"We must not humiliate Russia," French President Emmanuel Macron said recently, "in order to prepare an exit ramp through diplomatic channels when the war ceases." His statement may have a good intention, but the objective is unattainable. Any genuine peace, one that prevents future wars and ensures Ukraine's survival as a democratic state, must entail some form of humiliation for Russia.Even if the West and Ukraine go to great lengths to avoid insulting Russians and their ruler, Vladimir Putin, this will be the case. This is due to the fact that shame occurs only when two people are present. Whether the West humiliates Russia is determined as much as, if not more than, how Russians feel themselves.
Many Russians saw their country as a divinely-endowed powerhouse with a messianic role in Ukraine, Eurasia, and, eventually, the entire world. Such a divinely inspired state must expand because territorial expansion is a requirement of its earthly mission of promoting its culture, values, and spirit among the heathens who have strayed from the one true path by adopting liberalism, promoting libertinism, and assuming that democracy is superior to dictatorship rule.
Putin's works and speeches, as well as those of the fascist philosophers Aleksandr Dugin and Ivan Ilyin, the recently deceased populist rabble-rouser Vladimir Zhirinovsky, former Russian Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev, Patriarch Kirill, and a slew of propagandists, pamphleteers, and dime-novelists, all agree on the broad outlines of such a worldview, which has
Any defeat, no matter how minor, any criticism, no matter how minor, any slight, no matter how insignificant, is interpreted as a fatal affront, an attempt to humiliate God's divine proxy by individuals who have such a grandiose self-perception. Ironically, such sensitivity also indicates a lingering doubt about Russia's proclaimed superiority. If you tell the French or Americans that their cultures are inferior, they will laugh at you. If you tell a Russian that you aren't fully enamored with their culture, they will insult you and try to persuade you that you are mistaken.
This means that any settlement based on Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty — that is, any peace that requires Russia to withdraw from at least the territory it has occupied since the war began on February 24 — will entail some sort of Russian defeat and humiliation.
Regardless of how or how much Ukraine wins the conflict, Russia will suffer humiliation. Indeed, as numerous Russian analysts have pointed out, many Russians are already humiliated, and the battle is far from done. It's understandable that they feel this way. Russia failed to take Kyiv; it was forced to withdraw from Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy provinces; it was unable to take Kharkiv; its grip on Kherson province is becoming increasingly shaky; and it has mostly failed to accomplish the much-anticipated breakthrough in the Donbas.
Russia has failed by every metric. In many areas, Ukraine has beaten Russia. And Russia's chances of prevailing are slim, especially if and when the Ukrainians get Western heavy weaponry in time for a late-summer counter-offensive.
Given the deep embarrassment that many Russians must already feel, and the magnitude of their humiliation, suggesting that humiliation should be avoided, as Macron stated, is similar to stating that the Russian invasion should have been prevented on February 23.
That's a noble counterfactual thinking experiment, but it's not a policy guidance.
Thus, the challenge before Ukraine and the West is to lessen the degree and depth of Russia's humiliation, not to avert humiliation altogether. The most expedient way to accomplish this is to precipitate Russia's defeat.
The longer Russia takes to recognize its defeat, the more Russians will die unnecessarily, the more economic misery they will face, and the greater their humiliation would be when the war ends and they realize their efforts, sacrifices, and sorrows were in vain. And, as Macron suggests, countries that have been severely humiliated are lousy peace partners.
If the Russians lose quickly, the shock and disappointment will be severe, but the humiliation will be little. Their authorities can blame the nefarious NATO alliance, or they could use Russia's huge propaganda machine to turn defeat into a Pyrrhic victory, in which Holy Russia fought Evil in a gallant, if uneven, battle. The resulting peace would very certainly be long-lasting, as it would ensure the victorious existence of Ukraine and the humiliation of defeated Russia.
A Russian triumph would be the only way to escape any type of humiliation, as it would mean achieving all of Putin's strategic goals: the total annihilation of Ukraine and Russia's ongoing advance into Eurasia's surrounding states. If Macron and his like-minded Western backers find that option unacceptable, and if they want a genuine peace, they have no choice but to militarily help Ukraine and work toward its victory as quickly as possible.
Rutgers University-Alexander Newark's J. Motyl is a political science professor. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books, including "Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires" and "Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective." He is an expert on Ukraine, Russia, and the former Soviet Union, as well as nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory.
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