A Ukrainian soldier transports a drone in an undisclosed location (photo via the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine)
This past September, President Volodymyr Zelensky began rolling out his government’s “Victory Plan” for Ukraine. He presented it to key partners (including then-candidate Donald Trump), detailed it to the Ukrainian parliament, and has since called for its swift implementation at various international engagements. For the Zelensky administration, the Victory Plan is an essential approach to securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. But what is it?
It is not an operational plan like those familiar to militaries. It is also not a roadmap with specified milestones. Nor is it a strategy with defined ends, ways, and means.
Rather, Ukraine’s Victory Plan is a recognition that the country has entered the endgame against Russia’s war of aggression. It is a clarification of Ukraine’s core interests associated with a cessation of hostilities, and it seeks to create value for partners who would help fulfill those interests. Composed of five points and three secret annexes, the Victory Plan serves as a foundation for Ukraine’s international political-military engagements heading into the final phase of open warfare. The crucial step now comes with implementation, including integration with a comprehensive negotiating strategy.
Given the importance of Ukraine’s Victory Plan in shaping its engagements going forward, it is important to break down its five key points, which the Zelensky administration has broadly described as “geopolitical, two military, economic, and security-related.”
First point: Invitation for Ukraine to join the NATO alliance
Removing ‘non-NATO neutrality’ as a potential concession in negotiations to end hostilities
A common theme in Russian aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has been opposition towards Ukraine’s European integration. Although the Kremlin narrative focuses on NATO expansion as a basis for the conflict, it has really been the shift in Ukrainians looking towards the European Union rather than Russia as the anchor for its future relations that fueled the Kremlin’s destabilization efforts and open hostilities.
Ukraine has already submitted its accession application to the European Union, but the EU is not a military alliance and does not provide a ready-made coalition for collective self defense. As such, the Zelensky administration is clarifying its position that European integration requires the military component through NATO to guarantee a durable peace for Ukraine.
It is important to note that the Zelensky administration is not advocating for the completion of NATO accession as part of the Victory Plan; rather, they are simply calling for an unambiguous invitation. This is a recognition of the obstacles to NATO membership. From a practical perspective, a long-standing point of consideration for accession is whether the candidate state is engaged in territorial disputes. Politically, accession requires consensus from every NATO member, and the Viktor Orban-led government in Hungary is an almost guaranteed objector given his administration’s efforts to distance his country from direct support to Ukraine. Still, the Ukrainian government’s intent is to remove ‘non-NATO neutrality’ from the table before returning to negotiations with the Russians by having a formal invitation to the alliance in hand.
Volodymyr Zelensky attends the inaugural session of the NATO-Ukraine Council in Vilnius, 12 July 2024 (photo via NATO)
Second point: Expanding defensive capabilities
Strengthening Ukraine’s bargaining power by bolstering defensive capabilities and enabling Ukrainian forces to increase pressure on the Russians
Ukraine has called upon partners to provide additional weapons capabilities and consent for strikes deeper into Russian territory. Up to now, partners have imposed caveats on their materiel support to temper potential escalation from the Russian side. However, the Zelensky administration well understands that military pressure on the battlefields—particular those within Russian territory—means greater leverage at the negotiating table. Hence, this line-of-effort is essential to the Victory Plan.
There are minimal details of what the Ukrainian government is requesting. It is contained in a secret annex “accessible only to those partners who have the appropriate military assistance capabilities.” Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak did offer some insight, noting, “Air defense equipment, drones, electronic warfare equipment, long-range systems, and artillery shells are on our priority list.” That list also includes investment in Ukraine’s defense industry, provision of real-time intelligence, and lifting of restrictions on long-range weapon systems. Ukraine has already participated in twenty-four meetings of the multinational “Ukrainian Defense Contact Group” (sometimes referred to as the “Ramstein Group”), but the Zelensky administration will invariably be focusing on bilateral engagements to expedite the delivery of this political and materiel support as part of its Victory Plan implementation effort.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence advocates for the lifting of restrictions on strikes on Russian facilities, 29 August 2024 via X (formerly, Twitter)
Third point: Deterring further Russian aggression
Eliminating Russian alternatives to a durable cessation of hostilities
The Ukrainians have already seen two major failures in security-related agreements with the Russians. The first was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum which guaranteed Ukraine’s security in exchange for giving up the possession or pursuit of an independent nuclear arsenal. The Russians violated the provisions of this agreement first through its hostile actions in 2014 and again with its military invasion in 2022. The second included the Minsk agreements (signed in 2014 and 2015) intended to curb Russia’s incursions in Crimea and the eastern provinces of Ukraine, which the Russians violated in 2022.
