Putin Races Against the Clock

Russian President Vladimir Putin never expected to find himself 18 months into a major war in Ukraine. In past entanglements, including the one he inherited in Transnistria (the breakaway region in Moldova) and the one he created in 2008 in Georgia, for instance, he was content to let conflicts simmer. But the conflagration in Ukraine is too big and too important: he can neither accept a slow burn nor effectuate the kind of frozen conflict now in place in several parts of the post-Soviet world. Putin’s strategy in the coming months is unlikely to be more of the same—the status quo is neither attractive nor sustainable for him. As he looks to the coming winter, he is thinking of ways to end the war on his terms.

He cannot do so simply by sending more troops and weapons to the frontlines—his reserves of both are limited. Instead, he will look anew for opportunities to inflict pain on Ukraine away from the frontlines. And because his approach is likely to become more brutal and sadistic, Ukraine and its international partners must be ready. Those supporting Ukraine and international law can find ways to enlarge the playing field and put more pressure on Putin.

THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE SOUL

One of the striking things about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is his apparently intuitive understanding that winning a war is not just a matter of having enough weapons and soldiers and managing supply lines, nor is it only about military strategy and tactics. Zelensky reminds many in the West of Winston Churchill because, just as the British prime minister did during World War II, he understands that war requires the stewardship of the national soul. A wartime leader, especially in an existential war, must be both general and prelate.

This at once secular and spiritual preservation of the nation requires boosting what is commonly understood as morale but also appealing to the deeper elements of common identity and sense of purpose in the face of horror and adversity—the kind of individual and collective belief that, in a quasi-religious fashion, encourages people to take a leap of faith: to believe in the possibility of alleviating their present condition and in their power to do something about it, even if they cannot see a plausible path to a better future.

Zelensky’s careful, courageous efforts to marshal his compatriots’ hearts, bodies, and minds in the face of ruthless aggression have been on display since the outset of the war, from his defiant declaration to concerned American officials who wanted to evacuate him from Kyiv—“I don’t need a ride, I need ammo”—to his deliberate management of the expectations about and the execution of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. He knew that after a year and a half of war’s human and material depletions, Ukrainians themselves, like their international partners, are now less able to absorb disappointment.

Zelensky and Putin both understand that in military terms the war is, for the moment, at a stalemate. It will grind on for as long as both sides can do even a modest job of replenishing bodies and weapons on the frontlines. For Zelensky, this poses a tactical challenge: he needs to ensure that Ukraine can continue to get the weapons it needs, even as Western partners, particularly the United States, face a mix of material hurdles (with the replenishment of depleted stocks becoming harder) and political distractions (the looming U.S. presidential election cycle). But for Putin, the stalemate poses an unexpected strategic challenge.

THE BETRAYAL OF TIME

In Putin’s nearly quarter century of rule, time has been his most constant accomplice. Putin has used his increasing authoritarianism, especially after returning to the presidency in 2012, to buy time: time to defang his internal critics, to shape the Russian mind with propaganda, to wait out the attention span of the West in the wake of past outrages, and to lure elites in Russia and its near abroad into a web of corruption.

At the beginning of the war, it seemed that, as usual, time was on Putin’s side. Even for those few who did not think that Russia would quickly rout Ukrainian forces, most would still have predicted that in the face of a military standoff, Putin would settle in for the long haul. He would wear down the Ukrainians on the battlefield for as long as it took, counting on the West to lose its resolve and on Ukraine to lose strength and hope.

Eighteen months later, it is less clear that time is on Putin’s side. The G-7, NATO, and the European Union have not lost resolve. China’s domestic economic challenges have given Beiijing, Moscow’s only significant ally and source of support, reason for impatience. Outwardly, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has not broken with Putin, but Putin knows that he is the junior partner in that relationship, and junior partners do not typically get to make demands of their seniors. For all the declarations that Putin will tighten his grip more than ever after the June rebellion of the Wagner private military company, the bizarre spectacle and its aftermath exposed cracks where none were thought to exist. Even if they can be repaired, they cannot be unseen. As my colleague Tatiana Stanovaya has described in Foreign Affairs, the war is coming home to Russia, Putin is increasingly isolated in his own system, unmoored from the points of stability that anchor a sustained play for time. And he is getting older: time ultimately betrays us all.

CRUEL INTENTIONS

The obvious conclusion to draw from the analysts who emphasize that the war has reached a kind of stalemate is that policymakers in the West should continue morosely moving from one military assistance package to the next, endlessly inventorying guns and ammunition, and decide (with what gets called realism but is really resignation) to back Ukraine in a years-long war of attrition.

