Permanent Under-Secretary

The launch of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine will come to be seen as a turning point in Putin’s war, one with long-term benefits for European security. Even if the Ukrainian conflict settles into a stalemate and an armed truce, getting the free provinces of Ukraine into Nato and the EU will make a return to war much less likely. In March 2022, a few weeks after the launch of the Russian invasion, I wrote a blog for Prospect called “How wars end”.

This week marks the commemoration of a famous ceasefire. At 11 o’clock on 11/11/1918, the guns fell silent at the end of the war to end all wars. In fact it turned out to be a 20-year interlude before the fighting resumed between essentially the same adversaries. As calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war intensify, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, the issue of how wars end is once again acutely topical.