Why Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine Cannot Be Cured by a Vote : A Legal and Historical Reality Check

Why Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine Cannot Be Cured by a Vote  

A Legal and Historical Reality Check

By Greta Ramelli, Kateryna Kyrychenko, David Griffiths, Clyde Freeman, Anastasia Zaluckyj, Dmytro Panchenko and Rahul Ramesh

Introduction

A persistent assumption in some policy debates is that concessions of territories under Russia’s occupation will offer a pathway to ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Trump administration has repeatedly supported this thesis. While European officials have generally been more cautious, the possibility of territorial compromise has nevertheless entered public debate, including in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have, however, distinguished between acknowledging the difficulty of restoring control by force in the near term and legally recognizing Russia’s claims over occupied territory.

Yet, this argument rests on a critical assumption that ceding territories would be sufficient to stop Russia’s aggression. This premise is far from settled. Analysts have repeatedly noted that Russia’s war aims extend well beyond Donbas, Crimea, or the mere acquisition of territory. The conduct of the war, characterized by war crimes and crimes against humanity, including systematic attacks on civilian infrastructure, forced deportations, and efforts to erase Ukrainian cultural identity, raises serious doubts about whether any concession, large or small, would meaningfully alter Russia’s strategic objectives. The trajectory of the war suggests the opposite: that Russia’s war is more than just an attempt to gain strategic territories and that ceding some territories is unlikely to bring peace.

Even if it is doubtful that territorial concessions would meaningfully alter the course of Russia’s campaign, it is still necessary to examine all potential scenarios that could influence how the war might eventually conclude. Considering these possibilities does not suggest that concessions are advisable or likely to succeed; it just reflects the need to understand the full range of legal, historical, and practical constraints that would shape any hypothetical settlement. 

Assuming (purely for the sake of analysis) that territorial concessions could form part of a hypothetical negotiation, far more difficult questions immediately arise: how would such concessions be made? What legal mechanisms would be required? What constraints would international law impose? What limits does Ukrainian constitutional law create? And what can be learned from past conflicts in which referenda, territorial claims, or post‑conflict votes were used or proposed?

These questions are not abstract. They go to the heart of whether territorial concessions are legally possible and historically realistic, even before one considers whether they are politically desirable. This blog post therefore examines the legal architecture, domestic constitutional constraints, and historical precedents that shape what is and is not possible.

International Law Framework

The international legal order that emerged after 1945 is built on two core principles: the prohibition of the use of force and the prohibition of territorial acquisition through aggression. These rules are reinforced by the duty of non‑recognition, which obliges states not to accept territorial changes produced by unlawful force. This framework raises a foundational question: whether international law allows to legitimize a territorial change that originated in the use of force against a sovereign country and consequential occupation.  

The historical development of modern international law strongly suggests that it does not.  The modern international legal framework begins with the opposite presumption: under the United Nations system, territorial change achieved through force is presumptively unlawful.  When the breach is sufficiently serious, other member states incur derivative obligations to not recognize the resulting situation as lawful and not to assist in maintaining it - principle of non recognition. That architecture exists for a reason. If an aggressor could seize territory first and then normalize the seizure through a vote conducted in the shadow of military coercion, the prohibition on acquisition by force would be emptied of its practical content.

For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the law of nations did not truly prohibit conquest.  On the contrary, conquest was widely treated as a recognized mode by which sovereignty over territory could pass from the defeated state to the victor, often formalized through peace settlement, acquiescence, or effective control.

WWI supplied the first decisive building blocks of that transformation. In the Pact of Paris of 1928, the major powers and many other states renounced war “as an instrument of national policy,” undermining the premise that war could remain an ordinary juridical mechanism for revising borders. The Stimson Doctrine, articulated after Japan’s actions in Manchuria, pushed the legal consequences of that shift further:  the United States announced that it would not recognize territorial or treaty changes brought about by means contrary to the Pact of Paris. That move was noteworthy not merely as a diplomatic tool, but as a legal method.  It translated the emerging anti-war norm into a rule of non-recognition, severing the traditional link between military success and legal title.  In policy terms, the point was straightforward: if aggressors could keep the fruits of unlawful force, the nominal renunciation of war would be largely symbolic.  Non-recognition was designed to prevent precisely that result.

The United Nations Charter turned the WWI shift into the foundational bedrock of the post-1945 legal order.  Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits any threat or use of force by one state against another that affects territorial integrity, political independence, or is otherwise inconsistent with the purposes of the UN.  The International Court of Justice has explained that the two notions of threat or use of force stand together:  if the contemplated use of force would be unlawful, the threat of using that force is also unlawful.  International law and state practice overwhelmingly interpret “force” in Article 2(4) to mean armed force and subsequent international law instruments made increasingly clear that this prohibition was not simply about regulating hostilities but about denying legal rewards for coercive territorial revision.

The UN Security Council Resolution 242, adopted after the 1967 war, famously emphasized the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”  The Friendly Relations Declaration of 1970 went further, stating that the territory of a state shall not be the object of acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force and that no territorial acquisition resulting from such force shall be recognized as legal.  The 1974 Definition of Aggression gives concrete illustrations of the conduct at issue, identifying invasion, attack, military occupation, annexation by force, bombardment, blockades, and attacks on another state’s armed forces as exemplary cases.  It further treats aggression as the most serious form of illegal force and provides that no territorial acquisition resulting from aggression shall be recognized as lawful.  And the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 regionally consolidated the same principle by coupling territorial integrity and inviolability of frontiers with an express commitment that no occupation or acquisition produced by force would be recognized as legal. Together, these instruments reflect a legal system learning from earlier geopolitical catastrophes: peace and self-determination cannot survive if armed coercion remains a lawful pathway to sovereignty. Subsequent practice confirmed these principles (Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Namibia.) 

Article 41 of the International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility later codified the same point in general form: no state shall recognize as lawful a situation created by a serious breach, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining it.  The subtending policy logic is again unmistakable.  A prohibition on conquest would be too easily circumvented if third-party states remained free to normalize, finance, or otherwise stabilize the territorial outcome of unlawful force. Post-Cold War practice reinforced rather than weakened these principles. When Iraq attempted to annex Kuwait in 1990, the Security Council responded in no uncertain terms:  annexation under any pretext had no legal validity and was null and void, and all states were called upon to not recognize it.  The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2004 Wall Advisory Opinion further linked the prohibition on territorial acquisition by force to the right of self-determination and to the obligations of third-party states.  As summarized by the ICJ, the construction of the wall and its associated regime constituted de facto annexation, and all states were under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation and to not render aid or assistance in maintaining it.  

The international community’s response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is consistent with international law and state practice.  In 2014, the UN General Assembly affirmed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, noted that the Crimea referendum had not been authorized by Ukraine, and stated that it could not form the basis for altering Crimea’s status; states were called upon not to recognize any status change based on that referendum.  In the context of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Russia organized what the UN General Assembly called “illegal so-called referendums” in occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.  The UN General Assembly held that those actions had no validity under international law and could not form the basis for altering the status of those regions, again calling on all states not to recognize any purported change. 

In this sense, the problem is not only Ukraine’s sovereignty but the integrity of the global system itself. Any concession made while Russian forces occupy Ukrainian territory would therefore sit uneasily, if not incompatibly, with the core principles that underpin contemporary international law.

Domestic Law Framework

The second issue concerns Ukraine’s own domestic legal framework, which imposes independent and exceptionally stringent constraints on any attempt to alter the country’s territory. Ukrainian law contains a set of provisions that together form a territorial‑integrity safeguarding system. Ukraine’s Constitution defines the territory of Ukraine as indivisible and inviolable, assigns the protection of territorial integrity as a fundamental duty of the state, and requires that any change to Ukraine’s territory be approved by an all‑Ukrainian referendum. 

These provisions are reinforced by two further constitutional limits that are decisive in the present context: 

1. amendments to the Constitution may not be adopted during periods of martial law, and

2. no amendment may be oriented toward the violation of Ukraine’s territorial indivisibility. 

Taken together, these rules mean that territorial concessions would in practice require a constitutional amendment, however the Constitution prohibits amendments during martial law. The first legal precondition for any territorial concession would therefore be the termination of martial law. Only once martial law is lifted could a constitutional amendment even be proposed, let alone submitted to the electorate under Article 73 of the Constitution. This structure raises a further question: even if martial law were lifted, could a referendum lawfully authorize the constitutional amendment needed to permit territorial concessions? 

Holding A Referendum to Permit Territorial Concessions

The Constitution frames referenda as an instrument of popular sovereignty and one of the principal forms of direct democracy through which the people express their will. All citizens aged eighteen or older, except those deemed legally incompetent by a court, have the right to participate. The Constitution provides several pathways for triggering an all‑Ukrainian referendum. In the territorial context, Article 73 of the Constitution gives Ukrainian Parliament the authority to designate such a referendum. For amendments to Chapters I, III, and XIII of the Constitution, its Article 156 requires that the draft amendment be introduced by the President or by at least two‑thirds of the Parliament, adopted by a two‑thirds vote, and then approved by an all‑Ukrainian referendum designated by the President. A popular‑initiative referendum is also possible in principle, but under the 2021 Law of Ukraine “On all-Ukrainian referendum” it is limited to questions of nationwide significance and repeal of laws, and cannot be used for territorial‑change questions.

