By Jeffrey Sachs
July 2, 2025
Europe needs to recognize that its own security, and that of Ukraine, cannot possibly be achieved through a confrontational strategy that aims to isolate Russia, deepen the war, and entrench EU-Russian hostility.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, the relationship between the European Union and Russia has been marked by missed opportunities, mistrust, and strategic missteps. In recent years, this fragile relationship has been pushed to military confrontation in Ukraine. The ongoing war in Ukraine-devastating in its human, economic, and geopolitical toll-has dramatically and dangerously deepened the rift between Russia and the European Union. For this reason, there is an urgent need to reassess how Europe understands Russia’s motives and how it should engage with its neighbor.
The prevailing European narrative of unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine is historically shallow to the point of triviality, and strategically dangerous. A more nuanced understanding of Russia’s historical security concerns, a recognition of Western provocations after 1991, and a return to diplomacy, neutrality for Ukraine, and the collective security principles rooted in Europe’s post-war institutions are essential. My proposals are not about appeasement; they are about building the foundations for a durable peace in Europe, and security for Ukraine.
Russia’s Strategic Posture: Defense, Not Westward Conquest
To understand how Europe should engage with Russia, we must begin by revisiting how Russia sees itself and its security. For centuries, Russia’s geopolitical behavior has been shaped less by Russia’s alleged westward expansionism than by Russia’s fear of invasion from the West. Nor is Russia succumbing to paranoia in its fear of the West, it is merely reflecting on its long history. Russia has repeatedly been invaded by the West, often with catastrophic consequences for Russia. The Poland-Lithuania invasion of Russia during the Time of Troubles in the early 1600s; the Swedish invasions of Russia in the early 1700s; Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812; and of course Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia in 1941, have all left deep scars on Russia’s collective memory. These were not minor border skirmishes but existential threats that led to enormous losses of Russian lives and profound material devastation.
Even the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after World War II – while undoubtedly repressive – was not born out of Soviet or Russian imperialism. It was, at the core, a strategy for security, motivated by the trauma of Hitler’s invasion, which cost 27 million Soviet lives, and by the unilateral decision of the U.S. and its allies to rearm West Germany starting in the late 1940s. The US rearmament of West Germany reinforced Moscow’s determination to maintain a military buffer between West Germany and the Soviet Union.
For centuries, Russia’s geopolitical behavior has been shaped less by Russia’s alleged westward expansionism than by Russia’s fear of invasion from the West.
Throughout the 1950s, the Soviet Union tried to end the threat of German rearmament by pressing to US to agree on a neutral, demilitarized, and reunified Germany. Stalin pursued this course in 1952 (in the famous Stalin Notes) and Khrushchev tried again in 1955, using the Soviet withdrawal from Austria as a model of neutrality that could be applied to Germany. Specifically, the Soviet Union withdrew its occupation troops from Austria in 1955 based on Austria’s declaration of neutrality and its permanent non-membership in NATO. The Soviet Union hoped to use the Austrian example as a prod to the US to apply the same approach to Germany. The great US diplomat George Kennan strongly supported the strategy of peace with the Soviet Union achieved through German neutrality and disarmament, but the US Government firmly rebuffed the Soviet initiative and instead incorporated a remilitarized West Germany into NATO in 1955.
In today’s context, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 should be understood through this historical lens. It is essential to ask why Russia invaded Ukraine — and whether the invasion was preventable. The answer, lying in plain sight, is that Russia’s invasion in February 2022 was provoked by 30 years of US aggressive policies towards Russia, from the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991 onward. These aggressive US policies were coupled with an utterly dismissive US attitude towards Russia’s security concerns.
