On Tuesday, 29 October 2024, the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Centre for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, with organisational support of the GDIP, held a roundtable discussion entitled Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan and Its Implementation Strategy.

Hryhorii Perepelytsia, Foreign Policy Research Institute Director, Professor at the Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of the Educational and Scientific Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Doctor of Political Science moderated the event.

Hryhorii Perepelytsia, event moderator

During his opening remarks, Mr Perepelytsia briefly analysed the topics discussed within the previous roundtables held at the Media Centre since the beginning of russia?s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He outlined the main foreign policy trends affecting Ukraine’s security and the main events at the global level, emphasising that the world is on the verge of World War III, where the goal of the Global South is to change the world order in favour of authoritarianism. Unfortunately, the West is losing this Third World War at the very beginning. Therefore, these global trends cannot but affect the russian-Ukrainian war, particularly on the battlefield between the Ukrainian Defence Forces and russian troops. Today, Ukraine is fighting against the military coalition of the Global South on its own, with no army allies. The US aim in the russian-Ukrainian war is to ensure that Ukraine does not lose and russia does not win, but this will only lead to the failure of Ukraine and the entire Western world. Meanwhile, the latter is neither ready nor able to confront the Global South in the Third World War. Actually, this already begs the question: what is victory? All of these questions are the subject of today?s roundtable discussion. There are a lot of problems, and, accordingly, Volodymyr Zelenskyy?s Plan appeared in a tense situation and was aimed at a short-term period to overcome this crisis, both political and military?, — the speaker noted.

The roundtable involved the following experts: Oleksandr Musiienko, Head of the Centre for Military and Legal Studies; Valentyn Badrak, Director of the Centre for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies; Artem Viunnyk, Director of Athlon Avia SPC (development and production of unmanned systems for the Armed Forces of Ukraine); Oleksandr Khara, expert of the Centre for Defence Strategies; Mykola Sunhurovskyi, Director of Military Programmes at the Razumkov Centre.

Oleksandr Musiienko

Oleksandr Khara (left) and Valentyn Badrak

Artem Viunnyk

Mykola Sunhurovskyi

The following conceptual issues were discussed during the event: the dilemma of peace and victory and security (Is it possible to achieve a just peace without victory? Will victory ensure peace for Ukraine? Is peace possible without security, and is security possible without peace?); Is it possible to correlate the content of victory if Ukraine considers ‘returning to the 1991 borders’ as a victory, and the West considers ‘reaching a compromise with russia’ by freezing the conflict as a victory?; Whether Western partners will support the following points of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan: determining Ukraine’s place in the European security architecture (NATO membership), Kursk offensive, providing long-range weapons and permission to use them in russia, financial investment in economic recovery; How does the Peace Formula relate to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan? Is ‘diplomatic coercion of russia to peace’ realistic, given Ukraine’s weak position on the battlefield? What will happen if Joe Biden rejects Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan? Does Ukraine have a clear strategy for winning the war with russia, and does the West have it?

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, diplomatic service veteran, member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine Ihor Turianskyi, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Doctor of History, Full Professor Borys Humeniuk, Chairman of the Board of the Centre for Strategic Studies Pavlo Zhovnirenko joined the discussion.

Borys Humeniuk

Pavlo Zhovnirenko