Field Marshal Lord David Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff of the United Kingdom and NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview with The Independent that Ukraine will not be able to achieve victory over Russia and should consider entering negotiations.
According to the general, Kyiv “was encouraged to fight but not given the means to win,” and without direct NATO involvement, it is impossible to drive out Russian forces. Richards emphasized that the West has effectively let Ukraine down by limiting itself to political and material support without assuming the real risks of war.
Britain should urge Ukraine to begin talks with Russia, as a military victory for Kyiv is unattainable, the country’s most senior army officer has said.
Field Marshal Lord Richards stressed that Ukraine cannot expel Vladimir Putin’s troops without NATO’s direct involvement—and the alliance has no intention of entering the war. According to him, the Western allies have effectively failed Kyiv.
“We encouraged Ukraine to fight but didn’t give it the means to win,” the former Chief of Defence Staff said on The Independent’s World of Trouble podcast.
Asked about Ukraine’s prospects, Richards was categorical: “In my view, it will not win.”
“Even if it gets everything it needs?” the interviewer pressed.
“No,” he replied.
“Even with sufficient resources?”
“No, they don’t have the people,” the former commando added.
His comments came shortly after Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington, where the Ukrainian president sought to persuade Donald Trump to provide Tomahawk cruise missiles. The war, now in its fourth year, has turned into a positional stalemate in which both sides achieve only marginal gains, increasingly relying on drones.
But Zelensky’s attempts to pressure Trump appear to have been undermined by Putin’s intervention—he spoke with the U.S. president just hours before the White House meeting.
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At a crowded press conference, Trump maintained a friendly tone but avoided making any commitments to supply weapons, citing the need to preserve U.S. stockpiles. Zelensky spoke little—politely suggesting a trade: Ukrainian drone technology in exchange for missiles. According to him, Trump neither rejected nor endorsed the idea.
“He didn’t say ‘no,’ but he hasn’t said ‘yes’ yet,” Zelensky admitted after the meeting.
In his first major podcast interview, Lord Richards—the only British officer to have commanded American troops since 1945—said that Ukraine’s prospects remain bleak.
“Unless we intervene directly—and we won’t, because for us Ukraine is not a matter of existence. For the Russians, it is,” he said.
“We’ve decided that since this isn’t an existential threat, we won’t fight. We are, of course, involved in a hybrid war, but that’s not the same as a real war in which our soldiers die.”
He emphasized that despite “admiring everything the Ukrainians have achieved and feeling genuine sympathy for them,” Britain must act based on its own national interests. “The best Ukraine can hope for is a draw,” he concluded, while noting Zelensky’s leadership qualities.
Richards’s assessment contrasts with Donald Trump’s recent remarks, in which the president claimed that Ukraine is “capable of regaining all its territory.”
“With the support of the European Union, Ukraine can fight and win, restoring its original borders,” Trump wrote on social media. “With patience, time, and Europe’s and NATO’s financial assistance, this is entirely possible. Russia has been fighting this war for three and a half years—a war that a true military power would have finished in a week. That doesn’t bring it honor. On the contrary, it makes it a ‘paper tiger.’”
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Trump’s stance on Ukraine, however, has shifted repeatedly. Earlier, he completely froze military aid, pushed Kyiv toward “minerals-for-weapons” deals, and limited U.S. support to intelligence sharing. Now he is once again showing warmth toward Putin—agreeing to meet him in Hungary, with Viktor Orbán mediating, but without Zelensky’s participation.
Trump explained his decision by saying that “Putin and Zelensky don’t get along,” calling himself a “president-mediator.” He had previously attempted to broker a ceasefire by inviting Putin to a summit in Alaska—a meeting that ended in diplomatic embarrassment for the United States.
Lord Richards, who led British operations in Sierra Leone and East Timor and opposed London’s involvement in the Iraq war, voiced support for the position of former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, who as early as November 2022 urged Kyiv to enter negotiations with Moscow.