Four years on, what should Britain do to expedite a Ukrainian victory?
The Big Ask | No. 08.2026
Tuesday marked four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The ‘special military operation’, which Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, expected to last only a handful of days, has degenerated into a grinding war of attrition reminiscent of the Western Front during the First World War – and has cost the lives of over one million people fighting for the Kremlin.
Russia has also made itself an international pariah. Its economy suffers difficulties, and free and open nations continue to uphold sanctions regimes against the Kremlin while providing political, financial and military aid to Ukraine. Ensuring Kyiv emerges triumphant is a top strategic priority for the United Kingdom (UK), as continental security hinges on preventing further Russian aggression against sovereign European nations. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked eight experts: Four years on, what should Britain do to expedite a Ukrainian victory?
Senior Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Lecturer, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)
Over the past four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UK has played a disproportionately significant role in sustaining Ukraine. Britain moved early in providing lethal aid; trained Ukrainian personnel; supplied advanced defence systems, financial assistance and shared intelligence; and coordinated sanctions and diplomatic support across North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Group of Seven (G7). This engagement was institutionalised through the 2024 UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation, and deepened by the 2025 100 Year Partnership Declaration, signalling a long-term British commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, reconstruction and defence integration.
Nevertheless, expediting a Ukrainian victory into the conflict’s fifth year now requires translating this activism into durable strategic leadership. As the United States (US) reduces its conventional presence and political bandwidth in Europe, the UK should assume greater responsibility within NATO, particularly as a pivotal northern flank power securing the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches.
However, such leadership must rest on capability. Britain should accelerate modernisation and expansion of its armed forces in line with NATO’s funding thresholds from the 2025 summit in The Hague, rebuilding deployable mass, replenishing munitions stockpiles and scaling defence-industrial output through sustained procurement. Meeting these requirements will need a much more open and comprehensive domestic debate on defence prioritisation within fiscal and budgetary constraints.
If the UK is to anchor European deterrence and help bring the invasion to a favourable conclusion, defence requires a structurally higher priority in public expenditure.
Deputy Director, Centre for European Reform
The first thing Britain needs is to be honest with itself about three things:
Peace is not around the corner. Putin has no interest in peace, except on terms that amount to Ukraine’s surrender;
Ukraine’s resilience is not infinite. European nations cannot rely indefinitely on the Ukrainians’ ability to withstand the terrible conditions the Kremlin is inflicting on them without breaking;
Donald Trump, President of the US, is not on Ukraine’s side, nor that of European countries. Trump has sought to bully Kyiv into making concessions that would fatally undermine it militarily and politically, almost guaranteeing renewed conflict in Europe.
Against that background, the UK and its allies and partners must treat Ukraine’s security as their own: if Ukraine loses, Putin will target another state, perhaps a NATO ally. They should step up sanctions, including by seizing ‘shadow fleet’ tankers transporting Russian oil. They should invest in rapidly increasing defence production, for themselves and Ukraine, even if that means an increase in budget deficits. And they should put aircraft in the skies over Ukraine to blunt the Kremlin’s efforts to destroy Ukraine’s economy and society – all without waiting for a peace deal or an American ‘backstop’ that will not come.
None of those steps will guarantee that Ukraine defeats Russia and regains territory, but without them, a Russian victory will become more likely.
British Defence Attaché to Ukraine (2008-2011) and Russia (2019-2022)
Ukraine will not prevail militarily, nor restore its 2022 borders, let alone those of 1991, by force.
Ukrainian fighting spirit and ingenuity, together with support from free and open nations, have slowed but not stemmed Russia’s grinding military advance. Ukraine remains at a disadvantage in terms of personnel, materiel and money, and is under significant battlefield and societal pressure. Russia can mobilise more of its national strength, even if it has to date proven unable to leverage its numerical advantage decisively.
Locked in a trial of endurance to exhaust each other’s will and capacity to fight on, it will be resources, not warfare, that will prove decisive, assuming equal commitment to the cause by both sides. For his part, being unserious about peace, Putin is determined to subjugate Ukraine. For theirs, Ukrainians do not support a peace deal on the Kremlin’s punitive terms.
In this war of attrition, it is the party being attrited that will lose first. With the US havering, Britain and other free and open European countries must act to ensure this is not Ukraine, instead making the war too costly for Russia to continue. The reactive incrementalism of the past four years, providing just enough aid for Ukraine’s survival but not to allow it to regain the initiative, should be replaced by doing the following:
Instituting concerted proactive policies to provide Ukraine with durable financial and economic support;
Removing battlefield, support and logistic bottlenecks;
Assisting Ukrainian domestic defence production, in particular for deep strike; and
Enhancing and actually enforcing economic sanctions against Russia.
International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)
Carl von Clausewitz once observed that ‘everything in war is very simple but the simplest thing is difficult.’ Indeed, identifying what Ukraine needs for achieving victory is straightforward: in the absence of direct military intervention on the part of others, Ukraine must receive robust and persistent defence industrial support so that it can not only withstand attacks on the ground and in the air, but can also undermine Russia’s ability to occupy its territory for good.
Unfortunately, European countries have been slow in stepping up military production to backstop Ukraine’s defence needs. They are yet to produce a coherent, well-resourced vision for how Ukraine could inflict strategic defeat on Russia. These failures illuminate why Washington exerts as much influence on Ukraine’s future as it does under Trump.
Thankfully, the UK has been one of the most clear-eyed and forward-thinking supporters of Kyiv, assuming key leadership roles in coordinating military aid while vouching for its interests in international discussions. Yet, much more remains to be done.
