Ukraine’s war effort can’t succeed without political goal, and peace without guarantees risks civil war, Zaluzhnyi warns

In the final months of 2025, Ukraine’s former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi published an opinion piece in Liga, reflecting on the absence of a defined political goal during the war against Russia — a failure he argues has made any military strategy ineffective.

No strategy without a political goal

In his op-ed, published on 29 November, Zaluzhnyi, now Ukraine's Ambassador to the UK, writes that by the end of 2023, his team began questioning why the war effort felt increasingly strained despite earlier progress. Despite technological progress and operational clarity, Zaluzhnyi writes that a full-fledged strategy tied to a political goal was still lacking.

"According to [Prussian military theorist] Clausewitz, speaking of war as a continuation of politics by other means, it is implied that strategy cannot have a rational basis until the goals that need to be achieved are clearly defined," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

The former commander says that without political will — formed through a political goal — no military strategy will bring results.

He recalls ordering a review of all directives sent to the General Staff and writes that they revealed no political goal. He suggests this was not an oversight, noting that their search revealed nothing that defined a political goal. He argues that without a political goal, political will cannot form, and no effort can achieve results.

Zaluzhnyi notes that war in 2023 changed dramatically, becoming increasingly influenced by economic forces. Ukrainian reliance on Western weapons highlighted the vulnerability of this dependency. Weapons would change over time, and partners would eventually no longer have them to supply. 

“Finally, after the consequences of the decisions made in the field of mobilization began to cause their disproportionate damage, everything fell into place,” Zaluzhnyi says.

Russia had a goal from the start

In contrast, Zaluzhnyi says Russia’s leadership formed a clear political goal well before launching the full-scale invasion. He argues that starting in mid-2019, Moscow prepared thoroughly — deploying troops, investing heavily in its military, and exploiting international institutions’ weaknesses. According to him, Russia’s goal was not to "protect" "Russian-speaking citizens" or reclaim territory, but to erase Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.

"Russia is not interested in the Donetsk or Luhansk regions, except for their mobilization potential," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

As a result, Zaluzhnyi believes Russia initially pursued a strategy of defeat — a rapid military campaign designed to crush Ukraine before it could respond. With over 100 battalion tactical groups and thousands of armored vehicles and aircraft amassed near Ukraine’s borders by late 2021, the Russian Armed Forces held a major advantage. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s army, according to him, suffered from years of underfunding, personnel shortages, and limited access to modern equipment.

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Zaluzhnyi describes how Ukraine entered 2022 with only 24 combat brigades — half of which were already engaged in combat. He writes that the remaining 12 brigades were the ones available to be sent into full-scale combat. 

When defeat failed, Russia shifted to attrition

According to Zaluzhnyi, Russia’s failure to defeat Ukraine quickly in early spring 2022 led to a strategic pivot. By April 2022, he says Russia began executing a strategy of attrition — designed not to win battles outright but to wear down Ukraine’s resources, economy, morale, and society. Zaluzhnyi writes that this strategy aimed to prolong the war and create the conditions for Ukraine’s political collapse.

He notes that after liberating parts of Kharkiv and the right-bank of Kherson oblast, Ukraine achieved few operational successes. The result, he argues, was a shift toward a positional war — one defined by a lack of reserves, weak preparation, and limited operational capacity on both sides. He believes Russia used this pause to entrench defenses, scale its economy for wartime production, and prepare for a prolonged conflict.

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In contrast, Zaluzhnyi says Ukraine misread the moment. He writes that inflated expectations for 2023, including dreams of reclaiming Crimea, distracted from the preparation required for a long war.

The goal is to collapse Ukraine from within

Zaluzhnyi warns that Russia’s attrition strategy is not primarily military but political and economic. The ultimate goal, he says, is to trigger internal disintegration:

"Simply put, the enemy is trying to create social tension, losses in manpower, and excessive expenditure of financial resources by conducting military operations today," he wrote.

Zaluzhnyi says symbolic geographical and cultural targets, turned into fortresses, serve the enemy’s strategy more than capturing land.

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He writes that the decisive blow in the strategy of attrition is civil war. He says Russia aims for collapse through civil war — not by battlefield losses, but by building internal fractures and exploiting societal vulnerabilities. 

He draws on military theory, including works by Soviet military theorist Alexander Svechin, to argue that attrition aims to deny the enemy the material basis for resistance. He says that forcing Ukraine to shoot down 9,000 air targets a month is a direct implementation of the attrition strategy.

Victory means Russia’s collapse — not a line on the map

According to Zaluzhnyi, military success alone cannot end the war. Even retaking Ukraine’s 1991 borders would not guarantee peace if Russia remains capable and willing to continue. He argues that true victory means the collapse of the Russian Empire, and anything else is merely a continuation of the war. 

He believes military action under attrition is not about decisive campaigns but about positioning — building toward a moment when a collapse can be engineered economically and politically. Conversely, he warns that Russia is preparing its economy and population to sustain conflict, aiming to bring Ukraine to disintegration.

What Ukraine must do now

Zaluzhnyi outlines Ukraine’s evolving political goals across key phases of the war. These stages reflect shifting priorities—from preventing war to surviving a prolonged conflict and shaping a just peace:

1. Feb 2015 – Feb 2022: Preventing War
   Goal: Avoid conflict by strengthening the military, society, and economy, and by limiting Russia’s capabilities through foreign policy. Practical measures would have included full-spectrum war preparation, martial law, and early force deployment.

2. Feb 24, 2022 – Dec 2023: Destruction Strategy
   Goal: Secure a stable peace and contain the invasion; if impossible, prepare for a long war of attrition.

3. Feb 2024 – Jan 2025: Strategic Defense & Alliance Building
   Goal: Conduct strategic defense while forming alliances to support an attrition strategy aimed at achieving a just peace.

4. Jan 2025 – Aug 2025: Strategic Defense in Negotiation Phase
   Goal: Prevent Russia from leveraging battlefield gains to dictate peace terms.

5. From Aug 2025: State Preservation & Coalition Building
   Goal: Sustain political, military, and economic resilience while forming coalitions to strip Russia of its ability to continue the war.

He implies that without a political goal, Ukraine has reacted to events rather than directing the course of the war.

He argues that political leaders must define such a goal immediately. It should unite all fronts — military, political, economic — into a coordinated strategy. He writes that without a political goal, military efforts risk becoming directionless and unable to achieve a final peace.

"[P]erhaps the main political goal for Ukraine is to deprive Russia of the opportunity to carry out acts of aggression against Ukraine in the foreseeable future," Zaluzhnyi wrote.

A fragile peace is not enough

Zaluzhnyi warns that efforts to end the war through superficial agreements, while avoiding the hard questions of security and statehood, are doomed. He believes the post-war situation will leave both Ukraine and Russia politically and economically damaged, requiring safeguards against collapse.

He concludes that the most difficult test is political thinking — defining a political goal that turns Ukraine from a survivor into a just, secure, and technologically advanced state. He warns that without a defined political goal, Ukraine risks not only military failure but also potential political disintegration.