These mechanisms underscore that a referendum is not a free‑floating plebiscite. It is embedded in a constitutional sequence that presupposes the existence of a constitutionally permissible draft amendment. This is where Article 157 becomes central. Read together with the Constitution’s Article 2, which declares Ukraine’s territory indivisible and inviolable, and Article 9, which provides that treaties inconsistent with the Constitution may be concluded only after relevant constitutional amendments, Article 157 creates a substantial constitutional constraint on any theory that a referendum could be used to validate territorial concessions. 

The referendum mechanism in Article 156 does not displace these limits; it operates only at the end of the amendment process and only if a draft amendment has already passed constitutional review. In practice, Article 157 creates both a substantive obstacle, as any amendment enabling territorial concessions may be deemed oriented toward violating Ukraine’s territorial indivisibility, as well as a temporal obstacle, because the amendment route is categorically closed while martial law remains in force. For present purposes, Article 157 is therefore not merely a background amendment rule. It is one of the central constitutional limits on using referendum‑based mechanisms to pursue a war‑ending territorial settlement.

The statutory framework reinforces these constitutional limits. The 2021 Law “On all‑Ukrainian referendum” defines the permissible subject matter of referenda and expressly prohibits questions that contradict the Constitution, violate sovereignty or territorial integrity, threaten national security, or contravene generally recognized principles of international law. For territorial‑change referenda, the Law adopts a treaty‑ratification model: a referendum does not ask voters whether territory should be ceded; it asks whether they approve a law ratifying an international treaty that changes Ukraine’s territory. The sequence is clear: a treaty is negotiated, the Parliament adopts a ratification law, and the referendum approves or rejects that ratification law. This design ties the referendum to the ordinary constitutional roles of the political branches and prevents the use of referenda as an alternative constitutional pathway.

The Role of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Throughout this process, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine acts as a mandatory constitutional gatekeeper through mandatory review in key stages of the process. It reviews the constitutionality of referendum questions and the acts calling a referendum, as well as the constitutionality of treaties altering Ukraine’s territory. It must also issue a preliminary opinion confirming that any draft constitutional amendment complies with Articles 157–158 of the Constitution before the Parliament may consider it. Opening constitutional proceedings automatically suspends the referendum process, and the Constitutional Court’s decisions are final and unappealable. This means that no referendum, no treaty, and no amendment can proceed if the Constitutional Court finds it unconstitutional, which acts as a critical safeguard in the context of territorial integrity.

Taken as a whole, Ukraine’s constitutional and statutory framework establishes a comprehensive legal architecture that leaves virtually little, if no room for territorial concessions. Because constitutional amendments are both substantively restricted and temporarily barred during martial law, no amendment enabling territorial change can even be initiated until martial law is lifted. 

And even once that threshold is met, any proposed amendment would still have to survive the Constitution’s substantive limits on altering territorial indivisibility, pass through the heightened amendment procedure, and be submitted to a nationwide referendum. That referendum, in turn, cannot operate as a workaround: it comes only at the end of a constitutionally valid amendment process, and the 2021 Law of Ukraine “On all-Ukrainian referendum” prohibits questions that undermine sovereignty or territorial integrity. 

Throughout this entire sequence, the Constitutional Court exercises mandatory and suspensive review, with the authority to halt or invalidate any step that conflicts with constitutional principles. In effect, Ukrainian domestic law does not merely make territorial concessions difficult. It constructs a layered system of constitutional and statutory safeguards that, under current conditions, renders such concessions legally unattainable under current constitutional conditions.

The Historical and Comparative Practice

The third issue concerns historical practice. Historical experience offers a clear answer to the question of whether territory seized through aggression can be legitimized through a referendum or similar process. Across a century of state practice, no credible precedent exists in which a territorial change produced by force was later validated through a vote conducted under occupation or coercive conditions. Instead, the record shows that legitimate referenda on territorial status have occurred only after the end of hostilities, the withdrawal of foreign forces, and the establishment of conditions that allow the population to express its will freely. 

The Saarland 

The Saarland plebiscite of 1935 illustrates this pattern. Although the region had been contested between France and Germany, the referendum took place only after fifteen years of League of Nations administration, the demilitarization of the territory, and the creation of a detailed legal and administrative framework overseen by international actors. Voter registration, dispute resolution, and security were all managed by neutral authorities, and both France and Germany formally pledged to abstain from pressure. The vote was accepted not because it ratified a territorial acquisition by force, but because it occurred in a demilitarized environment under international supervision. The Saarland example demonstrates that international administration and the absence of coercion are essential preconditions for a credible territorial referendum.

East Timor 

East Timor’s 1999 independence referendum reinforces this lesson. After decades of violent Indonesian occupation, the United Nations organized and administered a vote on self‑determination. The referendum was held only after Indonesia agreed to allow it, and even then, the aftermath saw severe violence that required a multinational peacekeeping force and a UN transitional administration. The referendum’s legitimacy rested on the fact that it was not an attempt to validate Indonesia’s prior annexation, but rather a mechanism — facilitated by the UN — to end an unlawful occupation and restore self‑determination. East Timor shows that international involvement is indispensable when a population has been subjected to coercion or occupation, and that referenda cannot legitimize territorial changes produced by force.

Scotland and Catalonia 

The experiences of Scotland and Catalonia highlight the centrality of constitutional legality. Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum proceeded only because the UK and Scottish governments negotiated a lawful pathway through a Section 30 Order. When Scotland later attempted to legislate a second referendum without Westminster’s consent, the UK Supreme Court held the measure unlawful. Catalonia’s 2017 referendum, conducted in defiance of the Spanish Constitution and in the face of active state opposition, was met with police intervention, judicial invalidation, and the suspension of Catalonia’s autonomy. These cases show that even peaceful, democratic referenda lack legal effect when conducted outside constitutional procedures, and that constitutional order is a prerequisite for any credible expression of self‑determination.

Kosovo

Kosovo represents an exceptional case shaped by mass atrocities, NATO intervention, UN administration, and the collapse of domestic governance structures. The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion did not validate territorial acquisition by force; rather, it held that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law because it did not purport to alter another state’s territory through aggression. Kosovo underscores that international law may accommodate alternative pathways only when ordinary constitutional processes are impossible due to severe human rights violations and the breakdown of state authority — conditions fundamentally different from attempts to legitimize territorial conquest.

Taken together, these precedents point to a consistent conclusion. Territory taken through aggression cannot be legitimized through a referendum or any other process conducted under coercion, occupation, or constitutional illegality. Legitimate territorial referenda require the withdrawal of occupying forces, the restoration of security, the reestablishment of constitutional order, and, in many cases, international supervision. Where these conditions are absent, the international community has uniformly rejected attempts to validate territorial change. Historical practice therefore reinforces what international law already makes clear: aggression cannot be cured by a vote.

Conclusion: Russia’s Unlawful Territorial Acquisition Cannot Be Cured

Under international law, Ukrainian domestic law and historical practice, the answer to whether aggression-based territorial change can be legitimized through a referendum is negative. 

Under Ukraine’s constitutional framework, there is no lawful pathway to a referendum that could ratify a territorial concession. Any such treaty would immediately collide with the Constitution’s guarantees of territorial indivisibility, and Article 157 of Ukraine’s Constitution bars amendments that would undermine that principle while also prohibiting all constitutional amendments during martial law. Because the referendum mechanism operates only at the end of a valid amendment process, it cannot bypass these limits. As long as martial law remains in force, and as long as territorial integrity remains a constitutional constant, a nationwide vote cannot be used to legitimize the loss of Ukrainian territory.

International law reaches the same conclusion. Since 1945, the prohibition on aggression has been paired with the principles of territorial integrity, non‑recognition, and non‑assistance precisely to prevent an aggressor from converting military control into lawful title through later political formalities. The right of self‑determination does not authorize territorial transfers engineered under foreign occupation or coercion; it protects the free political will of a people, not outcomes produced in the shadow of force. Even if a referendum were somehow held after an unlawful seizure of territory, it would not retroactively validate the original breach or relieve other states of their obligation to withhold recognition from territorial changes procured by aggression.

Historical practice reinforces this legal structure. Credible referenda on territorial status have occurred only after the withdrawal of occupying forces, the restoration of security, and the creation of conditions that allow voters to participate freely. The Saarland, East Timor, and other internationally supervised processes demonstrate that legitimacy requires demilitarization, neutrality, and constitutional or treaty‑based authorization. Where these conditions were absent (as in Catalonia or in referenda conducted under occupation) the results were rejected. No historical precedent supports the idea that territory seized through aggression can later be legitimized by a vote. 

