Yuri SCHERBAK: Will Ukraine Lose the War?

1.

 “Ukraine has already lost this war,” the 78-year-old man said with conviction, looking confidently into the lenses of Polish television cameras. Answering the sharp questions of journalists who showed touching solidarity with Ukrainians, the man, capitalizing on his vast political experience, carefully chose his words, giving clear answers. He consistently stood by Putin’s position arguing that it had been Ukrainians who caused this war. “Sixteen thousand Russian-speaking Ukrainians were killed in the Donbas by Ukrainian nationalists,” he said, also alluding to Ukraine’s blowing up of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was an act of terrorism.

When asked why he was presenting Putin’s version of events and not Zelensky’s, the gray-haired man replied bluntly, “Do not name Putin a ‘criminal’, because you will have to sit down with him at the negotiating table.” At the same time, he asserted that “there will be no Russian parade in Kyiv.” Ukraine will give up 20% of its land and be left depopulated and destroyed. Trump is normalizing relations with Russia, and 75% of Poles oppose sending their troops to Ukraine. Because “it’s easy to get into a conflict with Russia” (polsatnews.pl, February 25, 2015).

Who is this mysterious character from our friendly Poland? Let me introduce him: Leszek Miller, former Prime Minister of Poland (2001-2004), long-time member of the Sejm, MEP, leader of the Union of Democratic Left, and publicist. One of the “fathers” of Poland’s accession to the European Union.

However, he is also a loyal disciple of Lenin, a member of the Central Committee and Politburo of the former Polish United Workers’ Party, a communist party leader who was a member of the Polish People’s Republic’s top nomenclature who easily jumped into the governing state structures of the Third Polish Republic, declaring himself a social democrat. A great friend of Putin and a supporter of friendly relations with Russia, he categorically denied the Kremlin’s involvement in the Polish national tragedy, the 2010 crash of a Polish government plane near Smolensk.

Now, Mr. Miller is clearly happy to bury Ukraine (isn’t it a bit premature?), solidarizing with Donald Trump and supporting the narratives of Russian propaganda. Doesn’t the experienced politician realize that Russia’s victory and enslavement of Ukraine would pose a mortal threat to Poland, which will become a buffer zone between Moscow and Berlin?      

2.

“Putin HAS LOST this war, we will see Ukraine in the EU and NATO,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb stated confidently at the summit in Kyiv (UNIAN, February 24, 2025). This was not a voice of false optimism to reassure the hosts. It was the voice of a country that in 1940 and 1944 knew what Russian imperialism was like in its destructive form of extermination and occupation, but was able to preserve its sovereignty and statehood thanks to the wisdom of its leadership, especially Marshal Carl Mannerheim (1867-1951).

He lived and studied for some time in Kharkiv, visited Kyiv, and underwent medical treatment in Odesa. There was a time when the young lieutenant Mannerheim served in the same company of the Russian Guard and was friends with cornet Pavlo Skoropadskyi, the future hetman of the Ukrainian State. A Swede by birth, Mannerheim became the military leader of Finland in its struggle against the USSR.

The histories of the distant countries of Ukraine and Finland have become bizarrely intertwined due to the banditry of their Russian neighbor, and now, in a difficult time of losses and painful decisions, we should recall the words of Mannerheim spoken in 1940 at a critical moment in the end of the Winter War: “We ... cannot afford to let the bitterness caused by harsh conditions cloud our ability to think critically. The fact that the army has not been crushed gives us an opportunity to negotiate peace for the time being. If the defenders fall and our forces are stretched to the limit, we will lose this opportunity... Peace should be concluded immediately”.

And again, “The Finnish delegation... signed a peace treaty on March 12. Its terms were extremely difficult... Finland’s strategic position was dealt a crushing blow... The peace treaty took away our security and freedom of foreign policy... For Finland itself, the political result of the Winter War was primarily the preservation of independence, bought at a high price. The mortal danger has been averted by the utmost exertion of forces of the whole nation... The people of Finland can be proud of their armed forces, which, although forced to yield to superior troops, remained unbroken” (quoted in Memoirs by Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, 2014).

3.

The other day Ukraine, Europe, and the world marked the tragic third anniversary of Russia’s bloody, large-scale aggression, which began on February 24, 2022 on Putin’s orders. Over this time, the Yalta-Helsinki world order was completely destroyed, the European security system built after the end of the Cold War collapsed and engulfed in flames like the twin skyscrapers in New York after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

Interestingly, the United States alone signed 1,100 peace treaties between 1990 and 2015 as part of building the international security architecture now being destroyed by the Russian aggression.

