What Happened to America’s Leverage With Russia?

Where has US leverage with Russia gone? More than a year after Russia launched its full-scale attack against Ukraine, there is a growing consensus in Western policy circles about what the path to a negotiated settlement looks like. 

The formula goes something like this: Ukraine will launch a successful military offensive this spring and summer — one which makes gains large enough to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin that his war is unwinnable, but does not go so far (for example, by attempting to retake Crimea) as to encourage him to escalate.

Russia will undoubtedly refuse to back down from its maximalist demands unless it suffers more losses on the battlefield. In that case, since he has deliberately left vague the definition of what constitutes “victory,” Putin could plausibly agree to cut his losses for the time being and spin his “special military operation” as a success at home. He could also frame any cessation of hostilities as a temporary strategic necessity while leaving open the possibility of future military action.

Yet this new conventional wisdom fails to account for key variables. For one, it depends on the success of Ukraine’s imminent offensive, which is anything but guaranteed. Russia’s forces are now more entrenched and better prepared than they were last autumn to repel a Ukrainian assault. And if Ukrainian soldiers and equipment are substantially attritted over the coming months for only marginal gains, then political support for Kyiv may begin to wane even before Western military-industrial production has ramped up in earnest. 

Faced with this set of circumstances, Putin could opt to press his advantage by continuing the fight, rattling Ukraine’s morale even if Russian troops prove largely unable to move the frontline.

Perhaps more importantly, as Liana Fix recently argued at a colloquium convened by the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, what leverage the West has to force Russia to the negotiating table is unclear. Faced with other setbacks, Putin has thus far opted to double down rather than cut his losses, much as he did when he annexed four Ukrainian regions following Kyiv’s successful Kharkiv counteroffensive last autumn.

A recently published Quincy Brief highlights at least two of the reasons underpinning this lack of leverage.

One reason concerns the open-ended nature of the Western sanctions campaign against Russia, not only since the start of all-out war in February 2022, but also dating back to the aftermath of the Euromaidan crisis of 2014. An approach rooted in sticks but few (if any) carrots provides Moscow with little incentive to compromise, given the minimal chances of sanctions relief. 

Without clearly spelling out the conditions under which economic restrictions might be lifted, Russia will naturally conclude that the only possible gains it can achieve are on the battlefield, further empowering voices in Moscow who view disentangling Russia’s relations with the West as an opportunity rather than a risk.

While some contend that the United States and Europe continued their economic and diplomatic engagement with Russia between 2014 and 2022, and that the West’s approach was therefore not devoid of carrots, such engagement was more formal than substantial. This is due to the second reason why the West lacks leverage to coax Putin to the table: a fundamental unwillingness to reconcile the different visions for European security that have divided the European continent for decades. 

From the Western point of view, the degree of mutually beneficial cooperation between Western institutions (e.g., NATO and the EU) and countries such as Ukraine is purely a matter for them to decide: no third party can impede on the latter’s freedom to choose their orientation. By contrast, Russia understandably finds the notion that it has no right to have a say over the geopolitical orientation of states that lie on its border to be problematic.

Since the onset of full-scale war, Russian politicians and media have increasingly adopted a chauvinistic discourse around Ukraine. This has led many to conclude that Russia’s war of aggression is rooted primarily in imperialist rather than security-related impulses. No doubt, the national-imperial dimension of Russia’s relationship with Ukraine cannot be ignored. Questions concerning the nature of Russian nationhood — and whether Russia and Ukraine represent a single people — have been debated among the Russian intellectual elite for centuries and remain unresolved since the Soviet Union’s collapse.

However, the nature of Russia’s relationship with Europe — whether (or to what extent) Russia should join it or emulate it — is a subject that boasts an equally long pedigree. For Russia, the question of Ukraine’s status is both a national issue concerning the litigated boundaries of the Russian nation and a geopolitical issue concerning the rights of presumed great powers.

While Western countries are certainly under no obligation to accept Russia’s perspectives on these questions, they touch at the heart of Russian national identity-related debates, whether as a people or as a power. Diplomatically and strategically, the West cannot avoid confronting them.

Assertions that Russia has purely been waging a war of imperial aggression against Ukraine since 2014 miss the mark. The Minsk agreements, aimed at ending the Donbas War, sought to reintegrate the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk into Ukraine as a means of increasing Moscow’s leverage over Kyiv — and ultimately preventing a NATO-Ukraine rapprochement. While Moscow’s strategy evidently failed, Russia did not recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics” until the eve of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although the Minsk process was focused on the conditions necessary to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity, considerations related to Europe’s security order were a key underlying issue.

Yet while Western leaders have often favored developing “stable and predictable” relations with Russia and have been open to talks on issues such as arms control and strategic stability, they have been categorically unwilling to put the status of Ukraine up for discussion. The implication, intended or not, is that Western governments are averse to discussing the nature of Russia’s relationship to the European security order. 

So long as this remains the case, the conflict over Ukraine will remain unresolved and Europe’s security will be subject to an escalation ladder which no single actor can completely control. Russia will retain an incentive to undermine any continental order that leaves it as an effective rule-taker rather than a rule-maker – whether its approach is driven by a desire for security or for status is ultimately beside the point.

Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive may succeed spectacularly, perhaps even moving the country substantially toward the goal of reclaiming the “land bridge” to Crimea currently under Russian occupation.

But whether Moscow reacts to this by coming to the table or by doubling down will depend on whether it deems itself capable of achieving some of its aims diplomatically rather than militarily. This, in turn, depends on whether Western countries choose to demonstrate their openness to discussing the parameters of the continental security order.

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