As the Russian artillery fires into Mariupol and Ukrainian forces continue to push back the Kremlin’s advances on the edge of Kyiv, a single question is hovering over Europe: how does this bloodshed end?
The first phase of this war is now coming to a close. Russian forces have made relatively little movement on their northern and eastern fronts now for two weeks. Meanwhile in the south, where the armies that erupted out of Crimea enjoyed the greatest success, they have stalled on the approaches to Mykolaiv and have instead focused on subduing the city of Mariupol to complete their land-bridge from the annexed peninsula to the fake-republics the Kremlin runs in the Donbas. Exhaustion, attrition, logistical failure and low morale explain the Russian pause.
Russia’s difficulties have been loudly trumpeted by Ukraine and the West but it would be a mistake not to recognise that Kyiv is also bleeding. Behind the scenes, American, British and French officials are realising they are going to have to do a lot more in terms of military support if this becomes a long war. Kyiv is facing less visible but no less serious manpower, ammo and supply issues of its own. Western officials believe that Russia now knows that its maximalist aims of quick regime change and installing a puppet government in Kyiv are unreachable and is instead trying to frighten Volodymyr Zelensky into formally handing over Crimea and the Donbas and swallowing painful limitations on his armed forces to claim a win.
Israel, which had made itself a mediator, is now claiming credit for having Zelensky publicly say he is ready to renounce Nato membership and for Vladimir Putin having walked back from regime change. Israeli officials, however, say they believe that both sides are far away from being able to broker a lasting accord. They think Kyiv’s successes and the defiant mood in the country is not ready to accept any loss of territory and Putin himself thinks if he presses on he can force them into accepting them. As it stands the only endgame acceptable to Putin would be the political end of Zelensky.
Israeli officials are quick to remind their interlocutors that wars are settled on the battlefield not the negotiating room and they can have many twists and turns. Looking at the battlefield there are plenty of directions where things could change dramatically. Russia might be able to crush the last resistance in Mariupol and move to encircle the Ukrainian army in the Donbas which would be a huge blow to Kyiv. Similarly, Ukraine might be able to inflict serious damage to the Russian army outside its capital, rendering it incapable of fully surrounding the territory. Wars of this scale are not games of chess whose outcomes can be predicted soon after their openings.
This is why Nato officials increasingly think this could be a long war: which — though it might see ceasefires and lulls — could end up lasting months or years. The French government has warned Russia is only “pretending to negotiate” in order to regroup and renew its assault on the Ukrainian front lines. Allied pessimists believe them. Western officials are privately alarmed of the risks of a drawn-out “Syria in Europe”.
In this scenario, the endgame for Russia itself is already clear. The country has now overtaken Iran as being under the most sanctions and is likely to resemble it politically too. That is to say a country where though a significant Westernised chunk of the population hates the regime and defies it, national oil revenues have crucially kept its repressive apparatus loyal and rallied the majority of the population suffering under sanctions. The Western base case should be that allied sanctions will weaken Russia, just like Iran, bringing it to the negotiating table, but not breaking it.
There is a wild card however: which is what happens in the Kremlin itself. The endgame for Putin is much less clear. The chances of a coup are not zero and have gone up. However, we have no way of knowing what that chance is. Even more frustratingly, the signs of Putin’s regime either cracking or becoming rampantly totalitarian would look the same from the outside. That is to say everything we are seeing now: terrifying speeches and rumoured purges. Putin fears his is a fragile empire — but none of us know just how vulnerable he is. The best Western policy, of course, will be made by not getting into this guessing game.
