LAST UPDATE | 2 Jun 2023
VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS wagered everything on winning the war he refuses to call a war.
Unlike his democratic counterparts in Western countries, who upon losing office embark on lecture tours, write memoirs, and spend more time with their families, Putin knows that if he loses power, he risks everything, including his life.
Dictators don’t retire; they die in office or are ousted. Despots rely on the understanding that they enjoy a monopoly of coercive power and that only they can inflict violence on others.
Once that perception is shattered – and nothing does that more effectively than defeat in war – all bets are off. Before launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Putin could predict with some confidence his future trajectory. Nothing is certain now.
Underlining the unpredictability of the war, Moscow came under sustained attack this week, as drones targeted Moscow’s most affluent suburbs, home to a slew of tycoons, oligarchs and even Putin himself.
Earlier in the month a drone targeted the Kremlin itself. While these attacks were of negligible military significance – no one was injured – they have had a profound psychological effect on Russia’s citizenry and political elite, puncturing their sense of invulnerability.
With all eyes on the attack on Moscow, it’s important to put things in perspective. Kyiv has been subjected to daily murderous air strikes, and last week the Ukrainian capital endured the largest drone attack since the invasion began. Only the sophisticated air defence systems given to Ukraine save its citizens from systematic slaughter.
Every time there is an attack – usually at night – sleep-deprived people take refuge in the city’s metro stations. Soviet authorities built the transit system with the additional purpose of withstanding a potential NATO attack. Its architects could hardly have imagined that one day it would be used to protect the city residents from Russian missiles.
The real battle is taking place not in the capital cities, but in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, four large regions that Putin now claims as Russian territory.
The main arena of conflict has been Bakhmut, a city the size of Galway before Russians destroyed it. Bakhmut took on a totemic significance far beyond its strategic value.
The battle has pitted two very different armies against each other. The Ukrainians are fighting for their country and are drawn from all walks of life. The brother of Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defence Andriy Shevchenko, whom I invited to DCU after Russia’s initial invasion, was killed in July while defending Bakhmut. Professors I know in Ukraine post pictures of their former students who have died resisting the invasion.
By contrast, the Russian offensive was led by the Wagner group of mercenaries. Their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, toured Russian prisons to recruit thousands of convicted criminals. Indeed, at times it seemed that Prigozhin viewed Bakhmut less as a battle against Ukrainians than with the Russian Ministry of Defence and that his focus was to outmanoeuvre the Kremlin’s defence minister, Sergey Shoigu. In the Kremlin’s court politics, those who can most effectively kill Ukrainians and seize their territory will have Putin’s ear. But this lack of unity within the military could ultimately contribute to Russia’s defeat.
For months, the Ukrainians have built up stockpiles of ammunition and trained their soldiers to use donated weaponry in preparation for a major counteroffensive. The country’s commander-in-chief, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, recently hinted at the forthcoming liberation campaign when he released a video entitled “the time has come to take back what’s ours”.
In their efforts to repel the invasion, Ukrainians have demonstrated remarkable determination and ingenuity. Previous counteroffensives liberated large swathes of territory and people around Ukraine’s two largest cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv and the vital regional capital of Kherson. As in the past, the Ukrainians are now holding their cards very close to their chest, even keeping their allies in the dark about the precise time and place of planned attacks. Careless talk would cost Ukrainian lives.
Russian forces have dug in and fortified the areas they have occupied and will be difficult to dislodge. However, the frontline is more than a thousand kilometres long, which provides ample opportunities to probe for weak points. The Ukrainians have proved adept at managing expectations.
They have a track record of downplaying their prospects only to exceed them. Any counter-offensive will seek to make significant strategic gains. It will also need to do enough to convince allies that Ukraine can continue to liberate territory and make further gains.
At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, governments around the world assumed Ukraine would be quickly defeated and ordered their embassy staff to vacate Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelenskyy spurned the US offer to be evacuated, famously saying he needed ammunition, not a ride. Instead, he walked the streets of central Kyiv reassuring his people that he had not deserted them.
Now the president encourages Ukrainians by advertising his many meetings with allies around the world. During the last month alone, Zelenskyy has visited several European capitals as well as participated in the G7 summit in Japan.
Yesterday, he was in neighbouring Moldova to meet the leaders of 47 states attending the European Political Community summit. Only Russia and Belarus were excluded, underlining their pariah status.
Zelenskyy knows that the war at home can only be won with the support of Ukraine’s allies. The diplomatic offensive is parallel to the military one.
The stakes are extraordinarily high. As Ukrainians have continually emphasised, if Russia withdraws there will be no war whereas if Ukrainians stop defending their country, there will be no Ukraine.
Donnacha Ó Beacháin is Professor of Politics at Dublin City University. For more than two decades he has worked and researched in the post-Soviet region and has been published widely on the subject.
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