Thank you to the committee for having me, and thank you to the chair, vice-chairs and honourable members for being here.
As I think you heard quite clearly in the last session, escalated war is and remains very possible. There is a huge troop buildup and wide flexibility for Moscow in choosing what sort of operation it could pursue. This has been supplemented by substantial naval presence in the Black and Azov sea areas, though we have heard reports in the last hour that at least the missile exercise in the Sea of Azov has been cancelled. That does not change the fact, even without the missile exercise, that Russia pretty much has Ukraine surrounded.
If escalated war happens, Russia will win. They have more people and more weapons. They are more capable and have more ability to send more stuff in. No amount of lethal or non-lethal aid that Ukraine's friends can send is going to change that equation. There are weapons that can make it possible for Ukraine to inflict more damage. There are systems and tools that could help more Ukrainians survive. Those are the options, but they're not going to deliver victory. Once war begins, supply from abroad is going to become difficult if Russia continues to block access via water and flying becomes unsafe.
There are two ways to prevent war that could actually work and are pretty likely to work. One is to give the Russians what they want. The other is for NATO member states, including Canada and the United States, to pledge to fight for Ukraine. Neither of those is going to happen. With regard to the former, it's because what they want, with regard to Ukraine and with regard to European security more broadly, is not acceptable to NATO or to Ukraine. For the latter, it's because while the threat of a larger war with more participants and a real risk of escalation, including to nuclear use, could well deter Moscow, those risks are also so high that NATO member states don't want to take them.
We've had these last three months of diplomacy in an effort to find a formula that creates enough incentives for Moscow to back down without undermining western Ukrainian security or sovereignty. These aren't all carrots, of course. I think we've talked about this. You have this paired offer of talks about the fundamentals of European security, which Professor Hampson just talked about, with the threat of substantial sanctions and troop buildups in Europe, which have already begun. It's the right approach, but it might not work, in which case Ukraine will suffer first and most, but all of the rest of us, as Professor Hampson just said, will be suffering too.
I want to talk briefly about why Russia is doing this, despite the fact that they say they are not and that the buildup is western hype. The diplomacy, which is focused on European security, underlines the reality that the challenge in Ukraine is part of the broader European security challenge of incompatible views of security on the part of Russia on the one hand and western states on the other. For Russia, 30 years of NATO enlargement and engagement near its borders are an effort, and often a successful one, to limit Moscow's capabilities and influence, and to coerce it. Moscow has never seen NATO or the EU as independent actors. It views both as subsidiaries of the United States.
Ukraine has long been a red line for Moscow in this context. While the 2014 war was spurred at the start by EU association, not NATO enlargement—and indeed NATO enlargement to the Ukraine has not been and remains not in the cards in the foreseeable future—Russia has since grown even more concerned by Ukraine's growing ties with the alliance, which ironically, of course, were driven largely by the war.
Russia had hoped that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, elected in 2019 on a peace platform, would implement the Minsk agreements—the ceasefire deals signed in 2014 and 2015 to end the worst of the fighting—the way Russia wants them implemented, such that it could cement its influence in Ukraine's east and give that east veto over foreign policy steps. That has not happened. Instead, Zelenskyy is pretty much in the same place as his predecessor was, with fighting at a simmer and negotiations at a standstill.
COVID has now led to an almost complete halt of human and commercial traffic between government-controlled territories and those that are not. Russia may well have been thinking that force, or its threat, could force Zelenskyy to back down, or that he could be forced from office and replaced by somebody more palatable, although the election of somebody friendly to Russia seems unlikely without a full occupation.
In principle, a real deal on European security, and indeed on Ukraine, is in everyone's interests. It's a good thing even without the current escalation. Limits on deployments, activities and exercises and perhaps, yes, even some affirmation of the reality that Ukraine is not joining NATO in the foreseeable future could very well make everybody better off. The efforts by NATO and Russia to deter one another over the last eight years have led to increasing rates of incidents as forces exercise and operate in close proximity.
A deal to end the war in Ukraine would save lives and livelihoods, but Russia may be waiting to see what it can get. It might get greedy, particularly if it believes that sanctions can be weathered, Ukraine won't put up much of a fight, and western buildups and sanctions will happen anyway. If it does agree to negotiate, it's vital that these negotiations continue, or more crises will recur.
If we instead have more war, we are going to see more of these buildups in activities. We're going to see increasing tension and more crises, with each one more likely to lead to the escalation we all fear. We should be prepared for this potential future as well.