Ukraine should negotiate an end to its war with Russia, and be prepared to trade ‘peace for land’.
That’s the view of one of Britain’s most senior retired military leaders, a former chief of the defence staff, general David Richards (lord Richards), expressed in a surprising interview with the BBC on 20 February. The full transcript of his interview is below. We should point out that we have not found any reporting of this interview, or of Richards’s call for negotiations, in any British newspaper, or even on the BBC News website.
The US general
Richards joins US general Mark Milley, who publicly and repeatedly argued along similar lines while still the head of the US armed forces, as chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, in November 2022, as PN has previously reported (PN 2665)
‘When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment,’ general Milley said on 9 November 2022, speaking to the Economic Club of New York about Ukraine.
The New York Times reported on 10 November 2022 that Milley had argued in private top-level meetings for Ukraine to enter peace negotiations with Russia. Milley was said to believe that the Ukrainians had achieved as much as they could reasonably expect on the battlefield, before winter set in, ‘and so they should try to cement their gains at the bargaining table’.
In White House discussions, Milley, making a hardheaded assessment of the military realities, and citing satellite images of trenches being dug by Russian forces, was reported to have referred to the example of the First World War: ‘when the two sides engaged in years of trench warfare with little change in territory but millions of pointless casualties.’
Milley spoke out publicly on similar lines on US television on 10 November, and then again at a press conference on 16 November 2022: ‘There may be a political solution where politically the Russians withdraw.... The Russian military is suffering tremendously.... You want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength, and your opponent is at weakness.’
Today, the war has, as Milley predicted, bogged down into a stalemate. Ukraine’s top general, general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, admitted as much in December, telling the Economist: ‘Just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.’ (Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy sacked Zaluzhnyi as head of the Ukrainian armed forces in February.)
The British general
Let’s turn to general David Julian Richards, who was head of the British armed forces (chief of the defence staff) from 2010 to 2013. In retirement, Richards was put into the House of Lords, becoming baron Richards of Herstmonceux in February 2014.
At the moment, we are asking very brave Ukrainians, and the population as a whole, to fight a war which we’re not resourcing them to win – we haven’t even defined victory – and that they’re unlikely to succeed in, and therefore there is a growing case for saying we need to negotiate with Russia
Richards was interviewed on Radio 4’s PM programme on 20 February (the interview with him begins 47 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording). Presenter Evan Davis asked Richards what ‘victory’ in the war might mean for Ukraine. Richards responded by outlining different ways that the war might develop, including Russian victory over the whole of Ukraine (not possible) and Ukraine retaking all of its territory from Russia (not feasible).
Richards said the most likely outcome was that the war would ‘rumble on, very destabilising to the rest of Europe, economically sapping, huge casualty figures for both sides – but the Ukrainians have got a much smaller population, and that that is something that we shouldn’t tolerate.’
Richards criticised the West for not saying what ‘victory’ could mean for the Ukrainians in this war: ‘No one has defined what it is that we wish them [to achieve] or hope that they will achieve.’
Back in June 2022, Richards had criticised Western policy towards Ukraine, writing: ‘There is, at best, what might be termed incremental strategy with again no early and decisive synchronisation of ends, ways and means. It is a “let’s see how it goes” “strategy”, in other words not really strategy at all. There is still little idea in London, Washington or elsewhere how “we” want the war to pan out, or what sort of Russia we are seeking to shape, especially on the vital long-term issue of relations with China.’
Richards had suggested back then that the war should be taken as an opportunity to win Russia over to the West, isolating China.
Returning to the PM interview in February, Richards said: ‘at the moment, we are asking very brave Ukrainians, and the population as a whole, to fight a war which we’re not resourcing them to win – we haven’t even defined victory – and that they’re unlikely to succeed in, and therefore there is a growing case for saying we need to negotiate with Russia.’
Richards argued that Ukraine should negotiate a compromise to end the war. Ukraine should ‘trade peace for land, in some way’, giving up its claim to some or all of the territory currently held by Russia.
Richards suggested one way to spin this retreat from Ukraine’s current war goals: ‘you can represent it, I think, as a Russian strategic failure while they [the Ukrainians] have gained some ground’, retaking land captured by Russia in 2022.
Richards condemned the current Western policy of not giving Ukraine the weapons and the ‘operational freedom’ to strike Russia hard, while also admitting that striking Russia hard could lead to ‘escalation’, a word which means, in the end, risking nuclear war.
Neither the current level of Western support nor a ‘strike Russia hard’ policy would be helpful for Ukraine or for the international community, said Richards: ‘none of that is any good for any of us and in the meanwhile a lot of good people are dying.’
Richards added: ‘I’ve seen a bit of war, and you’re seeing it play out again in Gaza. War is the very last resort and we seem to too often treat it as the first resort and we’ve got to get back to diplomacy and seek some sort of resolution to it.’
TRANSCRIPT
Below is a transcript of the full interview on the PM programme on 20 February 2024 (the interview with him begins 47 minutes and 40 seconds into the recording). ‘BBC’ refers to the presenter, Evan Davis. ‘DR’ refers to general David Richards.
BBC: Can we just start looking back? What surprises have occurred in this war? What have you learned in the two years so far?
