Ukraine Must Fight Before Negotiating, Military Expert Argues

A retired U.S. Army lieutenant general made a stark case in November 2022: Ukraine should not negotiate with Russia until it has fought its way into a position of undeniable strength. James Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, argued that a ceasefire negotiated too early would hand Vladimir Putin exactly what he needed most — time to regroup, rearm, and pursue his long-standing goal of reducing Ukraine to a Russian satellite state.

Dubik's argument rested on a simple historical observation: it was fighting, not diplomacy, that had already shifted the balance. Ukraine's military successes in the north and east, combined with Russia's withdrawal from Kherson, had improved Volodymyr Zelensky's negotiating position measurably. But those gains, Dubik contended, were incomplete. Russia still controlled territory along Ukraine's southern coast — territory essential to Ukraine's economic survival. To sit down at a negotiating table now, he wrote, would be to reward aggression and leave Putin with options he had not yet exhausted.

The core of Dubik's analysis was that Putin's objectives and Ukraine's were irreconcilable without force. Putin wanted Ukraine as a vassal state, compliant and controlled from Moscow. Ukraine wanted what Dubik called its birthright: self-determination, political sovereignty, and territorial integrity. These positions could not be split without one side surrendering its fundamental claim. Dubik drew a parallel to Abraham Lincoln's refusal to accept the South's demand that slavery be called right — some demands, he suggested, cannot be negotiated.

Putin's pursuit of this goal had spanned two decades, Dubik noted. He had first tried indirect methods: backing pro-Russian candidates in Ukrainian elections, promoting narratives designed to undermine Ukrainian independence movements. When those failed, he moved to direct action. In 2014, he invaded and annexed Crimea and parts of the Donbas. When Ukraine continued to assert its sovereignty, he invaded again in 2022, intending to topple Zelensky and install a compliant government. Each time, Dubik argued, Putin had believed he could achieve his aims through force or the threat of force.

Now, with his initial invasion plan in ruins, Putin had shifted to what Dubik called Plan B: partition Ukraine by force, seize its ports to strangle its economy, and destroy its social and cultural infrastructure through physical destruction and forced deportation. Winter was setting in. The resolve of Ukraine's allies might weaken. Putin, Dubik suggested, believed he still had time and leverage on his side — that Russia, though bloodied, was not yet defeated.

This was why, Dubik argued, Ukraine could not afford to negotiate now. A ceasefire would give Putin the breathing space he desperately needed. It would signal that Ukraine's military momentum had reached its limit. It would suggest that the international coalition supporting Ukraine might fracture. Instead, Dubik wrote, Ukraine and its allies should continue fighting until Russia had no choice but to accept that its 2022 invasion had failed and its 2014 annexations were genuinely at risk. Force had already compelled Russian withdrawals from Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson. Force, or the credible threat of it, would be needed to eject Russia from the south.

Dubik acknowledged that this was a hard position. War was hard business. But the alternative — negotiating from weakness, allowing Putin to believe he could still dictate terms or preserve some path to Ukrainian subjugation — would be worse. Any eventual peace agreement, he argued, would need to include firm security guarantees for Ukraine's future and assistance to rebuild its economy. Russia would not agree to such terms unless forced to do so. That was the price of aggression. Negotiations might come eventually, but not yet. The time for talking would arrive only after Ukraine had fought its way to a position where Putin could no longer imagine victory.