15 - A Ukrainian Victory?

Writing as perceptively as always, this time in the Atlantic blog, Anne Applebaum yesterday suggests that the goal of the war in Ukraine, now that the Russian military machine of destruction is stalled, must be “victory.” For her, the end game must not include a truce, “or a muddle, or a decision to maintain some kind of Ukrainian resistance over the next decade, or a vow to ‘bleed Russia dry,’ or anything else that will prolong the fighting and the instability.”

She argues persuasively for a victory that keeps Ukraine whole, democratic, and with no kow-towing to Russia (or Putin). “The Russian army retreats back over the borders.” It might be ok, she says, if Ukraine pledges neutrality or if there are internationally UN peacekeepers to separate Ukraine from Russia. And a sovereign Ukraine “must have strong reasons to believe that Russian troops will not…return.”

Whoa! Optimism is good, but it is exuberantly premature to believe that the Russians are hurting sufficiently to induce or demand that Putin retreat. There are weeks of severe fighting and mass destruction ahead. And, as I wrote amid the fog of gloom yesterday, Putin may insist on unleashing a nuclear-tipped missile or a tactical atomic weapon against a Ukrainian airfield or, heaven forbid, civilians. Ominously, President Biden has assembled a top-level task force to prepare for Putin’s deployment of atomic, chemical, or biological weapons. So being positive about good outcomes in Ukraine and in the world is still magical thinking.

Yes, to reinforce Applebaum’s optimism there are reports of Russian military officers growing weary, of surprisingly high Russian losses in the officer corps as well as among non-commissioned personnel. One knowledgeable commentator explains that the Russian invasion has been handicapped by weaknesses in those last ranks. There has been no one to keep order and motivate the (hapless) conscripts, the ordinary soldiers, and to ensure logistical efficiency. Officers have had to step in to take command in the field. Ukraine says that it has picked off at least six Russian generals and a vice-admiral. If 10,000 or so Russians died in combat so far that is a proportionally massive number, 5 percent or more of the total troop commitment. Furthermore, the Pentagon reports that Russian morale is hurting and – not surprisingly – that the conscripts and others signed up for a different kind of war, not the slog against people who look like themselves and can speak a mutually intelligible language. There is reliable talk of purges by Putin within his corps of intelligence advisors. The military and security establishments might be having second thoughts.

Encouraging, too, are news reports that some Ukrainian detachments and vigilante groups have gone on the offensive and are attempting to regain lost territory and lost cities in the south, the east, and – especially – around Kyiv. These gains, if they last, are testaments to the enduring spirit of Ukraine, and to a refusal to succumb. Putin has done a terrific job awakening and solidifying resistance among vast arrays of partisans. That’s in part what the carpet bombing of innocent civilians produces.

Russia itself completely lacks the enormous ennobling force that has helped to turn the tide of attack against the invaders. President Volodymyr Zelensky has been the great motivator, the charismatic leader who early on declared no surrender and who is a perpetual TV and social media presence, cheering his own army on, whipping up outside support, and giving all Ukrainians, especially the fighters, something positive and strong in which to believe.

Contrast President Zelensky with Putin. The one in an olive T-shirt with a five-o’clock or ten-o’clock shadow and the dour other sitting at a very, very long table addressing his minions – two senior generals – at the distant other end. Imperial, yes. Pretentious, yes. But exuding integrity, no. Who would want to go to war for such a czar, especially since his objectives are palpably false: to expunge fascists and bring lost Russians back into the fold. But then, even a few conscripts may be asking, must we kill our “brothers” in the process of returning them to the embrace of Mother Russia?

Legitimacy is absolutely the key to the success of any political endeavor. It is essential to maintain loyalties when asking whole citizenries to sacrifice for abstract, or even objectively necessary, goals.

Legitimacy can sometimes accompany, or be secured, by sheer power. That is what Putin has been doing for a number of years, with only a few brave persons like Alexei Navalny and Anna Politkovskaya trying to point out that the emperor really has no clothes. What looks like legitimacy is sometimes often buttressed by patronage – by letting other potential rivals or opponents grow rich through access to special privileges and the immense spoils of corruption. As I said the other day, Putin runs one of the more imposing criminal enterprises on the planet.

Applebaum accordingly is articulating the hopes of all right-thinking persons. But her hopes are not yet realities. Nor, given the deep corner into which Putin has driven himself, are we yet able to sense anything like victory. Now that Putin’s back is coming closer to the proverbial wall, he will doubtless thrash out, possibly drawing upon his atomic arsenal. Only, as I hinted yesterday, if a Nikita Khrushchev-type figure emerges as he did in 1953 can we soon begin to follow Applebaum out of the vale of tears and into the valley of hope and reconstruction. Alas, we are not there yet. And the killing fields still seem endless.