Thus, the Ukrainian government is seeking help from partners to deploy non-nuclear deterrence packages to the country. The specific requests are classified—only being shared with five of seven G7 members (France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States)—but the intent is to ensure that there are the right capabilities based in Ukraine to render any further military adventurism from Russia too costly.
Why is this point important as part of the Victory Plan rather than a postwar security guarantee? It is all about removing an alternative to a negotiated agreement. As long as Russia believes that sustaining the war is better than anything the Ukrainians are willing to offer in negotiations, there is little incentive to pursue a ceasefire deal. However, if the deterrence package is successful in signaling high enough costs for Russia, then a deal becomes more achievable. As Volodymyr Zelensky stated, “The deterrence package is the fact that Russia is either going into diplomacy or going to lose its war machine. Peace through strength.”
(Left) Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, Leonid Kuchma, and John Major sign the Budapest Memorandum, 5 December 1994; (right) Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, François Hollande, and Petro Poroshenko convene in Minsk where the second Minsk agreement was concluded, 11 February 2015
Fourth point: Protection of Ukrainian natural resources and deepening economic cooperation
Incentivizing international investment in a durable peace for Ukraine
As the Russia-Ukraine War approaches its fourth year of open hostilities, Ukraine faces significant risk of losing international attention and support. While the threat to international peace and stability was enough to garner assistance early in the war, multinational partners are increasingly examining the impact that the enduring conflict is having on their respective economies. This is particularly salient in the United States, where the incoming Trump administration campaigned on the promise to shut off aid and end the war.
This point in the Victory Plan seeks both to create value and claim value. In creating value, the government is signaling its willingness to deliver economic incentives to partners in exchange for their continued support. The Zelensky administration has already indicated that it shared a secret annex with “designated partners,” noting that Ukraine boasts “natural resources and critical metals worth trillions of U.S. dollars, including uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite, and other strategically valuable resources.” In claiming value, the government is arguing that failure to support Ukraine’s Victory Plan puts those critical resources at risk of falling to Russia. The Zelensky administration is counting on this combination of incentivization and loss aversion to garner international support for its wartime objectives.
Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump to explain Ukraine’s Victory Plan, 27 September 2024 (photo via the Ukrainian Presidential Office)
Fifth point: Supplementing U.S. force deployment across Europe after the cessation of hostilities
Interim step to NATO integration and incentivizing U.S. support to Ukraine’s Victory Plan
With this point, Ukraine is looking to capitalize on two facts. The first is that none of the NATO allies have been engaged in conventional, interstate warfare during this century. While many contributed forces to the U.S.-led Global War on Terror, they faced threats like plain clothes combatants and improvised explosive devices, not uniformed soldiers executing bombing runs in jets, launching ballistic missiles from standoff locations, and rolling across battlefields in tanks. The Zelensky administration understands the value that battle-hardened Ukrainian forces can bring to NATO both terms of there their real-world experience in modern warfare and their firsthand understanding of Russian tactics, techniques, and procedures.
The second fact is that the incoming Trump administration has repeatedly stated its intent to compel America’s allies to do more. By offering to replace some U.S. troops stationed across Europe with Ukrainian forces after the war concludes, the Zelensky government is appealing to “America First” policy audiences and suggesting that continued support to Ukraine is not actually antithetical to the U.S. administration’s broader policy designs.
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Ultimately, Ukraine’s Victory Plan is not really designed to deliver total victory to the Ukrainian people or even to satisfy all the objectives outlined in the Ukrainian Peace Formula published in 2022. Instead, the Victory Plan is meant to maximize the Ukrainian government’s bargaining power and to preserve international support in this next phase of the war. The next step is integrating this into a comprehensive negotiating strategy towards Russia that enables the Ukrainian government to maintain the initiative and advance its interests towards a cessation of hostilities. It will be challenging, but in war, there is rarely an easy path to a just and lasting peace.
Michael MacArthur Bosack is a seasoned international negotiator and the founder of the Parley Policy Initiative. He is the Special Adviser for Government Relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. Michael is a former East-West Center Fellow, a military veteran, and the author of “Negotiate: A Primer for Practitioners.”