What's going to happen to Ukraine now?

The most likely scenario is some form of Finlandization.

Viewsridge, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Don’t worry, I’m going to write about the DOGE madness soon. But first I thought I’d write a little something about the Ukraine war.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 provided us with a moment of moral clarity. A powerful nation launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion of a weaker neighbor that didn’t threaten it at all. Instead of capitulating, the people of the invaded nation — with a little help from the free nations of the West — stood up and fought to defend their homes, their families, and their way of life. It was as simple a tale of right and wrong as you could find in Hollywood.

And yet over the next two years, much of the American right wing managed to convince themselves otherwise. Cobbling together a counter-narrative from sources as diverse as Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer, they blamed Ukraine for provoking its own invasion — claiming that Russia was threatened by the specter of NATO expansion, arguing that a powerful country like Russia deserved to control its own “sphere of influence”, intimating that parts of Ukraine might as well be Russian, and accusing Ukraine and its leaders of leeching off of American goodwill.

This inversion of common-sense morality — the idea that powerful nations deserve to be able to conquer weaker ones unopposed, and that regular people defending their homes and families are worthy of contempt — was an utterly shameful display, and largely failed to convince the American people. But it did convince a critical mass of Republicans, and now that Trump has won the election, it’s clear that the era of dependable American support for Ukraine is over.

But that doesn’t mean that Trump will simply flip America’s support to the Russian side and help Putin complete the conquest of his smaller neighbor. Because the MAGA people spent so much time advancing the (false) notion that America itself is at war in Ukraine, that means that if Russia overruns Ukraine now, Trump will feel like he lost a war. And Trump does not like to lose wars — witness how he made a deal with the Taliban to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, but set the date so that it would be after his term ended.¹

What’s more, the MAGA narrative on Ukraine was always that Putin was the reasonable one among the belligerents, and that Ukrainian intransigence was preventing a deal that would end the war. The story was that if Ukraine simply agreed to let Russia keep conquered territory, and agreed not to join NATO, Russia would gladly end the war. Indeed, every time a Trump peace plan is leaked, those are the contours of the deal:

Trump, who has long claimed that he would be able to negotiate an ending to the brutal invasion of Ukraine in a single day, is said to be working to end the war within 100 days…The unconfirmed plans, reported by Ukrainian outlet Strana, have been doing the rounds in 'political and diplomatic circles' in Ukraine, and will include a ceasefire by April 20 that would freeze Russia's steady advance, and a ban on Ukraine from joining NATO.

The problem is that the whole MAGA narrative about Russia’s motives is false, and was always false. Putin has always wanted to conquer all or most of Ukraine — that’s why his first attack in early 2022 was against the Ukrainian capital, and why he sent a military parade column toward Kyiv. It was never really about NATO, or about protecting Russian speakers, or any of that stuff. And as long as his army continues to advance and take more territory in Ukraine, his population is quiescent, and his military manufacturing is humming along, Putin naturally sees little reason to relent. He sees that he’s winning, and he wants to win it all.

Trump and his people are now waking up to this fact:

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump now concede that the Ukraine war will take months or even longer to resolve, a sharp reality check on his biggest foreign policy promise - to strike a peace deal on his first day in the White House…"For this to work, Trump has to persuade (Russian President Vladimir) Putin that there's a downside for being intransigent," [former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst] said…Russia has…sent mixed signals regarding a possible peace deal, welcoming direct talks with Trump, while dismissing some of the ideas put forth by his advisers as unworkable…Herbst pointed to comments earlier this month by Russia's UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, who said that the peace plans put forward by Trump's advisers were "nothing of interest."

Trump appears to be increasingly frustrated that Vladimir Putin isn’t playing along with the MAGA narrative. He has begun threatening to increase sanctions on Russia if no deal is reached:

President Trump threatened sanctions and tariffs on Russia if its leader, President Vladimir Putin, doesn’t reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine…Trump on Wednesday wrote on Truth Social that if the government cannot “make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”…Trump recently said he believes Ukraine “wants to make a deal”…In his statement Wednesday, Trump wrote…“I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin a very big FAVOR,” he wrote. “Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.”

And he has tried warning Russia that continuing the war is untenable:

“He [Putin] should make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on his first day back in the White House. “I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal. I think Russia is going to be in big trouble.”

More sanctions, of course, will do little to hurt Russia, since the U.S. has pretty much already done all it can do on that front. So Trump is now thinking about how to use the one real lever he has — continued aid to Ukraine:

President Donald Trump says he wants access to Ukraine’s bonanza of rare earth and critical minerals in exchange for the billions of dollars in military aid Washington has been supplying to Kyiv…It’s an idea previously suggested by Republican senators and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This actually wouldn’t be an empty or symbolic deal, either — Ukraine actually does have a substantial amount of mineral resources. Stepping up Ukraine would be a bit awkward for Trump, who campaigned on reducing that aid. But stranger things have happened in the world of foreign policy.

And in fact, continued aid to Ukraine might eventually be enough to bring Russia to the bargaining table. Although Russia’s troops have been taking territory, their advance has been very slow and costly in terms of casualties and equipment — modern ground warfare, with masses of drones and guided missiles, favors the defense.

