The Least Destructive Way Out
Written 20.09.2026
POLITICALCONFLICTJURIDICAL
Stefan-Niko Tanskalainen
9/19/20267 min read
The Least Destructive Way Out
I am writing this from Russia.
That is not meant to give my argument any special authority. It is simply the position from which I observe the conflict.
From here, one thing becomes increasingly difficult to ignore: the longer the war continues, the less the question is only about Ukraine and Russia.
It is becoming a question about whether the international economy can absorb a prolonged war of attrition between major economic blocs without eventually producing a much wider crisis.
There is therefore a question that should be asked before the conflict becomes even more expensive:
What is the least destructive way to end it?
I believe the answer requires something more ambitious than another ceasefire agreement.
It requires changing the institutional mechanism through which conflicts of this type are resolved.
The war of attrition is becoming an economic problem
A war of attrition does not have to destroy the global economy immediately.
That is what makes it dangerous.
Costs accumulate gradually: military expenditure, reconstruction requirements, sanctions, disrupted trade, energy infrastructure, lost investment, demographic losses, public debt and increasingly permanent defence commitments.
Ukraine's reconstruction requirements alone are now estimated by the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Commission and the Ukrainian government at almost $588 billion over the coming decade. That is nearly three times Ukraine's estimated nominal GDP for 2025.
At the same time, the conflict is increasingly connected to long-term military spending.
Britain alone says it has committed £25 billion to Ukraine, including £16 billion in military support, and intends to maintain £3 billion a year in military assistance through 2030–31.
These numbers are not an argument about whether the support is justified.
They demonstrate the scale of the economic system that is now being built around the war.
And systems built around permanent mobilisation are difficult to dismantle.
The longer the conflict continues, the greater the danger that extraordinary economic measures become normal economic policy.
That is why a peace settlement should not be viewed merely as a Ukrainian or Russian objective.
It should also be viewed as a global economic stabilisation project.
The problem with another Cold War
There is another danger.
The conflict can become institutionally easier to continue than to resolve.
Russia and Western countries increasingly develop separate financial, technological, military and industrial systems. Governments invest in domestic defence production. Sanctions become permanent. Security guarantees become permanent. Military procurement becomes an industrial policy.
At some point, neither side needs to believe that it can achieve a decisive victory.
It only needs to believe that the other side will eventually become economically or politically weaker.
That is the logic of a war of attrition.
And historically, wars of attrition rarely end because everyone suddenly becomes convinced that the other side was right.
They end when maintaining the existing system becomes less attractive than creating a different one.
The world should therefore avoid turning Ukraine into another permanent arena of confrontation between Russia and the West.
The twentieth century already demonstrated where such systems can lead.
The United Nations needs to become capable of solving this kind of conflict
This brings us to the uncomfortable part of the proposal.
Perhaps the United Nations itself needs to change.
Not through another temporary conference.
Through its Charter.
The UN Charter already contains mechanisms for fundamental revision. Article 108 establishes a procedure for amendments, while Article 109 provides for a general conference of UN members to review the Charter. Both mechanisms ultimately require very broad international consent, including the permanent members of the Security Council.
The purpose should be to create mechanisms capable of addressing conflicts where two populations, states or political communities claim incompatible futures.
The present system is heavily shaped by the great-power structure of 1945.
The world that exists today is different.
The Ukrainian conflict exposes one of the system's central weaknesses: when a conflict becomes intertwined with great-power rivalry, the institution designed to resolve the conflict can itself become part of the rivalry.
That is precisely what should be changed.
Why London?
The most provocative part of this proposal is also the simplest.
Move the headquarters of the United Nations to London.
This would not make Britain the owner of the organisation.
It would give Britain a responsibility.
Britain is currently one of the most active supporters of Ukraine. The British government describes itself as a leading partner in support for Ukraine and has committed billions of pounds in military and non-military assistance. In July 2026, Britain also joined the €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan initiative and reaffirmed its intention to support Ukraine for as long as necessary.
Britain has therefore already chosen to play a major role in the conflict.
That creates an obvious question:
If you believe the current system is insufficient and you are prepared to participate so deeply in the conflict, are you now prepared to take responsibility for creating the system that can actually end it?
That is the challenge I would put to London.
Not because Britain is neutral.
It is not.
Precisely because it is not.
Britain should turn involvement into responsibility
The proposal is not that Britain should suddenly abandon Ukraine.
Nor is it that London should dictate the terms of peace to either side.
The proposal is that Britain should take responsibility for building the institutional framework in which a settlement becomes possible.
The United Nations could become the platform.
London could become the location.
Britain could provide the political initiative.
And the parties to the conflict could negotiate under a framework that is deliberately designed to prevent the negotiations from becoming another confrontation between blocs.
This would require Britain to make a difficult transition.
From supporting one side in a war to helping construct a system in which both sides can eventually coexist.
That is a much greater responsibility.