The war in February 2022 could have been avoided at many junctures. The US could have chosen not to expand NATO to Ukraine. The US could have chosen not to support a violent coup in February 2014 against a pro-Russian president of Ukraine. The US could have pushed Ukraine to enforce the Minsk II agreement. The US could have chosen to negotiate with Russia in December 2021 when President Putin put forward a draft Russia-US agreement on security guarantees.1 Even in the weeks following the invasion, the war could have been ended in April 2022, in the so-called Istanbul Process. Russia’s invasion, after all, was not aimed at conquering Ukraine but rather at pushing Ukraine to accept neutrality and to renounce membership in NATO.
The Road to the Ukraine War: Western Expansion and the Erosion of Trust
The war in Ukraine is not the result of an unprovoked Russian invasion as is so often claimed but the culmination of decades of Western, especially of US, encroachment into what Russia perceives as its security zone. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Russian leaders-particularly those aligned with reform and democracy-hoped for a new security architecture that would include Russia as a partner. Despite denials today, the US and Germany explicitly and repeatedly promised to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin that the NATO alliance would not move “one inch eastward,” and that more generally, the West would not take advantage of the relative weakness of the Soviet Union and Russia in the context of German reunification in 1990.2 These turned out to be Western lies.
Beginning as early as 1992, the White House began to plan for NATO enlargement. In 1994, the Clinton administration settled on a long-term plan for NATO enlargement, utterly contrary to the promises that had been made just a few years earlier. Starting at the end of the 1990s, NATO began to expand eastward, first incorporating Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and then in 2004, incorporating the Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. So much for “not one inch eastward.”
Already in the mid-1990s the US plan was to expand NATO not only to Central and Eastern Europe, but all the way to the southern Caucasus, including Georgia. The plan was to surround Russia in the Black Sea region, and thereby to surround Russia’s warm-water naval fleet based in Sevastopol, Crimea since 1783. It was a game plan that followed that of Lord Palmerston and Napoleon III in the Crimean War (1953-6).
Zbigniew Brzezinski (politicoloog en sleutelfiguur in de internationale politiek US, adviseur van presidenten Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter en Barack Obama) wrote about the strategy in 1997, both in his book The Grand Chessboard3, and in a notable article for Foreign Affairs, on “A Geostrategy for Eurasia.” Brzezinski recognized that Russia would recoil from such a plan, as it was precisely designed by the US to encircle and weaken Russia. Some in the US deep state also talked about “decolonizing Russia,” or breaking Russia into pieces. Brzezinski opined that Russia should be pushed into becoming a weak confederation of three largely autonomous parts: European Russia, Siberian Russia, and Far Eastern Russia.
Some in the US deep state also talked about breaking Russia into pieces: European Russia, Siberian Russia, and Far Eastern Russia.
At some length Brzezinski explored how Russia would react to such an aggressive US-European-NATO strategy. His answer was straightforward and redolent of the US arrogance of the 1990s. He predicted confidently that Russia would bow to superior Western power. He explained it this way: “Russia’s only real geostrategic option-the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself-is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO. Such a Europe is taking shape … and it is also likely to remain linked closely to America. That is the Europe to which Russia will have to relate, if it is to avoid dangerous geopolitical isolation”.
This prediction by Brzezinski exemplifies the fundamental strategic miscalculation of the West: that it could threaten Russia, expand military bases towards Russia, topple governments near to Russia in color revolutions, and even aim to dismantle Russia, and that Russia would do nothing other than submit meekly to superior Western power.
NATO’s Fateful Step Too Far in 2008
The year 2008 marked a decisive step, when the NATO Bucharest Summit declared that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.”4 Though NATO did not set a timetable, the Bucharest NATO declaration was received in Moscow as a grave provocation. The 2014 Maidan uprising-which overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych with active support from Western governments-was another decisive moment. In Moscow’s view, with which I concur based on extensive evidence, this was not a popular revolution but a Western-backed violent coup that turned Ukraine decisively against Russia. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Donbas followed shortly thereafter. The post-coup regime in Kiev spoke of pushing the Russian navy out of Crimea. Russia acted to prevent Crimea falling into NATO hands.
