NATO Needs Russia ‘Ruined’ in Ukraine for Future Peace: Official

Only a “ruined” Russia can ensure peace on NATO’s eastern flank in the near future, a senior European defense official has said, as Kyiv’s Western allies look to recalibrate their wartime strategy after a disappointing 2023.

“Russia needs to walk away with the understanding that they lost, that they will lose the next war,” Kusti Salm—the permanent secretary at the Estonian Defense Ministry—told Newsweek in an exclusive interview from Tallinn.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears set on trying to stare down and outlast his Western enemies, an approach successful for the Kremlin in Ukraine in 2014, in its intervention in Syria, and in its invasion of Georgia in 2008.

The Russian leader, Salm said, must end his gamble in Ukraine knowing “that economically they are ruined, we outlasted them, we kept our industry on a better footing, we have the technological advantage, we have better training, better morale; that they don’t stand a chance.”

“They need to walk away with the understanding that international law and the rule-based world functions and that you cannot bend it as you wish.”

“This is the only way to draw a line there, so that this wouldn’t happen again. If one of those elements is not fulfilled, then in a few years we will face another crisis, and not only from Russia, because everyone is learning.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.

Moscow has been forced to pull units from all over the country to fill the manpower black hole developing in Ukraine. Among them are the airborne and Spetsnaz units traditionally deploying along Estonian borders, intended as the vanguard in any future Russian invasion of NATO.

Their mauling in Ukraine—where subunits of formations like the 76th Guards Air Assault Division have suffered up to 40 percent casualties—has given NATO’s frontier nations breathing room. But Salm and others have repeatedly warned that Russia’s border weakness will not least.

“We think that it’s three years before they will have the opportunity,” Salm said of Russia’s military recovery timelines. “Others go for five years, we have also heard seven or eight years. But the consensus is that they will regenerate, and they will come back. There is no one in intelligence, no one in defense circles who would dispute that.”

“For Europe, for NATO, it’s very simple,” Salm added. “If Ukraine fails, NATO will be next…Deterring needs a lot more effort, a lot more investment, a lot more shifts in public opinion. It’s actually a very high return on investment to keep on supporting Ukraine.”

Support for Ukraine has been resilient among Western publics, despite growing concerns about “Ukraine fatigue” among allied political elites. With the 2024 election looming in the U.S., there is now a fresh push for renewed peace talks by ceasefire advocates—as well as by long-time Kremlin sympathizers.

In Ukraine, too, the majority still back Kyiv’s goal of retaking all occupied territory per its internationally recognized 1991 borders, plus subsequent admission into NATO and the European Union. But that majority is shrinking, with a growing minority now leaning towards negotiations and potential concessions to end the fighting.

Ukraine’s underwhelming battlefield performance in 2023 has deepened concerns that full territorial liberation is overly ambitious. And as winter sets in, Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region are building momentum, having taken the city of Marinka and pushing to seize the fortress city of Avdiivka despite severe casualties.

Putin and his top officials have shown no willingness to soften their maximalist demands, repeatedly urging Kyiv to accept the “new territorial realities” of its occupation of swathes of the south and east of the country. Opponents of peace talks in Kyiv and abroad have warned that any deal would serve as no more than a ceasefire, allowing Moscow to refit and refocus for another future campaign.

NATO nations have been sluggish in meeting the demands of a modern, high intensity war in which they are not even direct combatants. Advanced weapons have arrived in Ukraine slowly, the mountains of required munitions remain undelivered, and the majority of alliance nations are yet to reach NATO’s 2 percent of GDP military spending target.

Estonia has long been at the hawkish edge of the 74-year-old alliance. The ex-Soviet republic shares a 210-mile border with its former imperial master. Estonia would be on the front line of any future Russia-NATO conflict, which leaders in Tallinn have repeatedly warned would be devastating for Estonia and its 1.3 million people.

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told Newsweek in May that NATO’s 2 percent target is insufficient given the danger posed by Putin’s expansionist kleptocracy, adding she was both “worried” and “surprised” at allied failures to raise spending.

The 2 percent figure should be a floor, not a ceiling, Kallas said, adding: “I have the feeling that some maybe think that this will just go away. But it’s not. I think it’s the new reality. And we have to be prepared for this, to actually, really execute our defense investment pledge that we have given.”

Kallas and other NATO leaders are pushing for a higher spending target alongside new packages of aid for Kyiv. EU officials are also mulling the idea of new “defense bonds” to help fund support for Ukraine and bolster collective European defense. Salm said Europe should have its sights set on such ambitious and historic projects.

“120 billion [euros, $133 billion] a year would be something that would do the trick; 0.25 percent of GDP,” the permanent secretary said. “It’s not a lot, it’s not a strategic topic, it’s not something that we cannot afford.”

“With that money you also ramp up your own industry, most of the money will remain in your own economies. It would be a stimulus package at a time of an incoming recession.”

Such a stimulus, Salm acknowledged, is some way off. “Europe hasn’t found a way to package this,” he said.