Crimea would have to be discussed at the beginning, not the end
Every serious peace process eventually reaches the territorial question.
There is no reason to pretend otherwise.
Crimea should therefore be placed on the table at the beginning of negotiations.
The present British position is that Crimea remains Ukrainian territory and that Russia's annexation is not recognised.
A new settlement could nevertheless examine whether recognition of the existing situation in Crimea could form part of a wider negotiated agreement.
This would have to be constructed carefully.
Recognising a negotiated territorial settlement would not necessarily mean establishing a general principle that territory can simply be acquired by force.
That distinction matters.
A peace settlement should create a political and legal exception through negotiation rather than transform military conquest into an international rule.
The purpose would be to remove one of the largest obstacles to negotiations while simultaneously establishing stronger rules against future attempts to alter borders through war.
The contradiction is only apparent.
Sometimes the only way to strengthen a rule is to create a settlement that prevents the current exception from becoming the next precedent.
Ukraine needs institutions, not simply another mountain of debt
The second major part of the settlement would be reconstruction.
The temptation will be to talk about hundreds of billions of dollars.
But money is not an institution.
Ukraine can receive enormous amounts of financing and still fail to reconstruct successfully if the institutions managing that money are weak.
The World Bank itself describes reconstruction as requiring not only resources but institutional resilience and strong governance.
This should therefore become the centre of the reconstruction programme.
The first priority should be institutions capable of absorbing capital.
Courts.
Public procurement.
Financial supervision.
Public administration.
Local government.
Auditing.
Infrastructure management.
Transparent taxation.
Capital-market institutions.
Only after those mechanisms are functioning should the largest reconstruction flows be released.
Otherwise reconstruction risks becoming another debt cycle in which money enters the country faster than institutional capacity can absorb it.
The objective should not be to create a permanently indebted Ukraine.
The objective should be to create a Ukrainian economy capable of financing its own future.
And this is where Britain matters again
If Britain wants to demonstrate the value of the institutional model it represents, Ukraine provides an extraordinary test.
The question should not be whether Ukraine can copy Britain.
It cannot and should not.
The question is which institutional mechanisms can be transferred, adapted and tested.
The British contribution could therefore be institutional rather than simply financial.
London could help build the legal, administrative and financial architecture of post-war Ukraine.
But the United Nations would oversee the broader framework.
That distinction is important.
Britain would provide an example.
It would not become Ukraine's owner.
Russia must eventually have a place in the new system
A durable settlement cannot be based on the assumption that Russia will disappear.
Russia will remain geographically where it is.
It will remain a major state.
It will remain economically relevant.
And it will remain part of Europe's wider security environment whether Europe likes that fact or not.
A peace settlement therefore has to create a future in which Russia can exist within an international system without needing to challenge that system militarily.
This does not require accepting every Russian claim.
It requires creating a structure in which disputes can be negotiated before they become wars.
That is precisely what international institutions are supposed to do.
The objective is not victory
The objective should be to prevent the war from becoming a permanent economic structure.
A military victory may resolve one battlefield.
It does not automatically resolve the economic, demographic and institutional consequences of the war.
A ceasefire may stop the shooting.
It does not automatically prevent the next conflict.
A reconstruction loan may rebuild a bridge.
It does not automatically build the institution that will maintain it.
A new security guarantee may deter one future attack.
It does not automatically create a European order in which another security crisis cannot develop.
That is why the solution has to be larger than Ukraine.
A final proposition
Perhaps the most realistic peace plan is not the one that gives either Russia or Ukraine everything it wants.
Perhaps it is the one that gives both countries something they cannot obtain through continued war: a functioning framework for the future.
For Ukraine, that would mean territorial security, reconstruction and stronger institutions.
For Russia, it would mean a path back into an international system rather than permanent exclusion.
For Britain, it would mean accepting responsibility not only for supporting Ukraine but for helping construct the system that ends the war.
For the rest of the world, it would mean avoiding another permanent confrontation between economic blocs.
And for the United Nations, it would mean becoming something more than the place where the great powers explain why they cannot agree.
The headquarters could move to London.
The Charter could be revised.
A new mechanism for resolving interstate and inter-ethnic conflicts could be created.
Crimea could become part of a negotiated settlement rather than an eternal obstacle.
Ukraine could receive institutions before it receives another generation of debt.
Russia could eventually return to a European economic and security framework.
And the global economy could begin moving away from permanent war mobilisation.
None of this would be easy.
It may even sound unrealistic.
But there is another possibility.
The war continues.
The economic costs accumulate.
Defence spending becomes permanent.
Debt rises.
Sanctions become structural.
Industrial systems divide.
And a conflict that began as a war over Ukraine gradually becomes another permanent confrontation between Russia and the West.
From Russia, that possibility is difficult to ignore.
From anywhere else in the world, it should be equally difficult to ignore.
The question is therefore no longer simply who can win.
The more important question is:
Can the international system change enough to make winning unnecessary?