  * * *

Three years of war... 1097 days of suffering, death, destruction, and fear for the lives of children, loved ones, and those at the frontline. At the same time, 1097 days of courage, resistance, fierce, exhausting battles, and victories over a maddening enemy.

Now let’s compare the duration of Ukraine's resistance with similar indicators of some European countries in the twentieth century:

- Finland resisted the Soviet Union for 105 days (1939-1940).

The following countries managed to put an armed resistance to Nazi Germany (1939-1941):

- Norway, for 62 days;

- France, 46 days;

- Poland, 35 days;

- Belgium, 18 days;

- Yugoslavia, 11 days;

- Holland, 4 days;

- Denmark, 1 day.

Ukraine, with its weak oligarchic economy, fewer human resources, pacifist unprofessional establishment, and underprepared and poorly mobilized Armed Forces, thwarted the blitzkrieg of the “second army of the world,” dealt it some deadly blows, and humiliated Russia and Putin, scuttling their strategic plans to destroy an independent state.

The feat of the Ukrainian people and its Armed Forces will go down in world history.

In my new book “Ukraine’s Third World War” (Independent Ukrainian Media Center, 2024), I have used a new definition - “Ukraine’s VICTORYLOSS”. This is not a meaningless verbal oxymoron, but a capacious and complicated hybrid concept that conveys the tragic complexity and ambiguity of the phenomenon of the ongoing war.

On the one hand, most world analysts are convinced of the shameful defeat of Russia, which in three years has not achieved its main goals of destroying the Ukrainian State and enslaving the Ukrainian political nation.

On the other hand, this phrase testifies to a tragic loss for Ukraine, given the terrible irreplaceable demographic losses, massive mental stress, millions of refugees, exiles and wanderers, and the hardships caused by the destruction of energy infrastructure, housing, loss of fertile land, and other misfortunes.

The ambiguity of the VICTORYLOSS concept should not, however, give rise to capitulation, but rather strengthen the will to resist under conditions where there are no good solutions. All the options for ending the war that exist today are bitter and involve significant losses and painful compromises.

But there are two red and bloody lines that the nation must not cross if it wants to survive:

- Preserving the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a reliable defender of the people and the state;

- Ensuring the existence of the Ukrainian state as a guarantee of the indestructibility of our people, our land and our civilization (history, language, culture, and religion).

4.

In my opinion, the war between Russia and Ukraine has already escalated into World War III; I expressed this view back in 2015. General V.Zaluzhnyi believes that this war became a global war in 2024 due to the participation of North Korea and Iran assisting Russia’s military effort. A similar opinion has also been expressed by General K. Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, who said that most of the developed countries of the world are involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war, which means that World War III is already underway (Correspondent, 27/02/2025).

This war has not yet turned into a full-scale global nuclear conflict between the North and the South. However, global chaos, the destruction of the international security system, growing anxiety, the arms race, and the accelerated formation of military alliances - all these symptoms indicate the approach of an imminent explosion of the world volcano, and only a miracle can save humanity from a new global war.

Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, has proclaimed himself a Planetary Miracle, a World Wizard, a Savior of the Earth from all wars, an almighty Peacemaker and Peace-lover, whose coming to power in 2025 radically changed the geopolitical structure of the world, and turned upside down, as if in a surreal dream, the usual ideas of Good and Evil, enemies and friends, loyalty to the Fatherland and betrayal of it.

He is a narcissistic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and a complex sexual biography, a money-obsessed businessman, deeply immoral and cynical.  Watching his speeches and answers to questions, I, as a doctor, have come to believe that Donald Trump suffers from deep cerebral vascular sclerosis, which causes constant lies, confusion, forgetting numbers and facts, and continuous repetition of obsessive ideas.

And it doesn’t really matter whether Trump is formally a KGB agent “Krasnov” or not.  His loyalty to Putin goes much deeper than the obedience of a recruited spy. It is the obedience of a weak-minded slave to a cruel master, a spiritual groveling before him... (read Carl Jung’s “The Uncovered Self”). Therefore, I recommend that all domestic Trump-obsessives and Trumpophiles discard their good-natured illusions. Especially since behind Trump’s back there are much more frightening and dangerous figures, such as Elon Musk and J.D. Vance, behind whom their ideological guru Curtis Yarvin operates, the preacher of techno-fascism, zoological enemy of Ukraine and pro-Russian philosopher of darkness.