Meanwhile, Trump is absolutely right when he says Russia’s economy is doing badly. It’s still growing, boosted by oil exports and war production.² But oil prices are not that high right now, and may be headed lower:

Trump has pledged to boost U.S. supply, which would send prices even lower. Meanwhile, Russia is not getting full market price from the Chinese, who are exercising their economic leverage over their nominal ally. And constant Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s oil refineries are going to cut into Russian fuel production.

As for war production, you can’t eat a tank, and the diversion of resources and manpower to the war effort is causing inflation to drift upward:

Source: Trading Economics

And those are the official numbers; the independent research company ROMIR says Russia’s inflation is actually more than 21%. In any case, controlling this inflation will require price controls (which lead to shortages), or higher interest rates (which hurt economic growth). The rouble is depreciating again, too, nearing the lows it experienced after a brief crash at the outset of the war; this means Russians won’t be able to afford as many imported goods.

The economic troubles aren’t at a crisis point yet, but they are probably causing strains in Russian society — birth rates are falling, crime is up, and elites are getting restless. It has now been three years since Russia invaded Ukraine; historically speaking, maintaining a high-intensity war effort for more than three or four years is pretty difficult. World War 1 lasted only four years, and the Korean War lasted three.

Nor does Ukraine look like it’s about to be overrun and conquered in the next year. Despite the constant drumbeat of headlines about Russian advances, on a map the amount of territory seized — about 1600 square miles in 2024 — looks pretty minor. As for the prospect that Ukraine’s military will collapse, that looks unlikely too — the country has far less manpower than Russia does, but it has enough to keep defending tenaciously and making Russia pay for every square mile of territory for a while yet.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s economy is growing, and domestic arms production is soaring. The country has built a bunch of hardened underground factories, and now claims to be able to produce 4 million drones per year. Even if Trump does decide to draw down U.S. aid to Ukraine, that will probably not cause Ukraine to collapse. The Ukrainians are not flimsy U.S. puppets; they’re dead set on defending their country against the invader by any means necessary, and they’re very good at making stuff.

So while the Russians isn’t ready to make a peace deal yet, if Trump puts increased economic and military pressure on them, there’s a decent chance they could be persuaded to accept the offer.

The next question is: What happens then?

Suppose Ukraine and Russia sign an armistice freezing the conflict near its current lines — or suppose Ukraine actually cedes the territories that Russia has already conquered. And suppose Ukraine also promises that it will never join NATO. On paper, or in the pages of Wikipedia, Russia will then be counted as the victor in the war — it will have taken territory from its opponent and forced major diplomatic concessions as well. Formally speaking, Ukraine will have lost the war.

But so did Finland. From 1939 to 1944, Finland fought two ferocious wars against the Soviet Union, called the Winter War and the Continuation War (which were really just two phases of the same war). Officially, it lost both, and was forced to concede significant territory to the Soviets:

By Jniemenmaa - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Finland was also forced to make diplomatic concessions — in a “treaty of friendship” it signed with the Soviets in 1948, it promised to remain a neutral country and to resist any Western invasion of the USSR. This created the system known as “Finlandization”, in which Finland remained outside the Western orbit, but retained its independence and its democratic system.

And yet Finland was never absorbed into the Soviet Union. As time went on, its relationship with the West grew and deepened, and it drifted slowly away from the Soviet orbit. As of 2025 — 34 years after the Soviet Union fell — Finland is a rich, democratic, and fiercely independent nation. It’s also in NATO.

In a very real way, the Winter War and the Continuation War were Finland’s war of independence from Russia. Finland may have lost the wars in a tactical sense, but in terms of the broader arc of history, it was an enduring victory.

If the Ukraine war ended like Finland’s wars, with territorial losses and promises not to join NATO, but with independence and democracy preserved, it will represent a tactical loss but a great strategic victory for Ukraine. It will all but ensure that Ukraine, like Finland after 1944, remains an independent nation into the foreseeable future.

Yes, Putin will try to rebuild his army and return for Round 2, but I predict this will be very difficult. For one thing, Ukraine will continue to arm itself to the teeth and build up a huge domestic defense industry. Even without NATO, it will continue to build deeper military and economic ties with various European countries. Ukraine’s demographics aren’t favorable, but neither are Russia’s.

My bet is that Ukraine’s leaders have already thought along these lines. I predict that they’re probably ready to take the plunge and sign a deal of the type Trump is proposing, even though doing so could spell the end of their political careers. And because Putin almost certainly understands this historical parallel, he’s reluctant to make that deal — he knows it means that most of Ukraine will semi-permanently escape Russia’s orbit, fulfilling the dreams that Ukrainian nationalists have cherished for over 150 years. But if it’s a choice between that and a catastrophe in Russia, I think he might take the deal anyway.

In other words, given Ukraine’s inherent military weaknesses — a lack of manpower, and a small population compared to Russia’s — Trump’s deal is probably the best they can get. So if Trump really wants to follow through on his campaign promise and end the war, his primary task is to convince Russia, by hook or by crook, that his deal is the best they can get.

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1. Of course when he made the deal he didn’t know he’d lose the 2020 election. But agreeing to withdraw from Afghanistan *after* the 2020 election massively reduced the risk of a political backlash over a chaotic withdrawal (as happened to Biden).

2. I do suspect that the value of Russia’s war production is inflated a bit. I think they may be counting refurbishment of old Soviet weapons as new production, even though this is actually quite a bit cheaper and easier than making totally new weapons. But I doubt this will change the basic narrative.