Audiences respond to stories that drive toward an achievable climax. In the big movie of this summer, Odysseus faces endless challenges on his way home to Ithaca, but we know his goal is to reunite with Penelope and Telemachus and that he is handy with a bow. The story proceeds in an arc to his ultimate triumph.
Both Russia and the West have tried to promote a logical arc for the end of the Ukraine war, but their narratives have lacked goals and means. Both sides have failed to define exactly what they want, or to convince the world they have the ability to achieve it.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Western nations promised to give Ukraine “whatever it takes” without ever defining “it.” President Joe Biden’s administration never fixed a goal of entirely rolling back the invasion, nor did its European allies.
Three months after the invasion, Biden even implied Russia might keep some of its early territorial gains. He said the US would help Ukraine fight “further” aggression so it would “be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”
The approach of President Donald Trump’s administration to Ukraine has also lacked a consistent storyline. The White House has turned aid to Kyiv on and off, and alternately tried to flatter and intimidate both Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump issued a 28-point peace plan in November 2025 but days later said it was not his “final offer.” Statements from the president since then, and from his envoys after closed-door negotiations, have not clarified how much of his plan remains on the table.
European nations have stepped up their aid to Ukraine, and continued to demand a full Russian withdrawal, but have risked none of their own armed forces to help. No ultimate vision about how a withdrawal might be achieved appears to be driving their storyline.
Europe’s strategy seems to be to keep Ukraine in the fight until some divine intervention, such as a coup d’état in Moscow, brings the war to an acceptable end. Such an unfocused approach makes it hard to maintain the enthusiasm and solidarity Ukraine needs from the continent.
European nations have also failed to lay out a storyline about the way they plan to counter growing incidents of arson, assassination, and drone incursions into their sovereign territory by Russia. The lack of a clear narrative aids right-wing parties, which accuse governments of spending endlessly on Ukraine with no clear purpose while their own populations are in danger.
As for the Kremlin, despite its tales of Ukrainian Nazis and supposed NATO designs on Russia, its strongest storyline has been that Russia is unbeatable and that, by aiding Kyiv, the West is risking World War III.
Yet the war’s reality has severely damaged Moscow’s narrative of Russian invincibility, and Putin’s frequent threats of worldwide nuclear war have lost some of their potency, especially after Trump snapped in response that the US could also nuke Russia.
Russia has also offered different versions of what it wants in Ukraine.
Announcing the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Putin said Russia was seeking to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine, but not to occupy it or “impose anything on anyone by force,” a contradictory set of objectives. Two months later, he suggested Russia was interested mainly in Donbas and then, in July 2024, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said all of Ukraine must be absorbed by Russia.
In June 2025, Putin suggested the outcome of the ground war was a matter of fate: “A certain logic of military operations occurs, and the troops end up in different territories,” he said. At his Alaska summit with Trump in August 2025, however, he said Ukraine was entitled to its security, implying he accepted the state would continue to exist.
Perhaps sensing its storytelling is in disarray, the Kremlin has pivoted to broader narratives about the need to address the “root causes” of the war, including claims about NATO’s military capabilities in Europe. But this storyline has gained little traction, largely because almost no one in the West believes NATO has any desire to attack Russia.
Ukraine’s own central storyline, of a valiant democratic state fighting a totalitarian aggressor, remains strong, though the country’s image has been dented by corruption and political infighting.
Kyiv retains the mantle of fighting Russia on behalf of all Europeans but has vacillated on what it is fighting for, due more to battlefield realities and the qualms of allies than Ukrainian indecisiveness.
Reacting to concern from some NATO members about Kyiv joining the alliance, Zelensky has retreated to calling for security guarantees outside the NATO structure. Rather than insisting on Russia’s full withdrawal from Ukraine, he has suggested compromises over the administration of some Donbas territory.
Kyiv has excelled at tactical storytelling, making the most of individual acts of heroism and campaigns tightly focused on achievable outcomes. The courageous defense of Snake Island and the smuggling of truck-mounted drones deep into Russia seized the world’s imagination, for example.
Ukraine’s focus on the kidnapping of its children also led to the indictment of Putin by the International Criminal Court and has helped build widespread support for the easy-to-understand goal of returning youngsters to their parents.
The absence of effective storytelling about the war by the superpowers, however, is striking.
Russia and the West now mainly offer their citizens a tale of combat without end. As a result, both sides are struggling to justify ever-growing sacrifices to advance a story without an obvious conclusion.
Thomas Kent is a consultant on Russian affairs and the information war, and teaches at Columbia University. His latest book, The Propaganda Manual of the Ukraine War: Information Warfare by Russia, Ukraine, and Western Nations, was published in August.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