Considered together, domestic constitutional constraints, international legal norms, and historical precedents all point in the same direction: legitimizing territorial concessions made under aggression lacks legal foundation and practical justification. And in any case, there remains scant evidence that such concessions would bring Russia’s campaign to an end.

PILPG Roundtable Blog Part I: Ukraine’s EU Accession: Perspectives of Enlargement During the War

PILPG Roundtable Blog 

Part I: Ukraine’s EU Accession: Perspectives of Enlargement During the War

Editor’s Note

This roundtable explores one of the most consequential strategic questions facing Europe today: Ukraine’s accession to the European Union amid an ongoing war of aggression. Building on discussions within the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) Ukraine Peace Negotiations Working Group, this piece brings together expert perspectives on how enlargement policy is being reshaped by geopolitics, security imperatives, and the pursuit of a just and durable peace.

Presented under the Lawyering Peace initiative, this roundtable situates EU accession not merely as a technical legal process, but as a defining test of Europe’s political will and strategic identity. As Ukraine continues to defend itself, its European trajectory has become inseparable from broader questions of deterrence, stability, and the future of the European project itself.

On 10 April 2026, members of PILPG’s Ukraine Peace Negotiations Working Group convened to assess the evolving trajectory of Ukraine’s EU accession process. More than a decade after the Maidan protests set Ukraine on its European path, accession now unfolds under radically different conditions: amid full-scale war, shifting transatlantic dynamics, and renewed debates about Europe’s strategic autonomy.  

1. How should Ukraine’s EU accession be framed: as a technical enlargement process or as a strategic security imperative?

Dr. David Crane, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone and Founder of the Global Accountability Project

EU accession, in this context, stops being a checklist exercise and becomes something much sharper: a strategic decision about what Europe is prepared to stand for. One of the recurring themes in the discussion was that enlargement is among the few tools entirely in the EU’s hands. Using it decisively would send a message that is difficult to misinterpret, both to Moscow and to Europe’s own partners.

There is also a timing element. Moving forward now, rather than waiting for a more “convenient” moment, would signal that aggression does not freeze political integration. It also risks allowing Ukraine’s European trajectory to become implicitly negotiable in broader political or diplomatic processes, which is something that would fundamentally undermine its sovereignty. In that sense, the discussion also pointed toward the need for more flexible or even exceptional approaches to accession that reflect the realities of the current moment, rather than relying exclusively on peacetime models.

Chris Goebel, Senior Legal Advisor at PILPG

There was a clear sense that the EU is still speaking in two registers at once. On the one hand, Ukraine’s membership is framed politically as inevitable. On the other, the day-to-day discourse remains highly technical, concerning criteria, sequencing, absorption capacity.

The tension between those two narratives is becoming harder to sustain. Concerns about budgetary impact or institutional readiness are real, but they are being asked to carry too much weight. At some point, they need to be placed within a broader strategic frame, rather than quietly dictating the pace of the process.

Ambassador Joachim Rücker, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo

What has shifted, perhaps more than anything else, is the baseline. The question is no longer whether Ukraine belongs in the EU, but how quickly and through which mechanisms that can be realized. Recent discussions among foreign ministers suggest that this is now broadly understood across member states.

That does not mean there is agreement on method. But it does mean that enlargement in this case is no longer treated as routine. The legal framework has remained unchanged; the political context around it has not.

Ambassador Zorica Marić-Djordjević, former Head of the Permanent Mission of Montenegro to the World Trade Organization and Special Representative of Montenegro to the UN Human Rights Council

From a Western Balkans perspective, the risks of ambiguity are well known. When accession becomes slow, uncertain, or overly procedural, it stops stabilizing and starts producing frustration and drift.

In Ukraine’s case, that dynamic would be far more dangerous. Prolonged uncertainty along the EU’s eastern border is not a neutral outcome. It creates space for continued pressure, whether political, hybrid, or military. That is why enlargement here cannot be treated as business as usual, it has become part of Europe’s security policy in a very direct sense. As with earlier rounds of enlargement, integration serves to anchor stability over the long term and should not be allowed to become contingent on short-term political bargaining.

Any model of integration that introduces prolonged uncertainty or second-tier status would risk undermining that strategic function rather than reinforcing it.

Greta Ramelli, Legal Officer, Program Manager at the Public International Law & Policy Group

One constraint that keeps coming up, implicitly more than explicitly, is the domestic political one. Even where governments are aligned, public opinion is uneven. There is still a gap between elite consensus and what voters across the EU are prepared to support. Closing that gap will require a different kind of argument. Not just solidarity with Ukraine, but a clearer articulation of what accession delivers for the EU itself in different areas - economically, politically, and in terms of long-term independence.

Kateryna Kyrychenko, Head of Ukraine Legal Affairs and Program Management at the Public International Law and Policy Group

From the Ukrainian perspective, accession cannot be separated from the broader political and historical context of the war itself. Ukraine’s European course was not adopted opportunistically during the war, it became one of the central triggers of Russian aggression long before the full-scale invasion. The 2014 Revolution of Dignity and the Association Agreement process reflected a societal choice in favor of sovereignty, democracy, and integration with Europe. In that sense, Ukraine’s accession increasingly concerns more than technical compliance with accession criteria. It raises a broader question of whether the European Union views enlargement primarily as an administrative process or as a strategic instrument capable of responding to existential security challenges on the continent.

At the same time, prolonged uncertainty carries risks of its own. Leaving Ukraine in a prolonged geopolitical “grey zone” would not preserve stability, but instead sustain the very vulnerability and pressure that Russia has consistently sought to exploit.

2. What are the real political obstacles among member states to accelerating Ukraine’s accession and how can they be addressed?

Chris Goebel, Senior Legal Advisor at PILPG

The obstacles are not hidden, they are just often framed differently. “Absorption capacity,” budget concerns, and institutional balance, for example, are all real issues, but they also function as politically acceptable ways of expressing hesitation.

France was mentioned as a useful example: strongly supportive of Ukraine, but careful to anchor that support in a strictly merit-based process. That position is defensible, but it also slows things down in practice. The challenge is how to reconcile that caution with the strategic urgency that many of the same actors acknowledge.

Narratives within member states matter just as much as formal positions. Where enlargement is framed as a risk, it becomes politically costly; where it is framed as an opportunity, space opens up. Reframing Ukraine’s accession in terms of the areas it can contribute to (such as security, economic resilience, strengthening Europe’s global position) will be essential to shifting that balance.

Ambassador Joachim Rücker, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo

Legally, there is very little standing in the way. Article 49 remains the basis, and within it there is more flexibility than is sometimes admitted, for example with transitional phases, sequencing, differentiated timelines.

So the conversation ultimately returns to political will. If the decision is made to move faster, the legal tools are already there. If not, they will not move the process forward on their own.

Ambassador Zorica Marić-Djordjević, former Head of the Permanent Mission of Montenegro to the World Trade Organization and Special Representative of Montenegro to the UN Human Rights Council

Enlargement has never been purely technical, even if it is often presented that way. The Western Balkans experience shows how easily the process can become opaque and drawn out when political commitment weakens.

Ukraine’s case exposes that dynamic quite clearly. The framework allows for flexibility; the question is whether it will be used. Without that, references to criteria and procedures risk substituting for decision-making rather than guiding it. 

Part of the response also lies on the Ukrainian side. Addressing known pressure points such as minority rights, rule of law, and institutional reform early and visibly can help neutralize resistance that tends to emerge in later stages. This is not simply about compliance, but about shaping the political environment in which decisions are made.

At the same time, however, the decisive factor at this stage lies with the European Union itself. Enlargement has always been driven as much by political determination as by technical readiness. A clear political decision to advance Ukraine’s accession would not bypass the criteria, but it would define the pace, sequencing, and credibility of the process. Without that signal, even substantial reform progress risks being absorbed into procedural delay. With it, the accession framework can operate as intended as a structured pathway toward integration, rather than an open-ended process that risks creating a sense of permanent limbo and eroding both credibility and momentum.

Dr. David Crane, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone and Founder of the Global Accountability Project

A broader point concerned the shifting international environment. Europe can no longer assume that its security framework will look the same as it has over the past decades. That reality should inform how decisions like enlargement are approached.

Waiting for alignment elsewhere may no longer be a viable strategy. In that sense, Ukraine’s accession is as much about Europe defining its own direction as it is about Ukraine joining. This opens the door to genuinely unconventional approaches to enlargement. Treating Ukraine as an exceptional case, where political commitment precedes full technical completion, reflects a growing recognition that existing models may not fully capture the realities of accession during wartime.

Greta Ramelli, Legal Officer, Program Manager at the Public International Law & Policy Group

Ultimately, this comes back to communication. If citizens across the EU do not see how Ukraine’s accession aligns with the Union’s core promises (prosperity, stability, security) support will remain fragile, regardless of elite consensus.

