Is Zelensky softening his tone on territorial concessions?

Since the February 2022 Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised that his country would prevail in the ensuing war, and that victory would include not only the reclamation of its territory up to the prewar borders, but also all of its territory up to the 2014 borders, including the Donbas and Crimea.

As recently as October, Zelensky continued to insist that Ukraine would not cede any of its territory to Russia.

But, as Russian troops break through heavily fortified Ukrainian defenses on their increasingly rapid march west, the crumbling Ukrainian lines may be causing a new reality to dawn in Kyiv.

On November 21, Zelensky was asked by Fox News if he had “accepted that under any sort of cease-fire agreement or peace deal that some Ukrainian territory may remain in Russian hands?" His answer differed subtly, but significantly, from his earlier statements.

He said: “We cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian. That is about those territories … occupied by Putin before the full-scale invasion, since 2014. Legally, we are not acknowledging that, we are not adopting that.”

However, when asked specifically if he was “willing to give up Crimea in pursuit of a peace deal to end this war,” Zelensky replied, "we are ready to bring Crimea back diplomatically.” This is a clear change from his earlier position. Zelensky now seems to accept the improbability of recapturing Crimea militarily: "We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back."

The Fox interview is not the first time Zelensky has made the distinction between legally acknowledging Russia’s annexation of some Ukrainian territory and conceding it as a practical necessity.

The Financial Times recently reported that there is “talk behind closed doors” in Kyiv “of a deal in which Moscow retains de facto control over the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine it has occupied — though Russia’s sovereignty is not recognized.” Zelensky seemed to be following this same line of thinking, when he insisted, in October, that “No one will legally recognize the occupied territories as belonging to other states.”

A week later, in an interview with Sky News, Zelensky went even further, stating that "if we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we should take under NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically."

Zelensky then once again distinguished between practically and legally ceding the territory, saying that “the invitation must be given to Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”

Although it is unlikely that NATO would make such a security offer to Ukraine — Zelensky stressed that they never formally have — the development is important because it offers a scintilla of hope for a way to achieve a ceasefire. Once a ceasefire is in place, it can be expanded into an armistice that can last, de facto, for decades, as it has in the as yet unresolved war between North and South Korea, or in the areas of Cyprus that are disputed as a result of Turkey’s invasion.

While no peace treaty has been signed, and their mutual territorial demands are yet to be resolved, this has not prevented either South Korea or the internationally recognized portion of Cyprus from pursuing their own development in peace.

In the case of Crimea, this could allow Ukraine to agree not to attempt to reacquire the territory militarily, while still officially claiming it, thus allowing future generations to cling to the hope it can be reacquired diplomatically in the future.

This idea aligns well with Russian President Putin’s recent proposal that while “Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from,” the annexed territories, he says nothing about Ukraine having to recognize Russia’s annexation of those territories as legal.

This idea also dovetails well with those of incoming U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who suggested not long ago that “Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians.”

Meanwhile, there are reports of talk from Berlin about Finlandization, or neutrality for Ukraine. The issue was mulled by none other than German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and amid unrelated discussions in Berlin about setting up a “contact group” together with China, India, and Brazil in search of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.

The practice of claiming a territory as your own, without actually exercising jurisdiction over it, is actually quite common in international diplomacy. Famous examples include China’s disputes over the South China Sea, the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regarding the Gaza Strip, the dispute between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands, and between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, but the list is very long (List of territorial disputes - Wikipedia), and no two territorial conflicts are the same. But it is worth noting that, while some have erupted in sporadic military conflict, some far worse than others, most do not.

Kyiv’s recognition, therefore, that it is not going to win this war militarily and that it needs to begin to negotiate a solution before it loses more territory is something to be welcomed. While it is still far from a peace settlement, it may be a sign that the regime is now willing to discuss terms that can bring an end to this horrific war.