While Russia’s actions in Crimea and the Donbas were widely condemned in the West as Russian aggression, they in fact resulted directly from the U.S. and EU role in destabilizing the region through their support for regime change and their brazen dismissal of Russian security concerns. The Minsk II agreement, brokered by Russia, France and Germany and signed in 2015 with the unanimous backing of the UN Security Council, was ostensibly meant to resolve the conflict in Donbas through a negotiated autonomy for the ethnically Russian regions. But Ukraine, again with Western backing, brazenly refused to implement the agreement. In the meantime, the US and Europe proceeded to build up the Ukrainian army to become the largest army in Europe. By 2022, Russia was convinced that Ukraine was effectively a forward base of NATO, equipped with advanced Western weapons and blatantly hostile toward Moscow. The invasion that followed was born out of perceived encirclement-not out of imperial ambition to rebuild the Soviet Union, as some Western leaders have claimed.
The US-UK Sabotage of the Istanbul Peace Process
In April 2022, Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of signing a peace agreement in Istanbul, with the Turkish Government acting as mediator. The US and UK talked Ukraine out of signing the agreement, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have since died or been seriously injured. Yet the framework of the Istanbul Process still provides the basis of peace today.5
The draft peace agreement (dated April 15, 2022) and the Istanbul Communique (dated March 29, 2022) on which it was based, offered a sensible and straightforward way to end the conflict. Moreover, three years after Ukraine unilaterally broke off the negotiations, during which time Ukraine has incurred major losses, Ukraine will eventually lose more territory than it would have in April 2022 – yet it can still gain the essentials: sovereignty, international security arrangements, and peace.
For more than three years, there have been no meaningful high-level diplomatic contacts between the EU and Russia. This silence is not only irresponsible-it is dangerous.
In the 2022 negotiations, the agreed issues were Ukraine’s permanent neutrality and international security guarantees for Ukraine. The final disposition of the contested territories was to be decided over time, based on negotiations between the parties, during which both sides committed to refrain from using force to change boundaries. The precise structure of the security arrangements was still to be negotiated.
With a draft agreement nearly complete by April 15, the US stepped in to stop the process. The US and UK told Ukraine to reject neutrality and to fight on. The US promised its full backing “for as long as it takes.” Ukraine pulled out of the negotiations and later barred even the possibility of renewed negotiations. Since then, Ukraine has lost perhaps 1 million or more soldiers to death or grave injury, while losing further territory.
The Silence of Diplomacy: Europe’s Missed Opportunity
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Western policy since 2022 is the near-total absence of diplomacy. For more than three years, there have been no meaningful high-level diplomatic contacts between the EU and Russia. This silence is not only irresponsible-it is dangerous.
Diplomacy does not require moral equivalence. It requires realism, pragmatism, and the recognition that enduring peace is only possible through dialogue. Even during the darkest days of the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet leaders maintained back-channels and negotiated arms control treaties. That spirit of engagement-epitomized by the Helsinki Accords and the creation of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)-is absent today. Europe, which would bear the brunt of any escalation, has the most to gain from reviving diplomacy. It must assert its independent interests and facilitate talks aimed at laying the groundwork for a negotiated settlement. As there is no military solution to the war in Ukraine, continued fighting will raise the costs for Ukrainians, Russians, and Europeans alike.
A Path to Peace: Neutrality, Arms Control, and Collective Security
Europe should support a five-part framework for a lasting peace.
First, a commitment that NATO will not expand into Ukraine. This would not mean capitulating to Russian demands but rather acknowledging the geopolitical realities that were apparent from the start. Ukraine’s NATO membership is not essential to its sovereignty or security. On the contrary, it has become a red line that has pushed the country into a war of attrition with Russia. A neutral Ukraine-like Austria during the Cold War-could still pursue EU integration, democratic governance, and economic development while avoiding becoming a pawn or victim of great power competition.