3. What model of phased or partial integration is most viable for Ukraine and what are the risks

Ambassador Joachim Rücker, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo

Phased integration is often presented as the practical compromise, allowing progress without forcing an immediate all-or-nothing decision. There is logic to that, particularly given the scale of the challenge.

At the same time, not all precedents translate well. The Cyprus model is often cited, yet its applicability is limited. Extending it (i.e. by admitting more members with unresolved territorial issues) raises broader political questions, not only for Ukraine but for other unresolved territorial situations in Europe. This makes the issue less a legal problem and more a political one, with implications beyond a single case.

Ambassador Zorica Marić-Djordjević, former Head of the Permanent Mission of Montenegro to the World Trade Organization and Special Representative of Montenegro to the UN Human Rights Council

The risk with phased approaches is not the concept itself, but how it is implemented. If it becomes open-ended, or if full membership feels perpetually out of reach, it can erode both credibility and political momentum.

That is something the Western Balkans know well. Any interim model for Ukraine would need to be clearly structured, time-bound, and visibly moving toward full integration, not replacing it.

Ukraine’s situation is fundamentally distinct. Any approach will need to reflect the reality of ongoing aggression while avoiding the creation of precedents that could complicate other regional dynamics.

Dr. David Crane, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone and Founder of the Global Accountability Project

There was also openness to more unconventional approaches. The idea of treating Ukraine’s accession as an exceptional case that includes moving politically first and resolving technical questions in parallel, would reflect the sense that existing models may not fully capture the current moment.

Whether such an approach is politically feasible is another question, but it illustrates how far the discussion has moved beyond standard enlargement thinking.

Concluding Observations

What emerges from the discussion is not a single answer, but a clear shift in perspective. Ukraine’s accession is no longer a conventional enlargement question. It sits at the intersection of security, political will, and the future shape of the European project.

Across the contributions, one point stands out: the legal framework is not the constraint. The flexibility exists. The real variable is whether member states are prepared to act on the strategic logic they already acknowledge. The risks of delay are not neutral. Prolonged ambiguity weakens credibility, invites instability, and allows external actors to shape the terms of Ukraine’s future. By contrast, a clear and politically anchored accession trajectory would reinforce Europe’s capacity to act decisively in a contested geopolitical environment.

Ultimately, Ukraine’s accession has become a test case. Not only for enlargement policy, but for whether the European Union can adapt its instruments to the realities of war and strategic competition. The outcome will signal far beyond Ukraine itself.

Extraordinary Accession: Why Europe Must Bring Ukraine into the European Union Now

Extraordinary Accession: Why Europe Must Bring Ukraine 

into the European Union Now

by David M. Crane* 

Executive Summary 

Europe stands at a geopolitical crossroads. Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine has shattered the illusion that the post-Cold War order could be preserved through incrementalism, dialogue, or strategic ambiguity. Moscow is betting quite openly that Europe will hesitate, delay, and ultimately retreat from the historic question of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union. The Kremlin’s strategic calculation is simple: Europe will not bring Ukraine into the EU in the short or medium term, regardless of political declarations or symbolic gestures such as the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kyiv in March 2026. 

This policy paper argues the opposite. Europe must bring Ukraine into the European Union now - not as a conventional accession, not as a “fast track,” but as an extraordinary accession that recognizes the singular nature of Ukraine’s struggle and the existential stakes for Europe itself. Political membership should be granted immediately, with the technical and treaty-based obligations phased in over time. This is not only feasible; it is strategically necessary. 

Ukraine’s accession would send an unmistakable signal to Russia and the international community: Ukraine is Europe - permanently, irreversibly, and without qualification. 

The Strategic Context: Russia’s Bet on European Hesitation 

Russia’s war is not only a military campaign; it is a long-term strategy aimed at fracturing European unity and undermining the credibility of Western institutions. Central to this strategy is the belief that: 

• Europe will not take bold political steps that carry risk;

• The EU will cling to procedural orthodoxy rather than geopolitical necessity; 

• Ukraine will remain in a gray zone - supported, admired, but not integrated. 

This belief is reinforced by decades of European caution, slow enlargement processes, and internal debates over institutional reform. Even the March 2026 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kyiv, historic in symbolism, has not convinced Moscow that Europe is prepared to act decisively. 

Extraordinary accession is the only response that breaks this strategic calculus.

Why Ukraine’s Accession Is Not a “Fast Track”, It Is a Different Category Entirely 

Traditional EU accession is designed for states transitioning peacefully toward European norms. Ukraine is not in that category. It is: 

1. a state defending Europe’s security architecture on the battlefield;

2. a democracy proving its resilience under existential threat; 

3. a society already aligned with European values through sacrifice, not just legislation. 

Ukraine’s accession should therefore be understood as as encompassing any and all of the following: 

1. A political act of continental self-defense: bringing Ukraine into the EU strengthens Europe’s collective security, deters further Russian aggression, and stabilizes the eastern frontier. 

2. A moral recognition of Ukraine’s role in defending European values: no candidate state has ever demonstrated its commitment to democracy, rule of law, and human dignity more clearly or at greater cost. 

3. A strategic investment in Europe’s long-term stability: a secure, integrated Ukraine anchors the Black Sea region, strengthens energy diversification, and expands Europe’s economic and demographic base. 

4. A precedent for extraordinary circumstances, not a shortcut for ordinary candidates: this is not a dilution of standards; it is an acknowledgment that Ukraine’s situation is unique in modern European history. 

A Two-Track Accession Model: Political Membership Now, Technical Integration Over Time

To reconcile urgency with institutional integrity, the EU could consider adopting a two-track accession model: 

Track 1: Immediate Political Membership 

Ukraine becomes a full political member of the European Union with the representation in the European Parliament, a seat on the European Council, participation in EU foreign policy and security decision-making and access to EU political institutions and voting rights (with transitional arrangements as needed).

This step sends the decisive geopolitical signal: Ukraine is in Europe, and Europe stands with Ukraine. 

Track 2: Phased Implementation of Treaty Obligations 

Over a defined period, negotiated jointly, Ukraine would progressively adopt: 

• The acquis communautaire;

• Single market regulations;

• Judicial and administrative reforms; 

• Economic convergence measures; 

• Environmental and agricultural standards;

• Customs and border integration. 

This phased approach mirrors the EU’s own history of differentiated integration and acknowledges the realities of wartime governance. 

Why Extraordinary Accession Serves Europe’s Interests 

There are at least 5 arguments here:

1. It restores credibility to the European project: for years, the EU has been criticized for strategic timidity. Extraordinary accession demonstrates that Europe can act with purpose when history demands it. 

2. It strengthens deterrence: Russia’s aggression thrives on ambiguity. Ukraine’s accession eliminates the gray zone that Moscow exploits. 

3. It stabilizes Europe’s eastern frontier: a politically integrated Ukraine becomes a pillar of European security, not a buffer state. 

4. It accelerates reconstruction and economic integration: EU membership unlocks investment, reduces corruption incentives, and anchors reforms in a durable institutional framework. 

5. It reinforces the global rule-of-law order: Ukraine’s accession signals that borders cannot be changed by force and that democracies under attack will not be abandoned. 

Addressing the Concerns: Why Extraordinary Accession Is Manageable 

Concern 1: Institutional capacity

The EU has repeatedly adapted to enlargement. Transitional voting arrangements, phased integration, and opt-ins/opt-outs are well-established tools. 

Concern 2: Economic disparities 

Phased implementation of the acquis and targeted reconstruction funds can manage convergence without destabilizing existing members. 

Concern 3: Security risks 

Ukraine’s battlefield experience and intelligence capabilities strengthen, not weaken, European security. 

Concern 4: Precedent for other candidates 

The EU can clearly articulate that extraordinary accession applies only to states defending Europe against existential aggression. 

Conclusion: A Defining Choice for Europe 

Europe has reached a moment where hesitation carries greater risk than action. Ukraine’s accession is not merely a bureaucratic process; it is a strategic imperative and a moral obligation. It is the clearest possible signal to Russia that the era of spheres of influence is over and that Ukraine’s European future is non-negotiable. 

By granting Ukraine extraordinary political membership now, with technical obligations phased in over time, the European Union affirms its identity as a community of values, not just a market, and demonstrates that aggression will never dictate Europe’s future. 

Ukraine is Europe. The time to formalize that reality is now. 

* David M. Crane is a PILPG Peace Fellow and global leader in international criminal justice and the founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. He has spent decades shaping accountability mechanisms around the world, including serving as a driving architect behind the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Crane is a distinguished scholar of international law, a former senior U.S. national security official, and a leading voice on the rule of law, state responsibility, and the legal limits on the use of force.

