Time is not on Putin’s side. A temporary freeze in the conflict would improve Kyiv’s chances of getting its territory back later
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, attends a meeting of European leaders in Paris as part of international efforts to end the war with Russia Credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty
03 September 2025
Given that neither Washington nor Europe is willing to provide the force needed for an immediate Ukrainian battlefield triumph, realism demands an alternative. The least-bad option now looks like a managed freeze that preserves Ukraine’s legal claims while buying the time Kyiv needs to outlast and outcompete Moscow.
Call it a “Korean” freeze with a “German” endgame – a pause that rejects de jure recognition of stolen territory, locks in robust security guarantees now, and invests in Ukraine’s capacity to eventually undo the occupation. This would not be a surrender but strategic time-buying.
That judgment is grim but practical. Winning time is likely to benefit Ukraine for three reasons. First: Russia’s economy is teetering. The kleptocratic structure, sanctions, capital flight, military overreach and war distortions are all eroding Russian capabilities. Interest rates and inflation reek of banana republic mismanagement.
Second: Washington. Domestic politics in the United States impose real limits on what the White House can credibly commit to long-term: American public opinion and sharp partisan splits make open-ended escalation politically fraught. From now on, the US will continue to see Russia as primarily a European problem.
However, Donald Trump is likely to be the last US president beholden to the outdated Cold War reflex, under which even the slightest rebuke of the Russian bear is feared to be the prelude to global conflict. This is the likely root cause of the argument that neighbouring states simply need to suck it up and accept vassal status, despite the fact that the “bear” is seriously moth-eaten and that most previous Soviet states have already successfully managed to break free.
Third: Europe is waking up. Disarmament and dependence on Russian energy were embarrassingly naive decisions but that course is being corrected. As Europe steps up, the relics in Moscow will no doubt continue to orchestrate the relative decline of Russia.Every year for decades, freed former Soviet states have continued to widen the GDP per capita gap with their former oppressor.
A managed freeze would not be an abdication of principle if it is accompanied by ironclad, verifiable conditions. The essentials are simple and enforceable: no legal recognition of territorial change; multilayered security guarantees for Ukraine, including air defences, munitions, rotational training and secure spare-parts pipelines; automatic, reversible sanctions-triggers for any material breach by Russia; and an investment programme to accelerate the gulf in living standards between free and occupied zones.
Those ingredients would transform a pause from a diplomatic limbo into another contest of systems. A march that could end, over years rather than decades, with a reunited Ukraine that by then has outcompeted the occupier much as West Germany outpaced East Germany.
Legal claims preserved
Critics will say a freeze rewards aggression or normalises land theft. That misunderstands the plan. A freeze as I describe it explicitly preserves legal claims and keeps sanctions and political pressure on the table; it merely acknowledges the battlefield reality today while making a future reversal of Russia’s fortunes more likely than acquiescence (it also acknowledges how the free world military and security community vastly exaggerates the strength of the Russian Potemkin country). So strategic time-buying would be a calibrated, reversible policy designed to erode Moscow’s capacity and legitimacy until a political and economic re-ordering becomes possible.
For Ukrainians living under occupation, a pause will feel unsatisfying unless it tangibly improves prospects for a return of their land. That is why any negotiated standstill must be accompanied by fast, visible Western support and credible monitoring – not empty rhetoric. The US and Britain must also be ready to play a disproportionate role in line with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum: sustaining specialised capabilities, supporting Nato’s eastern flank,and pressing for enforcement mechanisms in concert with European partners.
History offers both warning and consolation. Korea’s armistice has frozen a terrible conflict for decades; Germany’s division, by contrast, ended in reunification once economic and political incentives shifted. The West should opt for a strategy that accelerates the latter trajectory: accepting a temporary, conditional freeze today to make a genuinely free, reunited Ukraine more likely tomorrow.
This is ugly realism. It asks politicians and publics to tolerate an interim injustice for the sake of a better eventual outcome. But where the alternatives are perpetual slaughter or a half-hearted, unsustainable escalation, a disciplined pause – with teeth and funding – is the clear, strategic choice. Given everything, a frozen front now really does appear to be the prize for future freedom.
After having been outplayed by Putin ever since returning to the White House, Donald Trump now has a chance to save face by pushing the approach described – making clear that Russia will receive no concessions beyond temporary, non-recognised control of the territory it has stolen.
Mark Brolin is a geopolitical strategist and the author of ’Healing Broken Democracies: All You Need to Know About Populism’
I do not agree with this article, but I have a horrible fear that this is the direction the wind is blowing.
In 2003, Dubya persuaded Tony Blair to join him in his invasion of Iraq and overthrow of the highly putlerish turd Saddam.
Saddam had a population at the time of 23m and an armed forces of c.550,000.
Dubya sent 500,000 US personnel and Blair sent 50,000 of his forces. Both had claimed that the reason for the invasion was Saddam’s WMD’s, which were unfortunately not found.
The allies were aided tremendously by 100,000 Peshmerga, who later again proved their value in the defeat of Isis.
As it happens I was in favour of the war for several reasons, but mainly because of the Halabja massacre, in which Saddam used an unbelievably terrible WMD; mustard gas, to murder 5000 Kurds, purely out of hatred. Another 10,000 survived but their lives were ruined. But there had been numerous other gas attacks on Kurds using other terrible stuff like cyanide and sarin.
Saddam was genocidal, had rape rooms and torture rooms in his palaces and had psychopathic sons who terrorized the population; literally doing whatever they liked.
The result of the war was the toppling of the Saddam regime, but then Dubya inexplicably allowed Iraq to become a Shia regime/Iran satellite.
As Mark Brolin says, “neither Europe or Washington is willing to provide the force needed for an immediate Ukrainian battlefield triumph.”
How utterly shameful is that? To leave a civilised Christian country that loves US and European values at the mercy of degenerate savages who are worse than Saddam, Isis and Hamas combined, for eleven years?
Ukraine is now being forced to give up land to dirty heathens or fight on for another ten years.
It makes me sick.
I also do not agree with this article. Rewarding mafia land with land, regardless if permanently or temporary, is the complete wrong way to go.
“…neither Europe or Washington is willing to provide the force needed for an immediate Ukrainian battlefield triumph.”
Nonstop cowardice, perpetual dog shit.