Second, Ukraine should adopt a neutral status as part of a wider security guarantee. Neutrality does not mean weakness; it can be paired with security guarantees and international oversight. Such status would reassure Russia while also respecting Ukraine’s independence. A neutral Ukraine should have its sovereignty and territorial integrity safeguarded by an international agreement adopted by the UN Security Council.
Third, as painful as it will be, there will be some territorial loss to Russia. Europe professes to object to any territorial changes under force, but in fact most of Europe has recognized Kosovo, which NATO violently separated from Serbia in a 78-day bombing campaign in 1999. Sudan’s division into Sudan and South Sudan is another recent case of a border change pushed by the United States. Of course, the US and Europe could have spared Ukraine of any loss of territory whatsoever – had the US and Europe not conspired in the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in February 2014. Similarly, the loss of the Donbas could have been avoided altogether had the US and EU insisted on Ukraine’s implementation of the Minsk II agreement.
The alternative to diplomacy at this stage is not a victory over Russia but devastation for Ukraine, and perhaps for the world if there is escalation to nuclear war.
Fourth, the United States and Russia must return to nuclear arms control. The US unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, and the suspension of the New START Treaty and its imminent expiration in 2026 have left the world in a precarious position. The risk of accidental escalation or miscalculation is growing, particularly in a theater as volatile as Eastern Europe. Europe should press Washington and Moscow to renew negotiations on nuclear arms control and strategic stability.
Fifth, the principle of collective security in Europe must be re-established. The OSCE, born out of the Helsinki process, was built on the idea that peace in Europe requires cooperation, not confrontation. It aimed to create a pan-European security space where all countries-regardless of their alliances-had a voice and a stake. This vision must be revived.
The Moral and Strategic Imperative for Peace
The approach I am recommending is often dismissed by critics as naïve or overly conciliatory. Yet it is rooted in the hard lessons of history and the pressing dangers of the present. Europe cannot afford to sleepwalk into a wider war. Nor can it continue outsourcing its security and strategic posture to Washington, whose interests do not always align with those of the European continent.
The moral imperative is also clear. The war in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and destroyed infrastructure on a massive scale. Each passing month adds to the toll. The reconstruction of Ukraine will take decades and hundreds of billions of dollars, and it cannot begin in earnest until the fighting stops. Moreover, the war has deepened the division of the world into hostile blocs, weakened global cooperation on climate change and development, and triggered economic disruptions that have disproportionately affected the Global South. Peace in Ukraine is not just a regional issue; it is a global priority.
A Call for Renewed European Diplomatic Leadership
Europe now faces a choice. It can continue to pursue a confrontational strategy that aims to isolate Russia, deepen the war, and entrench EU-Russian hostility. Or it can take the initiative to chart a new path toward peace. This would require vision, courage, and a willingness to break from the dominant narrative.
The first step is to reframe the debate. Peace is not weakness. Diplomacy is not appeasement. Neutrality is not abandonment. These are tools for building a sustainable and inclusive security order. Europe should also speak with one voice in urging Washington to prioritize arms control and diplomacy, not further war.
Europe should reinvest in institutions of collective security and diplomacy. The OSCE should be revitalized. Ukraine’s future should be secured not through war, but through neutrality, reconstruction, and integration into a peaceful and prosperous European order.
Peace also does not mean a frozen conflict. Europe instead needs to recognize that its own security, and that of Ukraine, cannot possibly be achieved through confrontation, exclusion, or military escalation vis-à-vis Russia. European security must be built through diplomacy, compromise, and the revival of a collective security framework that acknowledges the national security concerns of all actors-including Russia.
The Ukraine war has no winners, least of all Ukraine. But there is still time to avoid utter catastrophe. Europe should return to diplomacy and embracing the hard but necessary work of peacemaking. The alternative to diplomacy at this stage is not a victory over Russia but devastation for Ukraine, and perhaps for the world if there is escalation to nuclear war. Europe needs to act not in anger or fear, but in the pursuit of a future where cooperation across the continent replaces conflict, and where peace is once again possible.