But Putin may be increasingly eager to conclude the war on his terms; time is no longer the partner he once imagined it to be. Credible assessments of Putin’s thinking and mental state are notoriously elusive, but those who have studied him for decades report that, if anything, he has become more committed to the ersatz messianic mission that he laid out in a surreal speech on the eve of the war. Whether or not settling in to play for time appeals to his strategic intuitions, there is little reason to believe that it appeals to his present psyche. He may see the prospect of the reelection of Donald Trump as a potential opening for the U.S. abandonment of Ukraine and a negotiated end to the conflict on the Kremlin’s terms, but that outcome has at best a 50-50 chance, and is still over a year away. To hope for Trump’s victory is one thing; to bet on it, quite another. And even if Putin hopes to ride out the conflict until the U.S. presidential election, he will still want to improve his position in advance of any expected negotiations.

Unfortunately, that means the coming months may be especially grim: if Putin wants to drive the war to a conclusion or prepare for negotiations, he will not simply accept the indefinite continuation of attritional trench warfare. Notwithstanding his military’s equipment and weapons supply issues, he will be ready to do more, many more, of the most horrible things he has already done. He will ramp up the war crimes, including sexual violence and abductions, explicitly ordering some atrocities and tacitly condoning other such incidents. He will broaden attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. He will accelerate the war’s genocidal ends, attempting to inflict even more carnage and devastation on civilian populations. In escalating criminal attacks on civilians, he will hope to undermine the ability of Ukrainians to work together, to function, and to see themselves as a nation.

This coming winter’s principal battlefield will not be in the trenches across the Donbas. Putin will try to break the Ukrainian soul.

TICK-TOCK

In response, the United States and Ukraine’s international partners should be prepared to bolster the Ukrainian spirit and wind the clock that is tick-tocking in Putin’s head. They of course must continue to deliver military assistance, but they also need, consistent with international law, to weaken Russia and remind Putin and the Ukrainian people that the opponents of the Kremlin’s violent aggression retain agency; they can still do things.

The West can widen its approach in the coming months in several ways. Western countries should provide expertise and intelligence to Ukrainians that they can use to take out Russian installations inside Russia that are critical to the resupply of the frontlines and to Russian air attacks. Drone attacks or acts of sabotage that target military bases and equipment factories could become more common, further weakening the Russian war effort and making the war more palpable to the Russian people.

The U.S. and key partners should also send a clear message to Putin that if he attacks critical infrastructure such as gas, water, and electricity systems this winter, as he has in the past, they will not only deliver ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles but also remove some of the limitations placed on the weapons systems already provided to Ukraine—restrictions that currently prevent Ukraine from using such arms to attack targets in Russia. Despite the terrible state of the U.S.-Russian relationship, U.S. officials have stressed to their Russian counterparts how Washington has successfully limited the scope of the conflict and avoided escalation, notably by restricting the use of certain weapons now in Ukrainian hands. The United States has earned credibility with Putin by being able to exercise such control. U.S. officials should make it clear that if Putin continues to attack civilians and the infrastructure they depend on, the United States will incrementally remove restrictions, including those that currently prevent Ukraine from taking proportional, discriminate action on Russian soil in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian soil.

Away from the battlefield, the United States and other partners should begin formally taking Russia’s international reserves, which many countries seized after Putin launched the invasion, and transfer them to a fund to support Ukraine. About $300 billion of Russian sovereign reserves have been frozen since the beginning of the war. Concerns about setting a dangerous international legal precedent—as well as the potential knock-on effects for central banks and the international financial system—have so far prevented the United States and its partners from enacting such transfers. But it is time to overcome the legal objections, with as much care as possible to narrow the precedent established, and to begin creating a Ukraine reconstruction fund with Russian assets. To start, Western officials should transfer $20 billion a month. Putin will believe that for as long as the reserves have not been formally seized, they remain on the negotiating table at the war’s end. The transfer of $20 billion a month for as long as his illegal, misguided war continues will remind him of the passage of time and become a further testament to the war’s mounting costs.

All three of these measures would bolster Ukrainians’ sense of capability and their sense that their plight is understood. To be able to exact military costs inside Russia, just as Russia has done since the start of the war in Ukraine, would provide a partial leveling of the playing field. It would remind Ukrainians that as Putin tries to break them, they have the ability to resist in new ways that hurt Putin and his military. The announcement that a real Ukraine reconstruction fund—which ultimately needs to be hundreds of billions of dollars—is beginning with Russian reserves as seed funding would indicate that Ukraine’s partners are planning for a hopeful future for the beleaguered country and its people. And crucially, such commitment to the defense of Ukraine will speed the clock that Putin now finds himself racing against.