The Global South and the Russian War on Ukraine: Structural Constraints on Diplomatic Alignment

The Global South and the Russian War on Ukraine: Structural Constraints on Diplomatic Alignment

An assessment of the political, economic, and institutional factors shaping multilateral engagement with Russia's war against Ukraine

By Dr. Paul R. Williams*

Three years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a striking diplomatic gap persists between the breadth of international condemnation and the depth of practical alignment.  While 141 states voted in the UN General Assembly to demand Russia's immediate withdrawal in March 2022, the countries that have joined Western-led sanctions regimes, restricted Russian access to their financial systems, or curtailed bilateral trade with Moscow represent a narrower group.  That gap is not incidental and it reflects durable structural realities across the Global South that are rooted in economic dependencies, regional security pressures, institutional history, and the architecture of development finance.  Understanding those realities is a prerequisite for any realistic assessment of how the conflict's diplomatic landscape might evolve.

A related question follows from this analysis: given the structural depth of these constraints, whether Ukraine's diplomatic strategy would be better served by consolidating and sustaining existing Western commitments rather than investing heavily in outreach to states whose non-alignment is unlikely to shift within any operationally relevant timeframe.

Voting Patterns and the Geometry of Non-Alignment

United Nations General Assembly resolution ES-11/1, adopted on March 2, 2022 with 141 votes in favor, demanded Russia's immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.  The 35 abstentions told their own story: India, China, South Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the majority of Central Asian states declined to vote in favor.  A subsequent resolution in November 2022 demanding reparations from Russia received only 94 affirmative votes, with 73 abstentions, a result that illustrated both the limits of early momentum and the increasing discomfort of non-aligned states with being asked to take progressively stronger positions.

The geography of abstention maps closely onto economic and geopolitical relationships rather than regional or ideological blocs.  Several abstaining states have simultaneously affirmed Ukraine's sovereignty as a principle in bilateral diplomatic communications while declining to translate that position into a formal UN vote or participation in Western sanctions architecture.  This distinction matters legally and diplomatically.  Abstention is not acquiescence in Russia's conduct under international law, and most abstaining governments have been careful to preserve legal and normative space by avoiding explicit endorsement of Russia's legal arguments.  What abstention does reflect is a deliberate judgment that public alignment with the Western-led coalition carries costs that outweigh the benefits, given each government's particular economic situation, security relationships, and domestic political constraints.

Ukraine's diplomatic outreach since 2022 has been genuinely extensive.  President Zelensky addressed the Arab League summit in Jeddah in May 2023, his first appearance before that body, and made direct appeals on sovereignty and international law to an audience of governments that had largely abstained or remained neutral on the conflict.  He engaged directly with African heads of state throughout 2023 and 2024, including a June 2023 peace summit in which several African leaders proposed a ten-point peace framework of their own.  

The Peace Summit hosted in Switzerland in June 2024, which Ukraine convened as a broader multilateral gathering, attracted approximately 90 delegations, though several major Global South states either declined to attend or sent lower-level representation, and the final communiqué was not signed by a number of key developing country participants.  These outcomes do not indicate diplomatic failure in any simple sense, but they do indicate that outreach and dialogue have not yet produced the depth of alignment that Ukraine and its Western partners had hoped to generate.

Embedded Economic Dependencies

The most consequential constraint on broader Global South alignment is economic rather than ideological, and it operates across energy, food, and defense procurement in ways that are deeply embedded in national development strategies.  

Energy and Commodities

India's expansion of Russian crude oil imports following Western sanctions in 2022 is the most analytically significant case.  By mid-2023, Russia had displaced Saudi Arabia and Iraq to become India's single largest oil supplier, accounting for approximately 40% of total crude imports.  The discounts available on Russian crude, which reached $20 to $30 per barrel below Brent benchmark prices at peak in early 2022 and again in late 2025, represented a material economic benefit for an economy managing significant energy import costs and a current account sensitive to oil price movements.  The Indian government has publicly defended this policy on development and energy security grounds, framing it as a sovereign economic decision rather than a geopolitical statement.  India imports approximately 85% of its crude oil requirements and price sensitivity at this scale has direct effects on domestic fuel costs, inflation, and the government's fiscal position.

The broader significance of the India case is what it demonstrates about the limits of Western pressure on large emerging economies with independent development trajectories.  India is simultaneously a member of the Quad security dialogue, a deepening defense partner of the United States, and a major purchaser of Russian energy.  These positions are held concurrently, without apparent contradiction from New Delhi's perspective, because Indian foreign policy operates on a doctrine of strategic autonomy that predates the current conflict and reflects the foreign policy legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement.  The conflict has not changed that fundamental orientation.

Food Supply Chains

The food security dimension of Global South non-alignment is particularly significant for African governments, where the dependency on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural exports created acute vulnerabilities following the February 2022 invasion.  Prior to the conflict, Russia and Ukraine together accounted for approximately 28% of global wheat exports and a comparable share of sunflower oil and fertilizer supply chains.  For example, the two countries supplied approximately 85% of Egyptian wheat imports before the war.  The disruption of Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports following the invasion and Russia's suspension and eventual termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023, contributed to food price inflation exceeding 60% in Egypt by 2023, against a backdrop of a severe foreign exchange crisis and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a $3 billion support program.  Cairo has been navigating these pressures while simultaneously managing its bilateral relationship with Washington, its arms supply relationship with Moscow, and domestic political dynamics that limit the government's tolerance for economic disruption.

The situation in Egypt is illustrative of a broader pattern across North Africa and parts of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where governments are managing food price inflation, foreign exchange shortfalls, and IMF conditionality simultaneously, while being asked to absorb additional economic costs through alignment with Western sanctions.  The structural redirection of grain supply chains of this scale is a multi-year undertaking even under favourable conditions, and alternative suppliers at comparable price points and volume have not been readily available.

Defense Procurement

Several of Russia's most significant arms export relationships involve countries that have abstained or declined to support Ukraine in formal multilateral settings.  India maintains one of the world's largest accumulated inventories of Russian-origin military equipment, including Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters, T-90 main battle tanks, S-400 air defense systems, and a fleet of Russian-built submarines and frigates.  The S-400 procurement in particular generated significant friction with Washington, which threatened CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions before ultimately granting a waiver in 2022, partly in recognition of the strategic complexity of sanctioning a country simultaneously regarded as a key Indo-Pacific partner.

Algeria sources the overwhelming majority of its military hardware from Russia, including Su-30 and MiG-29 aircraft, T-90 tanks, and S-400 systems.  Ethiopia, Vietnam, and several Southeast Asian states have similarly deep Russian equipment dependencies.  The procurement relationships in question were built over decades, involve training pipelines and maintenance ecosystems that cannot be transferred overnight, and require capital outlays that Western governments have not offered to subsidise.  A country seeking to transition its air force from Russian to Western platforms faces not only the capital cost of new aircraft but the cost of training new pilots and ground crews, rebuilding maintenance infrastructure, renegotiating basing and logistics arrangements, and managing a capability gap during the transition period. 

Regional Priorities and the Gulf Security Environment

The Gulf Cooperation Council states, comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman, represent a diplomatically and economically significant bloc whose engagement with the Ukraine conflict has been shaped primarily by a regional threat environment that has deteriorated sharply since October 2023.  While Gulf states have not endorsed Russia's invasion, they have maintained independent diplomatic postures, declined to join Western sanctions regimes, and continued to participate in OPEC+, the alliance formed in 2016 between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ten major non-OPEC oil-producing nations, in which Russia holds a co-decision-making role on global oil production.

The broader pattern across the Global South reflects a similar dynamic.  Governments that are managing active or escalating security crises in their own regions have limited political bandwidth to direct toward a conflict in Europe, however significant its implications for the international legal order.  The Ethiopian civil war in Tigray and Amhara, the ongoing conflict in Sudan, and persistent instability across the Sahel have consumed the crisis management capacity of African governments and regional institutions.  In South and Southeast Asia, persistent territorial tensions in the South China Sea, the unresolved conflict in Myanmar, and the structural fragility of several South Asian states represent competing priorities that crowd out sustained engagement with the Ukraine file.

For Gulf states specifically, the regional threat environment has undergone a major shift since October 2023.  Israel's use of force in Gaza and Lebanon, and the subsequent twelve-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, initiated a cascading escalation that Gulf capitals had actively sought to prevent, precisely because it placed them in the middle.  By early 2026, Israeli and US strikes against Iranian territory, and Iranian retaliatory strikes targeting US military facilities across the Gulf, had transformed what was a serious but manageable regional tension into a direct security emergency on Gulf soil.  For governments managing the consequences of missile strikes, disrupted energy exports, and acute vulnerability along the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately a third of global seaborne crude oil transits, the diplomatic bandwidth available for sustained engagement with a European land war has narrowed considerably.

The cumulative effect is that the ask being made of Global South governments to prioritize alignment on Ukraine is arriving at a moment when most of them are already absorbing the costs of conflicts and crises closer to home.  That is not indifference to international law.  It is the predictable consequence of asking governments operating under acute regional pressure to extend finite diplomatic capital toward a conflict whose resolution lies, in any near-term scenario, primarily in the hands of Western states and their partners.

