The world still isn’t ready for a Russia after Putin: the main conclusions of the Warsaw Security Forum

Ukraine's victory in the current war will transform the shape of the whole world’s security system.

This is the main reason why today we have unprecedented support for Ukraine and the Ukrainians, which we especially felt last week during the Warsaw Security Forum, one of the world's largest platforms which annually welcomes more than 2,000 military representatives, politicians, public and business figures who come together to solve global security issues.

Anti-Corruption Action Centre experts have participated in the forum for several years in a row now. However, it’s the first time we are forced to focus not on corruption as a threat to global security, but on co-organising the forum together with our colleagues from the International Centre for Ukrainian Victory (ICUV) and proving to its participants that peace is achievable only on the Ukrainians’ terms.

This year the key award of the forum, the "Knight of Freedom"—which is awarded every year for outstanding achievements in the field of freedom and security—was presented to the people of Ukraine.

Back in the summer, we proposed to the Casimir Pulaski Foundation—the founders and organisers of the forum—that Olena Zelenska should be the one to receive this award on behalf of the people. I am grateful that the First Lady's team accepted the invitation.

Today, we have a clear vision of what the Ukrainian victory means. It implies full Ukrainian control over all its territories as of December 1991; real security guarantees (the most important one being weapons for Ukraine); membership of Ukraine in the EU and NATO; the punishment of the aggressor state; and a Marshall Plan for Ukraine.

Although this vision of our victory is obvious to Ukrainians, the forum has demonstrated that the world remains unprepared for it.

The reluctance to take decisive actions was also obvious from the rather restrained reaction of Western politicians to the brutal attack on Ukrainian cities on Monday, as well as the attempts of some foreign media to justify Russia's terrorist actions as a response to the explosion of the Crimean bridge.

Here is how our foreign partners view the war in Ukraine:

1. Weapons for Ukraine: why are there no Lend-Lease weapons or German Leopard tanks?

The topic of arming Ukraine was one of the most discussed issues. The greatest benefit of the forum lies in the opportunity to publicly ask Western politicians the most uncomfortable of questions, including, "When will Ukraine get modern NATO weapons, including aircraft and tanks?"

When asked on the first day of the event, German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock couldn’t explain why Germany does not provide Ukraine with Leopard II tanks. Such questions are exactly what can sober up German politicians who have been flirting with Russian Kremlin elites for years.

However, our Western partners’ weapons are only a temporary solution to help us survive this winter amid Russian threats to destroy our critical infrastructure.

Despite what some politicians say, there is no Lend-Lease for Ukraine today.

Due to the full-scale war started by Russia in Ukraine, the demand for weapons has increased many times, and the producers of NATO-standard weapons don't have the time to process all orders. For now, neither the United States nor other Western countries have begun to produce weapons for Ukraine, no matter what dates they put in the official Land-Lease documents.

One of the main reasons is that Ukraine has not yet done its homework.

Ukrainian authorities do not conduct systematic negotiations with the largest arms manufacturers at a strategic level. They are still not looking for creative solutions together with the manufacturers that would not only help Ukraine receive NATO weapons from abroad, but also establish the process of producing weapons in Ukraine. And the latter is only possible if Ukraine has the full and complete trust of manufacturers and other partners, which is still not the case due to the past corrupt actions of the Ukrainian authorities.

To change the situation, we need to change the whole system of defence procurement and the decision-making on weapons procurement. We need to build a cooperative relationship between the military, the government, and the manufacturers, based on professionalism, trust, and mutual understanding.

We need to analyse how the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill set in motion the wheels of the weapon industry during World War II, and to implement some of his ideas  today. Taking into account the global crisis of materials for weapon production, we must do our research to understand, just like Churchill, what weapons and how many of them we need for an irreversible victory, who can produce them, what materials we need—up to the last screw—and where we can get them. 

Churchill built a trusting relationship with the U.S. President Roosevelt, constantly consulted with him, granted American officials access to his own plans of victory and to information about the defence industry in the UK.

We must see already that the war in Ukraine isn’t a matter of a few months, and we have to prepare for the global changes that will occur after this war. And until international law is able to guarantee us security, the situation will depend solely on the production of weapons and Ukraine's access to modern defence technologies, which are currently getting more and more demand in the world.

Over time, the entire economy of our state should also be re-adjusted to support the defence capability of Ukraine and the production of technologies necessary to protect ourselves against the aggressor.

To cite the former Minister of Defence Andrii Zahorodniuk’s speech at the forum, "The best security guarantee is to create a strong army that will be able to inflict such damage on the aggressor that they will never try to come at us again." 

2. War Crimes Tribunal: who is leading the process?

"Do you know what I felt when I opened my eyes after another torture? Not anger. Not rage. I felt pity for my torturers. Because everything they are doing is pushing them towards an abyss. Tortured children, women, old people. What they have done demands justice. Not revenge. We only ask for justice. Because if we start to avenge our losses, we will stoop to their level," shared Taira (Yuliia Paievska, a military paramedic who has survived Russian captivity) during the forum. 

