Once a while the writers at RUSI, the British Ministry of Defense think tank, produce some valuable research. Mostly though they are out to push war mongering nonsense. A recent piece in Foreign Affairs by Jack Waitling is of the later kind.
Ukraine’s Hardest Winter – Foreign Affairs, Nov 11 2025
With the Donbas in Peril, Europe Must Pressure Russia Now
I’ll leave the dozens of outright lies, false assertions and delusions therein for others to mock.
Waitling’s main thesis is that more (economic) pressure on Russia will somehow press it towards a ceasefire without concessions from the Ukrainian side. But his suggestions on how to do that are all designed to drag Europe into an even more direct battle with Russia.
To support the Ukrainian campaign against Russia’s oil industry the Europeans should close the Strait of Denmark:
For Ukraine’s international partners, the question is whether they are prepared to match Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s oil infrastructure with comparable real rather than performative pressure on Russia’s economy. Above all, this means targeting Russia’s shadow fleet: the hundreds of decrepit tankers, operating under flags of convenience, often without insurance or trained crew, to move its oil to India and China. This will require denying the 80 percent of Russian seaborne oil exports that pass through the Strait of Denmark and threatening secondary sanctions against the ports where shadow fleet vessels unload.
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Some European governments—including Denmark—have cited the 1857 Treaty of Copenhagen, an international agreement that established tariff-free transit of commercial shipping through Danish waters, as a legal barrier to action. But this is an excuse rather than a real obstacle. The countries that have a Baltic coastline today, excluding Russia, could agree to a new treaty requiring ships to meet certain standards of insurance and certification to be allowed to navigate the Baltic—for example, on grounds of ecological protection. Since the aging vessels of the shadow fleet do not meet these requirements, such a treaty would deny them entry into the straits. This would not impinge on the principle of tariff-free transit for commercial shipping through Danish waters.
Nice idea. But would enforce such nonsense and how?
Neither Russia, nor any non-NATO country, would recognize such new treaty. Ships not insured in London, i.e. the ‘shadow fleet’, would continue to sail but be accompanied by Russian naval forces. What country will be willing to sink the Russian frigate that protects a ‘shadow ship’ convoy from outside intervention? On what legal grounds?
Ukraine does not have a recruitment problem, Waitling claims, but must receive better in country training by NATO forces:
There has been widespread confusion about Ukraine’s manpower situation. On the one hand, Ukraine has enough people to keep fighting. Nationally, there is no manpower problem. But the number of combat-ready infantry in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been declining for almost two years. At some point, it will hit a level that will render it impossible to hold the front, barring a shift in Kyiv’s approach to force generation.
The challenge is less about pulling people off the street and more about improving the quality and capacity of training and integration of Ukrainian infantry into combat brigades. There are more people serving in the Ukrainian military today than at any point during the war, but the military is unable to train its personnel to perform frontline combat functions. To solve this growing problem, Ukraine’s new Army Corps will need to establish brigade rotations and allow better units to help train the less capable ones.
With more than 160,000 desertions this year alone in Ukraine one might doubt that better training would somehow result in more Ukrainian troops on the frontline.
This is an area in which Ukraine’s international partners can make a significant contribution.
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European states could also deliver in-country military training. By allowing Ukrainian forces to train on their equipment, in a setting in which European trainers would be supported by the Ukrainian commanders who will ultimately employ these soldiers, such a step would directly address Ukraine’s force generation challenges. It is true that the presence of European trainers in Ukraine would provide an inviting target for Russia. But Russia has had limited success targeting Ukrainian trainers, so this is clearly a manageable risk, and it could play a key role in building the units Ukraine needs to sustain its defensive line.
What can European NATO trainers, which have zero recent experience in war, teach Ukrainian soldiers who have fought a high intensity conflict for over three years? Who will be willing to send these trainers to Ukraine? What is the plan after dozens of them die due to the inevitable Russian missile attack that will follow such their deployment?
Waitling does not only want to push western ‘trainers’ into Ukraine, but also their air forces:
Poland and Romania could request Ukrainian permission to engage air threats over Ukrainian airspace that are approaching NATO’s border, just as Israel intercepted many of Iran’s Shahed-136 drones in Jordanian airspace. Without creating an obligation for Poland, Romania, and others to engage targets over Ukraine, such permission would set the stage for deconflicting European aircraft with Ukrainian air defenses. In this way, the European coalition could project airpower into Ukraine at short notice.
Project airpower into Ukraine for exactly what? To shoot down $50,000 drones with $2,000,000 missiles? Or is it to bomb Russian positions? One wonders how many minutes any pilot attempting that would have to survive.
All three measures Waitling foresees, the closing of the Denmark Strait for Russian oil, the introduction of western trainers into Ukraine and the projection of airpower would massively increase the potential for a direct conflict with Russia.
It seems that this is exactly what Waitling is aiming to do.