A war in Ukraine that began with a Russian debacle when its forces attempted to take Kiev seems to be turning as Russia picks regional targets, Ukraine lacks the weapons it needs and Western support for the war effort is fraying in the face of rising gas prices and runaway inflation.
On the 108th day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s unprovoked war, driven by his belief that Ukraine is territory that has been unfairly taken from the Russian Empire, Russia seemed no closer to victory. But his forces seemed to be making slow, methodical and bloody progress toward control of eastern Ukraine.
On Saturday, the agile president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, again promised victory. “We will certainly be victorious in this war that Russia has started,” he told a conference in Singapore in a video appearance. “It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are determined.”
Yet the heady early days of the war—when the Ukrainian underdog held off a misguided and inept aggressor and Mr Putin’s indiscriminate bombardment united the West in outrage—have begun to fade. Instead, there is a war evolving into what analysts increasingly say will be a long battle, putting increasing pressure on the governments and economies of Western countries and others around the world.
Nowhere is that plodding more evident than in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Despite urgent pleas to the West for more heavy weapons, Ukrainian forces appear unable to cope with Russia’s use of artillery to shell scorched-earth towns and villages. As Ukraine holds back Russia in the large regional city of Sievierodonetsk, it is suffering heavy casualties – at least 100 deaths a day, although the full extent is not yet known – and urgently needs more weapons and ammunition.
Russia also appears to be making progress in establishing control in the cities it has conquered, including the razed Black Sea port of Mariupol. It aims to convince and force the remaining population that its future lies in what Mr Putin sees as his restored empire. Citizens there and in cities like Kherson and Melitopol face a bleak choice: If they want to work, they must first get a Russian passport, a baloney offered to ensure a semblance of loyalty to Moscow.
Propaganda comparing Mr Putin to Peter the Great, Russia’s first emperor, blares from cars in Mariupol in what Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, called a “pseudohistoric” attack.
The comparison, which Mr Putin himself made, is close to the heart of the Russian President. He has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine is not a real nation and that its true identity is Russian. However, his invasion has cemented and strengthened Ukraine’s national identity in ways previously unimaginable.
Russia has its own problems, especially in southern Ukraine, where the provincial capital Kherson, captured earlier in the war, is still disputed. Attacks by former Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have increased in recent weeks. Russia’s losses in the war are not yet known, but are certainly in the tens of thousands, a potential source of anger at Mr Putin, whose autocratic hold on Russia is tightening.
If the Russian economy has proved surprisingly resilient, it has been hit hard by Western sanctions; a brain drain will undermine growth for years. It seems unlikely that Putin’s pariah status in the West will change.
Elsewhere, in Africa and Asia, support for the West – and for Ukraine – is more nuanced. Many countries see little difference between Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003; it seems unlikely they will be convinced otherwise.
More broadly, there is resentment in much of the developing world over what is perceived as American rule, seen as a 20th century hangover. In this context, the strong partnership between China and Russia is seen not with the hostility and fear it provokes in the West, but rather as a salutary challenge to a Western-dominated global system.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, on a visit to Asia to warn of potential Chinese aggression against Taiwan, tried Saturday to rally support for the West’s ardent support of Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
“It’s what happens when major powers decide that their imperial desires are more important than the rights of their peaceful neighbors,” he said. “And it’s a taste of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in.”
Speaking at a security summit in Singapore, Mr Austin said the Russian invasion was “what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all”. He spoke after Mr Zelensky expressed concern in his overnight address that the world’s attention might drift away from Ukraine.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
With inflation in the United States and Britain reaching levels not seen in 40 years, financial markets collapsing, interest rates rising and food shortages looming, such a shift of focus from a long war to more pressing domestic concerns may be inevitable. to be. The war is not responsible for all of these developments, but it is exacerbating most of them – and the end is not yet in sight.
A combination of high inflation and recession, considered plausible by many economists, is reminiscent of the 1970s, when the first oil shock devastated the global economy. With the United States midterm elections only months away, President Biden and Democrats cannot afford a campaign season dominated by rumors of $5 a gallon gasoline and near double-digit inflation.
Yet the ingredients of a long war are clear enough. There is no sign of a Russian readiness for territorial compromise. At the same time, Ukrainian resistance is still strong enough to make a formal transfer of territory almost unthinkable. The result has been a protracted stalemate, far removed from Mr Putin’s apparent initial belief that Russian troops would warmly walk into Ukraine’s capital Kiev.
Part of the roots of the war lie in Ukraine’s strategic decision to move closer to the 27 countries of the European Union and turn away from Moscow. Mr Putin was unable to cope with this shift, which is now being reinforced in Ukraine by a brutal confrontation with Russia’s military methods.
Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, met Mr Zelensky on Saturday in Kiev to show support. The European Union is considering granting Ukraine formal EU candidate status at a summit on 23-24 June. There has been talk in Paris about a possible visit by President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine after that meeting.
In Ukraine and beyond, Mr Macron, who has spoken regularly with Mr Putin since the start of the war in February, has been harshly criticized for insisting on the need to avoid Russia’s “humiliation” in order to keep diplomatic channels open. . A French presidential official backtracked on Saturday, saying: “We want a Ukrainian victory. We want Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be restored.”
After the Russian massacre in Bucha, near Kiev, and in Mariupol, the chances of successful diplomacy seem smaller than ever. In fact, it’s unclear what the term “victory” would mean to either side.