s deep strikes on Crimea. Rather than undermine Zelensky and his generals’ Crimea strategy, Biden needs to get out in front, to ensure Kyiv has everything it requires — engineering equipment, weapons, munitions and intelligence to liberate the entirety of Crimea. 

Mark Toth is a retired economist and entrepreneur and a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis. Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army colonel, served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.