Ukraine should prepare for the worst-case scenario involving Donald Trump and his team. No wonder John Bolton, Trump’s former adviser, said that the president’s ceasefire agreement in Ukraine is “close to surrender.”

5.

“Bitterness cannot cloud our ability to think critically.” Let us remember these words of Mannerheim in moments of cruel choices. I would add: bitterness and illusions. Eternal Ukrainian naïve illusions - hopes for hetman Polubotko’s gold, Leopard tanks, Taurus missiles, mythical F-16s, the kindness of Grandpa Biden and the formidable figure of Trump or the charming smile of Ursula von der Leyen, who would save Ukraine.

Trump has sowed one of the most dangerous illusions in a war-torn country: the illusion of a quick peace, even though it is in Putin’s interest to drag this war out and achieve Ukraine’s complete surrender. One of the most destructive illusions is the Ukrainian belief in the magic wand of allied assistance. Unfortunately, the pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction, as the example of the United States shows.

Our allies do not include such close neighbors as Hungary and Slovakia. We could have lost Romania if the election had been won by Calin Georgescu who was just one step away from the presidency.

Austria, Greece, Serbia, and a number of other countries are not our allies, and 46 per cent of Germans are in favor of STOPPING military and financial assistance to Ukraine (sprotyv.info, 25.02.2025), despite the rise to power of CDU leader Friedrich Merz.

Because of Zelensky’s short-sightedness and rudeness, we are losing our closest and most natural ally, Poland, which accuses the Ukrainian leadership of betrayal, ingratitude, and complete subservience to German interests. At the same time, the Poles – Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition and the opposition PiS party - are playing along with a pro-Russian, noisy group of far-right politicians who are fanning the hostile myth of “Bandera’s Ukraine,” “Ukrainianization/ Banderization of Poland,” and demanding a law banning the sending of Polish soldiers to Ukraine as part of a European peacekeeping force.

I am not saying these unfortunate words just to sow despair, because we do have loyal friends in the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and the Baltic States, but we must be prepared for cruel and unexpected turns of history.

Nowadays, in the fourth year of intense fighting, Ukraine’s military and political fate is being decided. And today, more than ever, the question of changing the current leadership of the state and replacing the Zelensky-Yermak regime with a government of national unity with the participation of the opposition, led by a military leader, is being raised.

     Specifically, I am talking about General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.

6.

President Zelensky, who did not want (or could not) legitimize the continuation of his term in office by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, should, in my opinion, fulfil his promise and give up his attempt to be re-elected in the next election. And not because Trump and Putin, a scoundrel and provocateur who meddles in Ukrainian affairs with an Iudushka Golovlev (a character of the Saltykov-Shchedrin’s novel) smile, want him to.

Volodymyr Zelensky, who did not know well and never loved Ukraine (I remember how he proposed to confer the historical title of Great Ukrainian on the Odesa humorist Zhvanetsky instead of Taras Shevchenko), experienced both a fantastic surge of world fame in 2022-2023 and a shameful humiliation by the White House in 2025. He was very good at reading out brilliant speeches written by speechwriters but very clumsy and helpless at answering journalists’ questions, getting irritated and showing petty vindictiveness. History and, possibly, the court of law will assess his performance. He has, however, exhausted his potential and his star has faded.

Ukraine, which today is in need of the national and political unity more than ever (Zelensky is now a factor in the country’s divisiveness), deserves to be led by a man who has defended freedom and independence on battlefields; a man who understands not only purely military issues but also geopolitical, strategic, and national-historical ones; a president who would be trusted by the majority of society, even when making very difficult decisions.

A person who is capable of starting the construction of the Ukrainian State No.2, cleansing it of the dirt and shame of previous years. I see Valeriy Zaluzhnyi as such a person.

 * * *

I am ninety years old. I have no other dream than to live to see peace in Ukraine. I am convinced of the ultimate victory of Ukraine and the fall of Russia under the weight of the crimes committed by that nation. But this can happen in twenty or fifty years. I will not live to see it, but Ukrainians will.

We are stubborn. God and Taras Shevchenko are with us.

We will win.

Yuri SCHERBAK, writer; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States, Canada, and Israel; Chairman of the Board, Independent Media Forum

February 27-28, 2025