Ian Proud
An absence of war may usher in a renewal of the feudal scramble for control and money that has characterised Ukraine's unstable politics since 1991.
While following Finland's example and accepting the loss of territory and giving up NATO aspirations are inevitable, and painful, choices, the problems for Ukraine run much deeper.
The term 'Finlandisation' has cropped up more frequently in recent weeks as pundits think about an exit ramp for Ukraine from this devastating war. It is a clumsy shorthand, that actually emerged during 1960s German political discourse, to deride then Chancellor Willy Brandt's 'Ostpolitik' policy of rapprochement with communist East Germany.
Some commentators reach further back to 1940, and Finland's decision to cede parts of Karelia to sign a peace treaty with the Soviet Union. They easily forget that Finland allied with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War from 1941 to 1944, participating in the siege of Leningrad, before aligning with the British and the Soviets in 1944, after Leningrad was liberated. It was from this point, the signing of the Moscow Armistice on 19 September 1944, that the current eastern border of modern Finland was largely fixed.
So, in the present day 'Finlandisation', as it is applied to Ukraine, underlines the point that the fiercely independent Ukrainians may need to accept the loss of part of their territory in the interests of a longer-term, more durable settlement with their neighbour, Russia.
It has always been impossible to imagine that Ukraine will ever credibly be able to retake the Donbas without dragging western powers into a general war with Russia, which looks no more likely today than it ever has. Trump's bizarre remark that Ukraine can retake all of its lands from Russia must be seen for what it is, a jibe as much against Zelensky as against Putin.
The uncomfortable truth remains that, like Finland, Ukraine will de facto have lost a chunk of its land when the war ends.
That point is easy to understand and, in fact, has always been clear. Right at the start of the war, veteran BBC correspondent John Simpson made the connection with Finland's historical experience. On 16 March 2022, he wrote that after its war with the Soviet Union ended, 'Finland kept the most important, most imperishable thing: its full independence as a free, self-determining nation.' With Russia Ukraine peace talks in Turkey gathering steam, he saw the Finland analogy as suitable for Ukraine, which had mounted a stout defence after the war started.
Of course, views like Simpson's were sidelined by the western mainstream media until the idea of 'Finlandisation' came back into prominence, including following Finnish President Alexander Stubb's remarks to the Economist at the start of September.
Stubb's about face is remarkable in many ways, as he has consistently been an arch Russia hawk, fully behind the continuation of a war that has come at a punishing cost to Ukraine of over one million killed or injured. Yet, the truth is that the war has fallen into a dull, predictable rhythm from which Ukraine cannot escape without a peace settlement.
With cold weather on the not too distant horizon, Russia's battlefield gains have slowed somewhat, although it continues to nudge further into Dnipro province and slowly swallow up the towns of Kupiansk and Siversk.
That doesn't signal respite for Ukraine though. Men are still dying on the frontline and as we get into the winter, Russia's attention will undoubtedly shift to an aerial bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, crippling the nation's heating and electricity supplies.
So, an end to the war is desperately needed and it would, at least in theory, finally allow Ukraine to draw a line in the sand, as Finland did, and start the long and painful process of rebuilding and integration into Europe. Even if that process started today, it would take at least a decade, not least because some European States won't want to hurry to lose their generous subsidies to fund Ukrainian reconstruction, as I have said often.
Yet from day one, Ukraine would emerge independent and sovereign, with the freedom to chart its course into the future. But that is the point at which the Finlandisation analogy will become difficult to sustain.
For a start, Ukraine will also need to make formal commitment never to join NATO, something which Donald Trump has signalled, but which Zelensky and his European sponsors still refuse to sign up to. Like the de facto loss of territory, neutrality has always been one of the uncomfortable truths about how the war will end. That truth is not going to change.
And the problem for Ukraine's leadership in particular runs deeper still.
In a Washington Post article of 5 March 2014, shortly after the Ukraine crisis started, Henry Kissinger cut straight to the core of the problem. He said that since independence. Ukraine's 'leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective. The politics of post-independence Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the root of the problem lies in efforts by Ukrainian politicians to impose their will on recalcitrant parts of the country, first by one faction, then by the other... A wise U.S. policy toward Ukraine would seek a way for the two parts of the country to cooperate with each other. We should seek reconciliation, not the domination of a faction.'
Ukraine's future independence depends largely on efforts internally within that country to reconcile the now Ukrainian speaking majority, and those unoccupied parts of the country that remain Russian speaking. While Zelensky is putatively Russian speaking, his government represents a Ukrainian nationalism that will remain problematic to many citizens in the future. And I've seen no evidence that the current Ukrainian government will let up on the now decade-long campaign to demonise Russianness, even if the war did end.
And there is another problem. At around the same time as Kissinger's article, the Brookings Institute made the following striking observation: 'Unfortunately, Ukraine is not and cannot be a Finland. It's far too weak, poor, unstable, and corrupt. Finland's per capita GDP is over $47,000. Ukraine's is less than $4,000. Finland is the third least corrupt country in the world; Ukraine is 144th (out of 177).'
It would be impossible, I think, to argue that war hasn't made the problem of corruption much worse in Ukraine. The July protests against the crackdown on Ukraine's independent anti-corruption bodies suggested that Zelensky's administration is only different to those of his predecessors by having access to a vastly larger pool of rents to divvy out among his cronies.
That that pool of easy western money will largely evaporate when the war ends is, for too many in Kiev, a reason to keep the war rumbling on at a snail's pace, I'm afraid.
So, I hope that Ukraine can emerge from the war as Finland did in 1944 and look confidently towards the future. I worry, however, that unlike Finland, an absence of war may not usher in a stable peace, but rather a renewal of the feudal scramble for control and money that has characterised Ukraine's unstable politics since 1991.