Zelensky finally presented the first five parts of his much-ballyhooed “Victory Plan” to the Rada on Wednesday while still keeping three of them secret per his own admission. Readers can review his full speech here and Reuters’ concise summary here. Upon doing either, they’ll see that it’s unrealistic due to Ukraine demanding: an invitation to join NATO; the joint interception of Russian missiles; and hosting “a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” on its soil, among several other demands.
All three are non-starters for NATO since the bloc doesn’t want to get directly involved in this proxy war, which its comparatively more pragmatic policymakers who still call the shots fear could easily spiral out of control into World War III, hence why nothing of the sort has happened yet. That’s not to say that their hawkish rivals stand no chance of changing that, and some are speculatively working behind their governments’ backs to this end, but just that Zelensky won’t get what he wants unless that happens.
The abovementioned calculations will likely remain constant seeing as how they’ve been in place for over two and a half years so far, which he’s keenly aware of, thus raising the question of what he sought to achieve by making such demands from his partners that have already been rejected. The argument can be made that he was driven by one of two ulterior motives: hint at what he wants after possibly “escalating to de-escalate” in the near future or sow the seeds for a “stab-in-the-back” theory.
Regarding the first, this could take the form of a nuclear provocation and/or attacking Belarus, while the second was coincidentally lent credence two days prior to Zelensky’s speech by the Royal United Services Institute in an article about “The Impending Betrayal of Ukraine”. These scenarios could be averted if the G7 agrees to comply with at least some of his military demands in exchange for being allowed to extract Ukraine’s critical mineral riches like one of the points of his “Victory Plan” strongly suggests.
That implied proposal builds upon what he promised the G7 in May 2022, which was analyzed here at the time and followed up on in February 2024 here, the point being that there’s a precedent for him offering up his country for sale in exchange for getting what he wants. If these critical mineral riches don’t tempt the West into fulfilling at least part of his “Victory Plan”, and it was explained above why they probably won’t, then he’ll likely resort to either of the two backup plans that were discussed.
The takeaway from what he just revealed is that ulterior motives are clearly at play since his main demands have already been rejected. Even the innuendo that Ukraine’s critical mineral riches could be swapped for supposedly game-changing military support might not get the West to reconsider since it fears an uncontrollable escalation sequence with nuclear-armed Russia. That being the case, observers should expect him to soon “escalate to de-escalate” or pin the blame for Ukraine’s defeat on the West.