Institutional Scepticism and the Consistency Question

Governments across Africa, Asia, and Latin America have raised, in both public statements and diplomatic communications, whether the principles most vocally championed in the Ukraine context, primarily sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the prohibition on the use of force, are being applied consistently by the Western states invoking them.  The cases cited include the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Ethiopian civil war in Tigray and Amhara, the civil war in Sudan, and Israel's use of force in Gaza and Lebanon.  In none of these conflicts did the Western governments now leading the sanctions coalition against Russia impose comparable measures against the parties responsible for the conduct in question, and in several cases those same governments provided arms, financing, or diplomatic cover to them.

For many Global South governments, that asymmetry is not a peripheral observation.  It is the central lens through which the broader diplomatic ask is evaluated. When the same capitols that organized the fastest and most comprehensive sanctions regime in modern history declined to impose comparable measures in a conflict involving a Western ally, the conclusion drawn across much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America was not that the two situations are legally distinct, which they are, but that the architecture of international accountability is applied according to strategic interest rather than principle.  

None of this amounts to a legal defense of Russia's conduct in Ukraine, which violates foundational norms of international law that exist independently of who enforces them and how selectively.  The distinction, however, is precisely the point.  International law derives its authority not only from its text but from the perceived legitimacy of its application.  When the states most invested in enforcing a norm are also the states most visibly exempted from its consequences, the norm does not disappear, but its claim to universal obligation is weakened in the eyes of those being asked to bear the cost of upholding it.  What Global South governments are contesting is not the illegality of Russia's invasion but the moral standing of the states demanding a response to it, and those are different questions. 

A legal prohibition can be simultaneously valid and selectively enforced, and it is precisely that selectivity, accumulated across decades and conflicts, that has eroded the political authority the rules-based order needs to function as something other than a coalition of the willing operating under a universal banner. The ask being made of the Global South is ultimately an ask to treat that banner as genuine.  For many of the governments receiving it, the evidentiary record makes that difficult to do.

The China Variable

China's economic footprint across the Global South is the largest single structural factor shaping the background conditions within which Global South governments evaluate their Ukraine-related diplomatic positioning.  The relationship is not primarily about ideological affinity or coordinated diplomatic strategy, though both exist to some degree.  It is primarily about the material dependencies that Chinese financing has created across a wide range of countries and the economic costs that would flow from positions that openly antagonise Beijing.

Chinese state-backed lending through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and bilateral financing arrangements has been extensive and geographically broad. Sub-Saharan Africa has received an estimated $170 billion in Chinese financing since 2000, a figure that encompasses infrastructure loans, concessional credit, and commercial bank lending.  The distribution is uneven, with countries including Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo carrying particularly significant Chinese debt exposure relative to GDP.  Zambia's 2020 external debt default, the first by a sub-Saharan African country in the post-pandemic period, involved Chinese creditors holding a substantial share of the debt, and its restructuring process illustrated the degree to which Chinese bilateral creditors have become central actors in sovereign debt negotiations across the continent.  In Southeast Asia, Laos has a particularly deep infrastructure dependency on Chinese financing, having committed a majority stake in its national electricity grid to Chinese creditors as part of a debt restructuring arrangement.  Pakistan, which straddles the South and Central Asian categories, has received approximately $26.5 billion in Chinese financing under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor component of the BRI, with total repayment obligations, including debt service and dividends, projected to reach nearly $40 billion over twenty years.

China's formal position on the Ukraine conflict, as set out in its twelve-point position paper released in February 2023 and elaborated in subsequent joint statements with Russia, declines to characterize Russia's operations as an invasion, attributes the conflict in part to NATO expansion and Western security policies, and proposes a ceasefire framework premised on conditions that Ukraine and its Western partners have not found acceptable.  China has maintained and in some categories expanded its trade and economic relationships with Russia throughout the conflict.  Whether trade represents deliberate state policy or the actions of Chinese commercial actors exploiting regulatory gaps has been a matter of ongoing debate, but their operational significance for Russian defense industrial production is not seriously disputed.

For governments that depend on Chinese financing for debt rollovers, infrastructure project completion, or sustained trade access, public alignment with positions that China actively opposes carries measurable costs.  The relevant constraint is not that these governments will do whatever Beijing instructs.  Most have demonstrated independent judgment on a range of diplomatic questions.  The constraint is that the diplomatic calculus for a government managing Chinese debt obligations and seeking continued infrastructure financing includes, as a background factor, the cost of damaging a relationship with one of its most consequential creditors.  

The Material Offer Gap

The diplomatic effort to build Global South alignment has been framed predominantly around normative and legal arguments, with insufficient attention to the material interests of the countries being courted.  That imbalance has been noted, and has generated a persistent perception among Global South governments that the ask is being made on Western terms, without genuine reciprocity.

The concrete material incentives that could plausibly shift the cost-benefit calculation for non-aligned states, including meaningful debt relief for heavily indebted African and South Asian countries, preferential or restructured trade access to European and American markets, accelerated and genuinely concessional technology transfer arrangements, or credible security architecture for non-aligned states, have not been systematically advanced by Western governments or by the international financial institutions they influence.

The IMF and World Bank have continued to operate under standard program conditionality frameworks during this period.  For governments negotiating painful fiscal adjustment programs with the Fund, including Egypt, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia, all of which have had active IMF programmes during the conflict period, the experience of conditionality is an immediate and often politically costly reality, not an abstraction.  The request to absorb additional economic costs through Ukraine alignment, in an environment where the same institutional architecture is imposing austerity-adjacent conditions, generates a credibility problem that is difficult to surmount through diplomatic engagement alone.

The trade dimension compounds this problem.  Several Western governments have simultaneously sought diplomatic alignment from developing nations while maintaining agricultural subsidies that depress global commodity prices for the agricultural products on which many Global South economies depend, and trade barriers including tariff structures and phytosanitary requirements that restrict market access for developing country exports.  The EU's Common Agricultural Policy, the United States' domestic farm support programmes, and the various non-tariff barriers maintained by wealthy countries against developing country agricultural, textile, and manufacturing exports are well-documented features of the global trade architecture that Global South governments have sought to reform through the WTO and bilateral negotiations for decades, with limited success.  The asymmetry between the standards being invoked in the diplomatic context and the economic policies being maintained simultaneously is not invisible to the governments being asked to align.

A foreign policy ask that requires a government to absorb near-term economic costs, in exchange for normative commitments from partners who are not offering near-term economic concessions, is a structurally weak diplomatic offer regardless of the merit of the underlying cause. Addressing that weakness would require a level of material reciprocity that Western governments have not yet demonstrated a willingness to extend.

Conclusion

The degree of Global South alignment with Ukraine's diplomatic position is shaped by structural constraints that operate largely independently of the legal merits of Ukraine's case or the quality of its diplomatic outreach.  Economic dependencies on Russian energy, food, and defense supply chains create genuine costs for governments considering alignment.  Regional security pressures, particularly across the Middle East, consume political bandwidth that might otherwise be directed toward a European conflict.  Institutional scepticism about the consistent application of international legal principles by Western states creates a reception environment in which normative arguments carry less weight than their legal foundations warrant.  China's economic footprint across the developing world creates background constraints on how far governments can move against Beijing's stated preferences.  And the absence of systematic material reciprocity from Western governments means the diplomatic ask has been presented without the economic accompaniment that might meaningfully shift the calculus.

A more durable international coalition would require Western governments to reckon seriously with each of these dimensions, not as communication problems to be managed, but as substantive constraints that reflect the actual interests and experiences of the countries being courted.  The normative case for Ukraine's position is legally sound.  Whether the political authority exists to translate that case into sustained multilateral action depends on whether the states leading that effort are willing to extend the kind of reciprocity they are asking others to demonstrate.

In light of these structural constraints, there is a reasonable argument that Ukraine's diplomatic resources are more efficiently deployed in deepening and sustaining the commitments of existing allies than in pursuing incremental shifts among states whose non-alignment reflects durable material and institutional realities unlikely to change within the timeframe of the conflict.  Managing alliance cohesion, particularly as domestic political pressures in key Western states create uncertainty about long-term military and financial support, may represent a higher-return diplomatic investment than continued outreach to governments whose cost-benefit calculus is structurally resistant to realignment.

* Dr. Paul R. Williams is the Co-Founder and Director of the Public International Law & Policy Group and Rebecca Grazier Professor of Law and International Relations at American University

Roundtable Blog: Four Years Since Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion Into Ukraine: What Have We Learned?

 Roundtable Blog:  Four Years Since Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion Into Ukraine:  What Have We Learned? 

Editor’s Note:

This blogpost is part of the PILPG Lawyering Peace roundtable series.  Rather than a traditional co-authored article, it presents a curated set of expert reflections from members of PILPG’s Peace Fellows and Ambassador Circle networks.  Marking four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, this roundtable examines how the war has reshaped international law, global security architecture, accountability mechanisms, and our understanding of modern aggression.