The voices of people like Taira are the best evidence of why a tribunal for Russian war criminals should be established as soon as possible. When faced with Yana Berezina, the sister of an Azovstal soldier who is still in captivity, our international partners ran out of arguments.

Unfortunately, the existing instruments cannot guarantee the perpetrators will be brought to justice. The UN, established exactly for such purposes, still remains under a significant influence of Russia. Although the system does have people who support Ukraine strongly, such as the U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter, who also took part in our discussion.

According to Olga Aivazovska, Head of the Board of the Civil Network "OPORA" and Co-Founder of ICUV, one of the ways out of this situation could be the establishment of a special tribunal based on EU principles and created through a bilateral agreement.

"A bilateral agreement (on the establishment of a special tribunal) between Ukraine as a state and the EU as an international organisation could be a quick solution, which, at the same time, would help involve other countries, such as Canada, Japan, and the United States, in the process more easily," Aivazovska explained.

Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin clearly noted that another unresolved issue is Russia compensating its war crimes. Russia must pay reparations, which have to become the main source of funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war.

3. Recognition of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and a plan for a Russia after Putin: the world keeps forcing Ukraine into negotiations.

One of the most widely discussed topics at the forum was the recognition of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. After all, it will take years to create a tribunal and proceed with all the criminal cases. The status of a terrorist state is a mechanism of quick punishment for Russia, which will find itself in complete economic isolation from the world.

Since the beginning of the war, we have been discussing this with American officials and parliamentarians. We explain to them that the status of a terrorist state will accelerate the process of confiscating and returning hundreds of billions of dollars that belong to Russia and are forfeited in the Western countries. In March, the U.S. saw "no legal grounds" to do this. Today, their argument is that this decision will apparently lead to not being able to reach an agreement with Russia on the supply of Ukrainian grain, as well as other issues that are already threatening the world.

However, when Oleksandra Matviichuk, Head of the Nobel-awarded Center for Civil Liberties, tells a story of how Russians take out people's eyes with a spoon on the occupied territories, the arguments of the Americans break into pieces.

Because the main reason, the hidden reason, Russia has not yet been legally included in the list along with Syria and Iran is that the U.S. expects Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table and fears provoking Russia to use nuclear weapons. We have repeatedly explained at the forum that the West’s fear only increases the probability of a Russian nuclear strike.

After all, the West still believes the war can be "frozen" into a protracted conflict in Ukraine, just so there is no escalation to a World War III level. The Western countries still don’t understand that Russia is killing more than just Ukrainians today. Dozens of nations forced to live in Russia are nothing but cannon fodder in this war.

The world has no strategy on how to interact with Russia after it is defeated. Unlike our state, which has already developed clear approaches.

Those approaches have been communicated by Ukraine publicly, one of them being President Zelenskyi's recent address on the deimperialisation of Russia and the decolonisation of enslaved peoples. Another one is the 2019 parliamentary resolution initiated by Hanna Hopko, then Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

We need to be aware that after the dictator is gone and the deimperialisation is achieved, these peoples can also declare endless atrocities and abuse on their land, and accordingly declare their right to self-determination.

Despite everything, the West is primarily concerned about who will gain access to nuclear weapons if Putin and Russia are defeated in the war with Ukraine.

"Some Western partners insist on delaying the supply of weapons exactly due to their fear of uncertainty after Russia is defeated and hope that they can bring Ukraine to the negotiating table. It’s time we prepared ourselves for the same process that took place in 1991. We must come up with a strategy, while taking into account the benefits of deimperialisation as opposed to the preservation of Russia. And I’m really thankful to some brave experts like General Hodges, who say, ‘We must start to prepare for the collapse of Russia for a number of reasons and to reduce the geopolitical consequences of this process,’" mentioned Hanna Hopko at the forum. "The deimperialisation of Russia is a real security guarantee for Ukraine as a member of NATO."

The representatives of the so-called "Russian liberal opposition"—such as Vladimir Milov, who pointed out that Zelenskyi's address and his understanding of Russia "is not complete enough"—are not ready for the collapse of Russia. 

We see that the security of the world today is a matter of Ukraine's victory. The world is slowly waking up and beginning to realise this as well. They begin to understand Ukraine cannot negotiate with those who kill and torture our children and prisoners. That until all Ukrainian territories and people are liberated from occupation, we simply have nothing to talk about with our torturers. 

After seven months of war, we have realised the West is ready to help us. But it will take no truly decisive steps without loud Ukrainian voices calling upon them.

The victory will come. But neither Brussels, nor Washington, nor Berlin will believe in our victory without the joint systematic efforts of the state, the army, and civil society.