VAZHA TAVBERIDZE: Almost 3 years on since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, if there is one, what is the most crucial lesson to be learned from these years? And has it been learned?
GABRIELIUS LANDSBERGIS: Well, I think that for us on the front line, we learned the lesson a long time ago that Russia is an aggressor. I think that this is simply a lesson that any of our friends in the West are inactive learning. I hope that what happened is adequate for them to have this lesson in their hearts for the future. I am inactive not certain whether they are there yet.
“Who cares what Russia would do if it lost?” you told us, I fishy rhetorically, at last year’s Munich safety Conference. If the last year alone is anything to go by, seemingly quite a few people do, no?
Yeah. We’ve all read the report, I think it was released last Monday by Reuters, about how much assistance to Ukraine has been [actually] delivered. So erstwhile you read it, it’s chilling to realize that, in a sense, our allies have been guarding Russia more than they have been guarding Ukraine. We cared more about Russia’s interest than we did about Ukraine’s. Because, first of all, the country’s atomic threat. They worry: what will Russia do if the front collapses? It can usage a atomic weapon. We don’t want that. If Putin loses, possibly he can be overthrown. We don’t want that either. If Russia loses, possibly it will start to disintegrate – we don’t want that. We care so profoundly about what happens in Russia, we forget that our main nonsubjective is to care about those countries who are attacked by Russia. So it felt like we rolled out a red carpet for the war of aggression. And it really, truly triggers me in a very bad way, because, to answer your first question, it proves that we don’t yet realize what Russia is. It will not halt until it is defeated.
Does the West now – after 3 years, which is rather a long time – know what its end goal is and how to accomplish it?
First of all, we gotta answer the question, you know, what is the West? You know, where is the centre? due to the fact that I think that the interests in Brussels, in Stockholm, Vilnius, Washington, you might find them quite, rather different. If it comes to Washington, president Trump declares that his goal is to have, you know, this conflict just done with. We inactive don’t rather grasp what to be done with it means, but [with] certain elements from his advisers or peculiar envoys like General Kellogg and his position, then it becomes a bit clearer that they do realize that first Ukraine should be put in a stronger position. I hope that it becomes a real strategy, but then again, for example, Chancellor Scholz’s position is simply a bit different. The spirit of appeasement regarding Russia is very strong in at least this left part of Berlin’s political spectrum.
Speaking of Trump, how has his arrival changed the balance, or rather, the rules of the game?
Well, I remember president Emmanuel Macron, a year ago, calling for strategical ambiguity.
When he said that France might consider sending troops to Ukraine?
Yeah, exactly. So I think that we are not in an era of strategical ambiguity, but of strategical uncertainty. Nothing is certain. And it works both ways. You know, we are not certain. We don’t know what Trump will do, but besides Putin does not know what Trump will do.
Who has more sleepless nights, do you think?
I think Putin does.
So what kind of peace deal would make Trump look like a winner? What kind of deal is good adequate for him to say, I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for this, you know, hand it over.
Again, I was actually reasoning about precisely the same thing: what would it take for president Trump to get the Nobel Prize? The Gaza statements might make it a tiny bit more difficult, honestly, but we’ll see how that plays out. But first of all, I see no way how to turn this into a win-win situation, so that means that Russia has to lose, and the way that Russia has to lose is that Putin has to admit that he is incapable to get more, to get a victory. He would gotta eat the loss. He would gotta explain it to his partners, his business circle, his safety ellipse that, you know, I overextended. I lost Syria, I lost Ukraine, hopefully Georgia too. And yes, there might be any problems for him domestically, but I don’t think that it should be our problem.
I see that we could walk a way that would lead us, the West, the front-line countries, to a better result. But the chances that all of this could just neglect are besides very great. Trump could just leave Ukraine without safety guarantees and shake on it with Putin. This wouldn’t work. We’ve been there.
So there is this belief of yours that there can be no win-win situation – if I were to hotel to a metaphor it would be any geopolitical boxing ringing or geopolitical UFC, where 2 fighters are in the cage and 1 of them has to appear the loser. There might be besides another scenario, where they both win on their own terms, and they both consider themselves winners. Ukraine could well come out a clear loser in this situation. How realistic would that [scenario] be?
You know, it’s impossible to see Ukraine losing just like that. individual else would gotta lose as well. Europe would lose, its safety and future would lose. Imagine a script where Trump says, okay, I will not be giving safety guarantees, but the EU has to give safety guarantees, and the EU is trying to vote, incapable to figure out the decision, and that kind of leaves the situation in any kind of a “Minsk 3” scenario. It is likely that this might happen, but this would leave Ukraine very vulnerable. And the Ukrainians would realize that they just gotta proceed building up their defences and drones and be prepared to strike back any second. That would leave the EU discredited and susceptible as well. So in this scenario, I believe that the EU would be an even bigger loser than Ukraine itself.
So let’s look at Ukraine then. It’s increasingly looking like it won’t be able to liberate all its territories militarily. Its NATO bid seems to be met with lukewarm enthusiasm, at best. And president Zelenskyy’s latest plea, where he said that if you aren’t letting us into NATO, then give us nukes, that was outright dismissed by Trump’s Ukraine envoy. So what can Kyiv claim as a triumph here? Survival?