Anniversaries invite commemoration.  This roundtable instead invites assessment.  Four years on, the international community possesses insights that were unavailable in the early days of the invasion.  The war has tested the resilience of collective defense systems, exposed the limitations and adaptability of international institutions, accelerated transformations in military technology and information warfare, and catalyzed new approaches to sanctions, energy security, and legal accountability.  It has also revealed both the extraordinary durability of Ukrainian statehood and the profound human costs of prolonged high-intensity conflict.

This collection seeks to move beyond retrospective narrative toward forward-looking analysis.  What assumptions proved mistaken?  What institutional innovations have emerged?  How has the legal framework governing aggression and atrocity crimes evolved under pressure?  What lessons should policymakers internalize to deter future wars of aggression?  By elevating diverse expert perspectives across disciplines, this roundtable aims to distill the most consequential lessons of the past four years — and to consider how they should inform the future of peacebuilding, deterrence, and the international legal order.

If February 2022 was a moment of shock, February 2026 is a moment of reckoning. What have these four years revealed about power, law, resilience, and the future of the international order?

Dr. Paul R. Williams, Rebecca Grazier Professor of Law and International Relations at American University

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, the first and most striking transformation has been the acceleration of technological change in warfare.  Artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, precision-guided drones, satellite-enabled targeting, and real-time data fusion have compressed decision cycles and expanded the battlefield into cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum.  Ukraine has demonstrated how commercially available technology, agile software development, and decentralized innovation can offset traditional force disparities.  The war has made clear that future conflicts will be shaped as much by code, algorithms, and adaptive manufacturing as by tanks and artillery.

Yet even as technology has evolved exponentially, the fundamental constraints of warfare remain stubbornly constant.  Attrition still matters. Manpower, training, logistics, and industrial capacity continue to determine strategic endurance.  Economic resilience based on energy security, defense production, fiscal sustainability has proven as decisive as battlefield ingenuity.  The lesson of the past four years is therefore not that technology replaces fundamentals, but that it amplifies them.  States that combine technological agility with demographic depth, industrial mobilization, and societal cohesion will shape the future of warfare; those that rely on innovation alone will discover that the enduring logic of war has not disappeared.

Second, the resilience and limits of the Euro-Atlantic alliance have come into sharper focus over the past four years.  In February 2022, many assumed that the United States would continue to underwrite European security with little political friction.  That assumption has eroded.  Domestic pressures in Washington have sharpened scrutiny of asymmetric burden sharing, signaling that long-term U.S. support cannot be detached from questions of allied contribution and strategic reciprocity.  The alliance has endured, but its internal equilibrium has shifted.

At the same time, the war exposed that Europe was militarily weaker and less prepared for high-intensity conflict than many believed.  Stockpiles were thin, defense industrial capacity had atrophied, and rebuilding credible surge capacity is proving more difficult than many policymakers had assumed.  Yet the war also catalyzed a remarkable strategic reawakening: increased defense spending, joint procurement initiatives, expanded production of ammunition and air defense systems, and a broader political acceptance that deterrence requires sustained investment.  The lesson is not alliance fragility, but alliance recalibration — toward a more balanced distribution of risk, cost, and capability within the Euro-Atlantic community.

The next lesson learnt is that the economic sanctions policy as a tool to deter aggression remains strikingly anemic.  Despite unprecedented coordination in response to Russia’s invasion, sanctions have struggled to produce rapid behavioral change or to meaningfully constrain a determined, resource-rich state.  Financial restrictions, export controls, and asset freezes have imposed real costs, but they have not fundamentally altered strategic decision-making in Moscow. The limits are both institutional and structural.  Institutionally, sanctions regimes are fragmented, unevenly enforced, and vulnerable to political fatigue.  Structurally, decades of deep economic integration, particularly in energy, finance, and critical supply chains, created mutual dependencies that diluted deterrent credibility before the war and complicated escalation once it began.  The lesson is sobering: sanctions can signal condemnation and incrementally degrade capacity, but absent broader strategic alignment and sustained enforcement, they remain an insufficient stand-alone mechanism for deterring wars of aggression.

Finally, over the past four years, it has become increasingly clear that this is not simply Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but a broader war of aggression against Europe itself.  The objectives extend beyond territorial control to reshaping the European security architecture, weakening transatlantic cohesion, and reasserting spheres of influence long thought obsolete.  Energy coercion, cyber operations, election interference, disinformation campaigns, and calibrated military pressure along NATO’s eastern flank reveal a strategy aimed not only at Kyiv, but at the political and strategic unity of the continent.

Seen in this light, Ukraine has been the frontline, but not the sole target.  The war has tested Europe’s energy resilience, industrial capacity, democratic institutions, and willingness to bear sustained economic and military costs.  It has forced a reckoning with assumptions about post–Cold War stability and exposed how deeply European security remains intertwined with the outcome on Ukrainian territory.  The central question is no longer whether Europe is supporting Ukraine, but whether Europe is defending its own security order through Ukraine.

Major General Darrell Guthrie, US Army (Ret.), PILPG Senior Peace Fellow

 Four years into the war, Russia has failed to translate its initial ambitions into sustained strategic success.  Since the early phases of the invasion and the subsequent Ukrainian counter-offensives, the Russian Army has been unable to generate a decisive offensive threat beyond the eastern oblasts it currently contests.  At sea, the Russian Navy has largely withdrawn from active Black Sea operations, deterred by Ukraine’s innovative use of autonomous maritime systems.  In response to battlefield constraints, Russian leadership has increasingly relied on ballistic missile and suicide drone attacks targeting civilian populations and critical energy infrastructure — a shift that reflects both strategic frustration and a continued willingness to weaponize terror. 

At the same time, Ukraine’s military has demonstrated resilience, adaptability, and operational creativity.  Ukrainian forces have integrated autonomous systems across the frontlines and conducted deep strikes against oil production and logistical facilities inside Russia.  Despite earlier fears that fluctuations in U.S. support would create crippling ammunition shortages, coordinated domestic production and expanded European defense cooperation have significantly strengthened supply chains and replenished critical stockpiles over the past year. 

Several lessons stand out.  The Russian military remains anchored in a 20th-century attritional mindset, relying on mass and firepower rather than agility.  In contrast, Ukraine’s experience underscores the importance of securing reliable supply chains, reducing operational restrictions on advanced weapons systems, and integrating autonomous capabilities at scale.  The war has already reshaped how major powers assess force structure, industrial preparedness, and the role of unmanned systems in future conflicts.  While the fighting continues, each failed Russian attempt to break Ukraine’s defensive lines or erode civilian resolve narrows Moscow’s strategic options and reinforces the long-term limits of coercive warfare.  

Dr. David M. Crane, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone and Founder of the Global Accountability Project

Four years into Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, the world has had time to absorb what this war has revealed — about Ukraine, about Russia, and about the international system that surrounds them. The war has not followed the script many expected in February 2022, and the lessons that have emerged are sobering.

First, Ukraine’s resilience has been extraordinary.  What was supposed to be a quick decapitation strike instead became a national awakening.  Ukrainians have shown that motivation, local knowledge, and a sense of existential purpose can outweigh assumptions about military size.  Their ability to adapt — whether through drone innovation, rapid battlefield learning, or community-driven defense — has reshaped how modern resistance is understood.

Second, Russia’s strengths and weaknesses have both been laid bare.  The early failures exposed deep problems in planning, logistics, and leadership.  Yet Russia has also shown a capacity to absorb losses, reconstitute forces, and grind forward despite sanctions and diplomatic isolation.  The war has demonstrated that an authoritarian state can sustain a long, costly conflict if it is willing to sacrifice its own people and economy to do so.

Third, civilians have paid the highest price.  Millions have been displaced.  Families have been separated.  Children have grown up in basements, shelters, and foreign countries.  Russia’s strikes on energy grids, apartment blocks, and public infrastructure have made civilian life unpredictable and dangerous.  The humanitarian toll is not a side effect of the war — it is one of its defining features.

Fourth, the war has tested the cohesion of democratic alliances.  Ukraine’s survival has depended on sustained Western support, and that support has not always been guaranteed.  The war has revealed both the power of collective action and the fragility of political will.  It has forced democracies to confront a basic question: how much does the international order matter when it is challenged by force?

Fifth, the nature of warfare is changing in real time.  Drones, electronic warfare, satellite intelligence, and commercial technology have become central to the battlefield.  The war has shown that large-scale land conflict in Europe is not a relic of the past, and that future wars will blend traditional combat with rapidly evolving digital tools.

Sixth, time itself has become a strategic weapon.  Russia is betting that fatigue — political, economic, and emotional — will outlast Ukraine’s ability to fight and the West’s willingness to help.  Ukraine, in turn, is betting that determination and international solidarity can outlast Russian coercion.  The duration of the war has become part of the war. Time and distraction are Putin’s ultimate weapons.