The new Ukrspecsystems factory in Britain offers a model for further defence industrial cooperation between the two countries. Such investments reinforce the fighting ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and ensure that no agreement on European security can be struck at the expense of Ukraine or, for that matter, the UK and other NATO allies.
Doctoral Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of Surrey
While Ukraine’s victory mostly hinges on Ukraine, with outside European actors increasingly becoming irrelevant amid their reticence to perform real conflict-changing actions, Britain at least has the strongest set of available tools to help attain a Ukrainian victory. These revolve around three core pillars: troops, trade and ties.
For troops, it has been suggested that British forces – as many as 5,000-15,000 personnel – could be deployed to Ukraine to perform non-combat roles. This does not go far enough. For the UK to make a real impact, a wider-ranging operation should be considered to secure and protect key cities, such as Kyiv, Lviv and Uzhhorod. This would allow Ukrainian troops to be remobilised towards the frontline and facilitate the reopening of civilian and permanent military logistics, as well as providing British troops real learning in warfare if positioned closer to the front.
In trade, the UK has been entrepreneurial, but this should be deepened. Alongside pushing for loan relief, Britain should use trade mechanisms to keep the Ukrainian economy strong, encouraging its opening into the UK and other European nations. This supports Ukraine’s ability to last economically until victory, and its attempt to mitigate the exploitative practice of operating and taking capital away from Ukraine itself.
Lastly is ties, referring to the need to keep Ukraine in the diplomatic picture. At the United Nations UN) and NATO, in discussions with the European Union (EU), and especially in bilateral relationships in Asia and Africa, Ukraine should be highlighted hand-in-hand with Britain. The more the UK can support in tackling misinformation and pushing back Russian influence, the more pressure can be kept away from Ukraine to capitulate to false negotiations.
While pride can be taken in the UK’s role in Ukraine, it pales in comparison to what individual Ukrainians are doing to reach victory. It is within Britain’s grasp to help Ukraine win if it really wanted it to. Let us at least meet them halfway.
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Beyond the current level of support, the UK should hasten its activity in three key areas. The first is to work with allies proactively to counter and defeat Russian activity abroad, including neutering the Kremlin’s ability to fuel its invasion. Continued dismantling of the ‘shadow fleet’ and severing the supply of key European components that are still found in Russian weaponry are priorities, as are combatting Russian influence operations, both in European nations and in key middle-ground powers.
The second is to build up its military and industrial capacity significantly, both to rearm its own forces and to supply Ukraine. A strong British military is required to constrain Russian strategic options, while uninterrupted flows of UK equipment – especially critical enablers – can contribute decisively to a Ukrainian victory.
Finally, Britain should continue to argue successfully for the necessity of a comprehensive Russian defeat for global security to both domestic and foreign audiences. War fatigue, budgetary pressures and hostile narratives – especially from populist parties – will all contribute to declining support for Ukraine if left to fester. British politicians should continue to explain clearly to both the British public and audiences abroad why the benefits of a Ukrainian victory far exceed the potential costs.
Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy
From autumn 2021 to summer 2022, the UK led the European response to Ukraine. Not only did it provide vital political support for the Ukrainians, but it also led the way in issuing lethal weaponry, advice and intelligence, as well as support from other European allies.
More than that, it reinforced deterrence along NATO’s central front, not least by providing Sweden and Finland with security assurances once they decided to join the alliance. Britain saw Russia’s imperialist assault on Ukraine as a threat to national and European security, but it was also keen to re-establish its position as Europe’s leading power after the tumult of Brexit. Other Europeans took note: the UK did much to re-establish its strategic indispensability.
Britain needs to return to the confidence and boldness of that era. It is fine to plan for after a potential settlement, but first the Kremlin must be brought to heel. Waiting for the US to act or lead is no longer tenable; the UK’s interests in Ukraine are greater than those of the Americans.
Along with Germany, Britain should convene a vanguard of like-minded European countries alongside Ukraine, and establish a clear plan for Ukrainian victory within two to three years. It should then provide the political cover and resources, alongside its European allies, to fund the Ukrainian war effort.
With clear and decisive British and European backing, Russia may lose the will to continue, enhancing the prospect that its grisly war will come to an end.
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews
So many changes have overtaken the world in the past four years that the UK must force itself to remember the destabilising nature of Putin’s aggression. Knowing what is at stake in Ukraine should buttress Britain’s commitment to it.
What the UK should immediately do is board and seize shadow fleet tankers transiting the North Sea and English Channel to export Russia’s oil and gas overseas. It is a national disgrace that Britain has not stopped and boarded a single shadow fleet vessel while France has boarded two, Sweden and Finland have boarded one each, and Germany has forced one to turn around. Russia’s warmaking depends on its oil and gas exports, which Britain has tolerated due to its lack of imagination.
The UK should also work alongside its European allies and partners to extend anti-drone and anti-missile defences over western Ukraine. American and British fighter jets shot down Iranian drones and missiles bound for Israel, proving that manned aircraft can protect civilians from drone and cruise missile attacks efficiently.
Are Ukrainians less deserving of protection than Israelis? Does the UK have less of a commitment to Ukraine’s security than Israel’s? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then Britain should league together with close European allies, deploy fighter jets to Polish and Romanian airfields, and from there declare an air protection zone extending over western Ukraine.
The fate of Russia’s full-scale invasion is still up for grabs, and Ukraine’s security is indissociable from the UK’s own.
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