I think that there are 2 elements in the peace plan that are not clear. First of all is the support for Ukraine itself – how can we make certain that Ukraine continues building up its defences? That remains to be answered. Yet 1 clear way would be to support Ukraine with equipment they are incapable to build themselves, long scope missiles that work besides as a deterrent, and then boost their industry. It is clear that the Ukrainians are working miracles – the amount of drones and the capacity of drones that they are able to produce is staggering. We have nothing like that in the West, really, not yet. It will take a alternatively long time for us to actually catch up to them. You know, the only 2 another countries that are able to do the same thing are Russia and China. So just for that, having Ukraine on our side is simply a wise strategy. So this is 1 area that we are not certain how it will work out. The second part involves safety guarantees. For me, NATO would inactive be the most apparent and most easy implemented safety warrant – easier than anything else that does the same thing but with more equipment, and harder consequences…
And no Article 5
Yeah. Again, it’s hard to imagine that safety guarantees outside NATO would work without the US, reasoning that Europe would someway figure it out on themselves. I truly have a hard time seeing that. possibly something can happen, but I am not certain how. So the biggest problem is that there is simply a way where no assistance is given, no safety promises are given, and no guarantees are given. Ukraine is then just kind of, you know, forced to stand down. This is simply a failure for Ukraine, but it’s besides a failure for everybody else.
We have not mentioned the territories themselves yet, the ones that Russia presently occupies and doesn’t seem to be besides keen on handing over in any forthcoming negotiations. So as long as Ukraine loses more than 15 per cent of its territory, de facto, can it truly consider itself a winner? How can you claim triumph erstwhile you end up the side that is losing territory?
You know, I don’t have a good answer to this. I would say a couple of things. So first of all, nobody should quit on the territories. There remains an enduring claim regarding the temporally occupied territories. The second thing, you talk about Korea, the country that has been divided almost since the Second planet War. But look how differently the 2 parts of it have developed. In any ways, they are inactive the same country. In practice, however, they are worlds apart. So I would most likely think that this is the way that the debate could be framed, but it will not be an easy conversation.
Let’s talk about Russia – what possible concessions do you see Putin making? And how does Trump plan to make Putin halt without giving him what he wants?
So on the Ukrainian side, 1 part of the leverage is Kursk. I always had this feeling that this is Ukraine reasoning about any future negotiations, to have this gem on their side, to trade. On Trump’s side, I’ve mentioned the support to Ukraine [as a leverage]. I think that it inactive needs to happen, it’s fundamentally obligatory so that Russia would know that whatever comes, they will be continuously battered. They will lose people. They will die. They will lose infrastructure, and that is, you know, forever. If you want to have it for 10 years, well, you will have it for 10 years.
Is that a possible Putin would be entirely averse to? Who is more prepared to have 10 more years of war in Ukraine, Putin or the proverbial West?
Well, that’s a good way to ask a question. A war in Ukraine or a war in Russia? due to the fact that I think that he’s prepared to have war in Ukraine for 10 years, but I’m not entirely certain that he’s prepared to have a war in Russia for 10 years. Things that we are seeing now like destroyed industry, imagine 10 times that. No mill is safe. Nothing is safe, all manufacture is under threat. Ukraine is able to hit all legitimate target.
So that would be the 1 final waiting game that he would not be keen to play?
You know, it is simply a bet, of course. But I would think that this is simply a bet that we could try, or Ukraine should be trying.
Then there is besides the oil prices thing. Do you think that’s realistic?
I would connect that with what Kellogg said about increased sanctions. The US has a very strong instrument of secondary sanctions. They can go after the companies that work with the sanctioned industry. This means they can go after Chinese companies, Indian companies, after whoever works with Russia, they can be sanctioned. That is simply a strong push.
Let’s say it all works out well, they shake hands and make a deal. But how realistic is it to anticipate Putin to honour any deal? Would a peace deal last beyond Trump’s second – and final – term?
The only way that the deal would hold is that Putin understands that he lost. He has to truly realize that his efforts to proceed this would be futile, or they would cost him even more. It is besides possible that we would end up in Minsk 3 – no safety guarantees, no promises. Just make the deal, and the Russians shake on it. So for them, it would be a dual victory, due to the fact that they can proceed the war the next day, and another thing they can do is completely humiliate the West. due to the fact that the US would be forced to admit that well, we forced Ukraine to make a deal, and now it’s broken.
And if it’s the first version, where he shakes on a deal and then actually honours it, that goes against everything he stood for, really. That doesn’t give him an full page dedicated to him in the schoolbooks of Russian history, it means a smaller picture, smaller text, smaller font. I don’t think he will be besides keen on that.
No, he won’t be. And that’s precisely my point – it’s not going to be easy to have a real peace. In a real peace deal, Russia has to lose.
A version of this interview was first published in Georgian by RFE/RL
Gabrielius Landsbergis is simply a Lithuanian politician and diplomat who served as Lithuania’s Minister of abroad Affairs from December 2020 until November 2024. He has been the president of the Homeland Union since 2015.
Vazha Tavberidze is simply a Georgian writer and staff author with RFE/RL’s Georgian Service. His writing has been published in various Georgian and global media outlets, including The Times, the Spectator, the Daily Beast and New east Europe.
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