DR: Well, good afternoon, Evan, good to be back on your programme. And I remember when I last spoke, one of the things I said was that I was concerned that the West, if you like, as a whole, and certainly NATO, were under-emphasising Russian strength and resilience. If you like, they were writing them off too early. And, I think, it’s a negative answer to your question in a way, that understanding of war which I had as, you know, as a general who studied it for 42 years and did a bit of it, that has been reinforced.
Early on, there was far too much optimism about what essentially is quite a small country that was not being properly resourced by its allies and had shortages of manpower, was going to take on and beat Russia. Now Russia made some very silly mistakes early on, but Russia historically has bounced back from these setbacks and that is what we have seen and I think that is the biggest lesson, which is that you must never underestimate your enemy, and know your enemy, as the Chinese solder-philosopher Sun Tzu famously said in 500 BC.
BBC: I do remember and I think people might have thought you were a bit defeatist in the early part of the war, when it all seemed to be going terribly badly for the Russians, and you were saying: ‘Hang on a minute, this doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where it ends.’ Okay, let’s look forward, though. What’s the, sort of, the best outcome? I’m sort of.... The word ‘victory’ seems a difficult one to apply realistically to either side, I guess. But what would you be looking for?
DR: Well, I think here is the nub of a big problem. Because the West has said we will back Ukraine and president Zelenskyy ‘for as long as it takes’ and other ridiculous statements like that. No one has defined what it is that we wish them [to achieve] or hope that they will achieve. President Zelenskyy has made it quite clear that it’s the recovery of all the ground taken by Russia since at least 2014, and sometimes I think they go back further than that. I don’t think... If ever that opportunity was possible, it was towards the end of the first year. I don’t think that is any longer feasible. And nor, I suspect, do the Western backers of Ukraine. So now we’re looking, I suspect, and these are the three broad scenarios, at a Russian victory, I don’t think that’s likely....
BBC: But hang on I’m going to apply the same question you do. What does ‘Russian victory’ look like? Because their goal was to take the whole country, they’re not going to do that, are they?
DR: Well, that’s a really important point, Evan. You could have made a great soldier, I’ve told you that before. One of the goals here was to take back, if you like, at least get authority over, the whole country. They signally failed to do that in the first year. And NATO is now much stronger and, you know, is not going to allow Russia, I’m convinced, to sort of be bold in the years to come in the way some people are saying, you know, even threatening NATO countries.
I think what Russia probably would be content with, now, is to keep on to the four oblasts, of which Donbass is one, and Crimea, but that is a very difficult thing for the Ukrainians to accept, for obvious reasons.
BBC: That was your Scenario 1, then, Russia basically keeps half the country, or a third of the country.
DR: Well, it’s only 18 percent, but it’s still very difficult for the Ukrainians.
Another outcome, possibly, is that Ukraine gets into a position of a military advantage, and that’s what they were seeking to do in the counter-offensive last year, that failed. But we give them another go, if you like, this year, and Russia sees that actually while they may hold onto quite a lot of that territory they’ve gained, they’re never going to actually achieve it all, and certainly not the success they’re after.
There is therefore.... My feeling is this is going to rumble on, very destabilising to the rest of Europe, economically sapping, huge casualty figures for both sides, but the Ukrainians have got a much smaller population, and that that is something that we shouldn’t tolerate.
So I come back to the most likely option, which is that you trade peace for land, in some way. But you can represent it, I think, as a Russian strategic failure while they have gained some ground.
BBC: Essentially, are you saying it would be better, it would be cheaper, it would be better in humanitarian terms, to negotiate now?
DR: My own view is that, at the moment, we are asking very brave Ukrainians, and the population as a whole, to fight a war which we’re not resourcing them to win – we haven’t even defined victory – and that they’re unlikely to succeed in, and therefore there is a growing case for saying we need to negotiate with Russia along the lines I’ve just said.
BBC: It’s a very interesting one. Because there was a line going around earlier in the war that the West is giving them just enough to keep it going, to Ukraine, just enough to keep it going but never remotely enough to win, and it wasn’t clear what the benefit of that was.
DR: Well, that’s exactly where I fear we’ve been. And it’s okay doing that for a while if you can see some movement, strategically. But there is no movement. And I know, I’ve seen a bit of war, and you’re seeing it play out again in Gaza. War is the very last resort and we seem to too often treat it as the first resort and we’ve got to get back to diplomacy and seek some sort of resolution to it.
BBC: Is it a lack of Western leadership or a lack of Western strategy? It’s very unco-ordinated, isn’t it? Different countries making donations to Ukrainian effort.
DR: Well, I think NATO’s come out of it quite well, actually. There’s a very superb secretary-general in Stoltenberg, but I think that the political level above that is fractured and at the end of the day they don’t want to do, exactly as you said, what is required to do, that is to give the Ukrainians the resources and in a way more importantly the operational freedoms, ie to attack Russia in ways that will really hurt Russia – because they fear escalation, which remains an unlikely possibility, but you know poke the Russian bear for too long and too hard then that, I’m afraid, comes back into the equation. And none of that is any good for any of us and in the meanwhile a lot of good people are dying.