Finally, the war in Ukraine has reshaped the landscape of international law.  The invasion has revived global attention to the crime of aggression, a charge rarely pursued since Nuremberg.  Ukraine’s partners have pushed for new accountability mechanisms, including a special tribunal focused specifically on Russia’s decision to wage an unlawful war.  At the same time, the systematic targeting of civilians, forced deportations, and attacks on critical infrastructure have forced the international community to confront gaps in how atrocity crimes are investigated and prosecuted.  The war has reminded the world that international law is only as strong as the political will behind it — and that accountability for aggression and mass harm cannot be an afterthought if the rules-based order is to survive.  The bright red thread to atrocity accountability is political not legal.

In the end, the fourth anniversary offers no easy conclusions.  What it does offer is clarity: deterrence cannot be assumed, borders are not self-enforcing, and the defense of a rules-based order requires more than statements of principle.  Ukraine’s struggle is reshaping global security, and the lessons learned today will influence international politics for decades.

Ambassador Zorica Marić-Djordjević, former Head of the Permanent Mission of Montenegro to the World Trade Organization and Special Representative of Montenegro to the UN Human Rights Council

Four years on, any commemoration of Russia’s full-scale invasion must hold two realities together: the magnitude of devastation and the depth of Ukrainian resilience.  The war has shattered cities, displaced millions, and reintroduced to Europe a form of industrial, attritional violence many believed had been confined to history.  Yet it has also revealed a society capable of extraordinary mobilization, improvisation, and sacrifice, alongside an international coalition that, despite hesitation and internal divisions, has sustained Ukraine far longer than the aggressor and many observers initially expected. 

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has forced Europe to confront its own vulnerability, accelerating a shift from a market-driven union toward a more security-conscious, geopolitical actor.  Power dynamics within the Union have subtly shifted: the Baltic and Nordic states, Poland, and Romania now carry greater influence on Russia policy; Germany has undergone a difficult strategic reorientation; and Finland and Sweden, long associated with neutrality, have joined NATO.  As a result, the EU now speaks about its security, strength, and even its “destiny” in far starker terms than before 2022.

As the end of the war approaches, the prospect of some form of “emergency accession” or accelerated integration of Ukraine into the EU has shifted from a peripheral debate to a central test of European unity.  A credible, fast tracked EU pathway would not merely reward Ukraine’s sacrifice but also function as a security instrument in its own right, anchoring Ukraine irreversibly within Europe’s political, legal, and economic space and raising the long term costs and complexity of any renewed Russian attempt to control Ukraine. 

Ambassador Ylber Hysa, former diplomat of the Republic of Kosovo 

In the years preceding the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, intelligence warnings from the United States and the United Kingdom were met with skepticism across parts of Europe.  This hesitation reflected the dominant post-Cold War paradigm: the assumption that large-scale interstate war in Europe had become structurally irrational.  The skepticism felt reasonable, because leaders of Europe felt Russian invasion was not “rational”.

This paradigm rested on three core premises: economic interdependence reduces incentives for conflict; institutional frameworks provide mechanisms for dispute resolution; and state actors primarily calculate interests in material terms. Within such a framework, invasion appeared strategically self-defeating.

However, developments in 2021 indicated an alternative logic. Following the Geneva summit with the United States, Vladimir Putin increasingly articulated a historical narrative that challenged Ukrainian sovereignty.  His interpretation of medieval statehood and shared origins suggested that identity and historical grievance, rather than economic calculation, were central to the Kremlin’s strategic worldview. The emphasis on historical continuity evokes comparisons within Russian discourse to transformative rulers such as Peter the Great or Joseph Stalin — figures associated with territorial expansion and centralized authority.

The invasion exposed miscalculations on multiple sides.  European governments and Ukrainian leadership underestimated the likelihood of maximalist action.  Russian planners appear to have underestimated Ukrainian resistance and Western cohesion.  These reciprocal misjudgments highlight the limits of rationalist models when actors prioritize ideological or historical objectives.

The events of February 2022 may therefore represent the end of the post-Cold War security order in Europe.  Rather than signaling the collapse of rationality per se, the war demonstrates the inadequacy of narrow materialist assumptions about rational behavior.  States may act “rationally” according to internally defined ideological goals, even when such actions impose significant economic costs.

In this sense, the contemporary period could be conceptualized as a transition from liberal institutional optimism toward renewed geopolitical realism. Defense spending, alliance structures, and deterrence strategies have regained prominence.

At the same time, Ukraine’s resistance has challenged deterministic assessments of military capability. The conflict has also acquired normative dimensions, framed by many Western actors as a defense of sovereignty and liberal political order.

Whether this normative framing will shape the long-term structure of European security remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that February 2022 marked a structural rupture in the assumptions that governed European politics for more than three decades.

Ambassador Joachim Rücker, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the contrast with earlier responses to aggression within the United Nations system remains striking.  Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait triggered swift and decisive action by the UN Security Council, culminating in the authorization of force and the rapid liberation of Kuwait.  In the case of Ukraine, by contrast, the Security Council has been structurally paralyzed by the veto of a permanent member that is itself the aggressor.  The comparison underscores both the promise and the vulnerability of the collective security framework established under the UN Charter.

Yet the story does not end with the Security Council deadlock.  Faced with paralysis, the UN General Assembly has assumed a more visible and assertive role.  Through emergency special sessions and repeated resolutions invoking the “Uniting for Peace” precedent, the General Assembly has articulated clear and sustained condemnation of Russia’s aggression and reaffirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity.  While its resolutions are not legally binding, they carry significant normative weight and demonstrate that multilateral legitimacy does not disappear when the Security Council fails to act.

This more assertive posture of the General Assembly is not accidental.  It has emerged largely as a response to Russia’s war of aggression and the institutional vacuum created by Security Council inaction.  The evolution of the Assembly’s role should not be overlooked amid competing global crises or diplomatic distractions.  It reflects an effort by the broader membership of the United Nations to preserve the principles of the Charter when the primary enforcement organ is unable to fulfill its mandate.

Stephanie Gusching⁩, Associate at White & Case, Secondee at the Public International Law and Policy Group

Four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war has exposed the structural weaknesses of the UN collective security apparatus.  Under Articles 39-42 of the UN Charter, the Security Council (UNSC) is tasked with identifying threats to peace and authorizing collective, binding measures to combat them.  However, Russia’s status as a permanent member of the UNSC has enabled it to veto draft resolutions condemning its actions and instituting remedial measures.  This case illustrates a core weakness in the enforcement authority of a system dependent on the consent of the most powerful states: when a permanent member is itself the alleged aggressor, the system is functionally inoperative.

In response to UNSC paralysis, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) invoked the “Uniting for Peace” procedure to impose normative pressure on Russia.  The UNGA adopted multiple resolutions with large majorities that condemned Russia’s invasion, affirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and called for the withdrawal of Russian forces.  However, the key weakness of UNGA resolutions is their non-binding nature.  This demonstrates that while international law provides strong rules against aggression, it has comparatively weak mechanisms to enforce them.

By highlighting these weaknesses, Russia’s war in Ukraine has thus ignited discussion on reform within the UNSC.  Proposals include voluntary veto restraint, mandatory abstention, and expansion of UNSC membership.  However, the path to reform is laden with its own set of challenges, as amendments to the UN Charter require ratification by the permanent members whose very power would be curtailed.

Kateryna Kyrychenko, Head of Ukraine Legal Affairs and Program Management at the Public International Law and Policy Group

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, one of the most visible changes has been the shift from discussing accountability to building it.  In February 2022, many conversations about justice felt premature - almost theoretical - while the trajectory of the war remained deeply uncertain.  Today, we are living with institutions that did not exist when the invasion began.

The foundations of the International Compensation Mechanism have been laid.  The Register of Damage for Ukraine, the first chain of the Mechanism, is operational, creating a structured mechanism to document claims and prepare the groundwork for reparations.  The Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression, established last year, marked a historic step in addressing leadership responsibility for the decision to wage an unlawful war.  At the same time, international investigations have expanded across jurisdictions, and the International Criminal Court has issued six arrest warrants in the situation in Ukraine, which is a notably rapid pace by international criminal law standards.  None of this eliminates the political challenges of enforcement.  But it does show that international law is not static.  Faced with gaps and paralysis, states and practitioners have demonstrated an ability to innovate — to create complementary mechanisms rather than accept impunity as inevitable.

Yet the legal architecture tells only part of the story.  Civilian resilience has been the constant foundation beneath every institutional development.  Local authorities continue governing despite repeated attacks.  Civil society organizations document crimes while supporting displaced families.  Energy workers restore power after each strike on infrastructure.  Teachers, doctors, volunteers, and ordinary families have adapted to a reality of prolonged uncertainty without surrendering their sense of dignity or national identity.

For me, the lesson of these four years is that institutions and people sustain each other.  Accountability mechanisms derive strength from a society that refuses to normalize aggression.  And civilian endurance is reinforced by the knowledge that crimes are being recorded, named, and pursued.  International law does not defend itself, it rather advances when communities insist that it must.