Recent events in the Middle East have drawn international political and media attention away from the war in Ukraine at what looks like a critical juncture. This is understandable but nonetheless alarming. The principal beneficiary of this loss of focus is Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who ordered an illegal, unprovoked full-scale invasion in February last year that has caused more than 27,000 civilian casualties and appalling destruction. The UN believes that the true casualty figure is “considerably higher”. Putin has been accused of war crimes by the international criminal court.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his western backers were optimistic earlier this year that Russian ground forces, badly led and often poorly equipped, could be ejected from occupied territory in eastern and southern Ukraine. But a much anticipated counteroffensive, using tanks, missiles and other modern weapons supplied by Nato states, was delayed. When it finally began five months ago, progress was disappointing, obstructed by minefields and entrenched Russian defences. There was no breakthrough.
In published remarks last week, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s commander in chief, candidly admitted that the counteroffensive had stalled. The war was heading for stalemate, he said, warning that a protracted, attritional conflict would favour Russia with its greater resources and manpower. More and better western weapons, including combat aircraft and drones, were needed if Ukraine was to regain the initiative. “We have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate ... There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” he said.
Ukrainian troops continue to fight with extraordinary courage and valour, but they risk exhaustion as a second winter of fighting looms. Estimates suggest that Moscow’s forces have sustained huge losses in recent battles. Yet it is evident that Putin and his generals care little for the lives of their young conscripts. That was a key criticism levelled by the Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose temerity cost him his life. Instead, Putin is intensifying drone, artillery and missile attacks. Ukraine says it faced the biggest bombardment of the year last week. One aim is to destroy Ukraine’s already battered energy infrastructure as winter approaches, increasing pressure on civilians.
Officially, both sides reject suggestions of stalemate. Putin and Zelenskiy each claim advances on the battlefield. Politically speaking, they have little choice, for there is at present no prospect of meaningful peace talks. When Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s dictator, suggested that Russian forces were bogged down, he was sharply contradicted by the Kremlin. Zelenskiy, frustrated at what he calls his allies’ “unrealistic expectations”, worries that US and European military aid may falter without faster, tangible progress. That is certainly a problem. Citing a lack of results and falling public support, rightwing Republicans in the US Congress last week effectively blocked a new aid package requested by President Joe Biden.
That is not the end of the story. The White House, backed by Senate Democrats, is determined to keep faith with Ukraine – for reasons beyond the immediate conflict. Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, was clear. “I can guarantee that without our support Putin will be successful,” he told the Senate – and such an outcome would imperil Russia’s other neighbours. Making Austin’s point for him, Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and vociferous Putin stooge, warned Nato member Poland last week that Moscow viewed it as a “dangerous enemy” whose backing for Ukraine was risking “the death of Polish statehood”.
With Putin apparently intent on “victory”, whatever that means and whatever the cost, now is not the moment for the west to waver in its support for Ukraine.
