A War Putin Still Can’t Win

In the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, the brutal war has often defied expectations. In the weeks after February 24, 2022, when Russian forces poured over the Ukrainian border, Ukraine surprised the world, and possibly itself, as it mounted an effective resistance and quickly ended the siege on Kyiv. Then, after the war moved south and east, Ukraine again caught observers off guard with its lightning campaign to push Russian forces out of Kharkiv Province in early September 2022.

But in addition to these stunning results, there were also disappointments. Rather than signaling a larger change in momentum, for example, the Kharkhiv offensive resulted in newly hardened frontlines that, other than Russia’s belated withdrawal from an untenable position in Kherson, moved little in the months that followed. And perhaps most of all, after stirring hopes among many Western analysts and politicians, Ukraine’s long-awaited 2023 counteroffensive was unable to achieve a decisive breakthrough. It was not many weeks old before Ukraine’s commanders had to accept that their forces were not well suited to large-scale operational maneuvers.

Now, as the war enters its third year, according to much current commentary, Ukraine is in an increasingly dire situation and Russia has the upper hand. Underlying the deep pessimism are reports of acute shortages of munitions and manpower on the Ukrainian side, doubts about continued U.S. support, and the perception that Russian forces, unconcerned about their own losses, are prepared to take advantage. The problem is not with the quality of predictions, which are always difficult in war, but rather that the way the war develops over 2024 will depend not only on how Ukraine faces its military challenges but also on how much—and in what ways—the West supports it.

Ukraine certainly faces steep challenges. Given how stretched the country’s warfighting resources are now, there will be few opportunities for major operational moves against Russia in the year ahead. And if a major new package of U.S. aid dies in Congress, it could drastically impede Ukraine’s ability to cope and leave too much of the initiative with Moscow. But the West knows far less about the pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin faces and how that might intensify if he fails to get quick results from all the investments made in this costly and frustrating war. If Russia cannot find a way to quickly take a large chunk of new territory without incurring huge losses in the process, it will be harder to hide the futility of the whole enterprise. As the West reassesses the extent and nature of its backing for Kyiv, it needs to recognize that this remains an incredibly difficult war for Putin to win, and one he might even lose.

DAVID’S SLINGSHOT

From the outset, Ukraine’s response to Russia’s 2022 invasion was David taking on Goliath, but with a crucial difference. In the biblical story, after David uses an accurate slingshot to stun the much larger giant with a small stone, he moves quickly to decapitate him. And with Goliath, their champion, now slain, the Philistines accept defeat. Although Ukraine, like David, could wield its slingshot effectively, it had no way of decapitating Goliath. In other countries, such a humiliation following an incompetent act of aggression might have brought down the leaders who ordered it. But not in Putin’s Russia.

In Moscow today, no political opposition is allowed. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who had condemned Russia’s war, could not be tolerated even when he was locked away in a remote Arctic prison, almost completely cut off from the outside world. His death, in dubious and as yet unexplained circumstances, was reported by prison officials on February 16. His demise is in keeping with the Kremlin’s general suppression of all criticism since the “special military operation” began.

Even major setbacks in the war seem to have little effect on Putin. The costs of the war, including economic sanctions, have been limited by the rise in oil and gas prices. By the end of 2022, the Kremlin had succeeded in putting the whole country on a war footing, accepting that it was in for a long fight. Polls have showed Russians generally supporting the war, if not with much enthusiasm. Because Putin’s position and legacy depend on having something to show for all the lives and effort, he has been determined to keep going until he can bring about something he can call victory. So for now, Goliath is staying in the fight, still enjoying the advantages of size and brute strength.

But David is also still in the fight. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who knows how to perform in public, is a natural David. Hardly the warrior type and lacking military experience, he made his career satirizing politicians until he decided to become one himself. In fact, his acting background helped turn him into an effective war leader: he changed his suit for fatigues, found the right words, delivered his messages in punchy phrases, and made meaningful gestures, including visits to frontline troops. He has regularly updated his people on the course of the war and spoken continually to world leaders and Western parliaments, whose financial and material support for Ukraine has been vital. And although he has been unable to finish Goliath off, he has overseen a major transformation of Ukrainian forces, so that despite being outgunned, they can still frustrate Russia and inflict blows of their own.

While Ukraine waits for the U.S. Congress to resolve its debate over funding, Russia persists with its attritional offensives, throwing thousands of men into battles for towns that are battered beyond habitation when and if they are taken. At least for now the Russian strategy seems unlikely to yield the kinds of gains that Putin needs to truly change the frontlines and gain a more decisive advantage in the war.

RELIABLE EUROPE, WAVERING WASHINGTON

In the war in Ukraine, David, of course, is not acting alone. Ukraine has been getting Western support since the start of Russia’s aggression in 2014, although never quite enough and normally too late. Before the full-scale invasion, Western countries provided enough support to help Ukraine win the battle for Kyiv, and then, impressed by that achievement, they began to send much more. That is why Putin has invested so much Russian effort into undermining that support. By late 2023, he was talking as if he had succeeded, joking that he had almost achieved demilitarization—one of his announced war aims at the start of the invasion—because Kyiv would soon have no weapons left as the flow from the West dried up. Putin’s optimism was understandable, although not, as might have been assumed, because of wavering resolve in European capitals.

When the war began, many expected that Europe would be the weak point in the Western alliance. Initially, there were suspicions that countries such as France and Germany would wish to protect their roles as potential peacemakers, but both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to appreciate that trust in Putin was misplaced. Over the course of 2022, by restricting the flow of gas and raising its price, Moscow deliberately created energy shortages to persuade European leaders that backing Ukraine was a bad idea and would cause their people to freeze come wintertime. This was when the first lazy tropes about an imminent “Ukraine fatigue” on the continent began to appear in the Western media. Much was also made of the supposed disunity of European leaders, which was expected to become more pronounced as the war dragged on.

For Europe, sustaining Ukraine is less costly than coping with a Putin victory.

None of this, it turned out, was sufficient to outweigh the evident danger to Europe of allowing Russia to win. Instead, the more European leaders backed Ukraine, the more they needed to sustain their commitments. In the fall of 2023, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban seemed ready to block a new EU aid package to Ukraine. Yet EU countries called Orban’s bluff, and on February 1, after being given some minor concessions, Hungary lifted its veto and the EU unanimously approved a new $54 billion aid package. Although aspects of European support remain disappointing, including the slow pace of ammunition production, many governments are stepping up their efforts to help Ukraine. Two years into the war, and with the prospect of a Russian victory revived, most European leaders recognize that sustaining the beleaguered country is much less costly than coping with the aftermath of a Putin victory.

The same cannot be said for Washington, where a vital $60 billion aid package for Ukraine has been held up in the House of Representatives. Even there, however, the problem is not a collapse of general U.S. support for Ukraine; it is the consequence of former President Donald Trump’s influence over the Republican Party and over Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House. If Putin is looking more confident than he did a year ago, when yet another Russian offensive was achieving little at high cost, this is the reason. There are essential supplies Ukraine needs, such as artillery shells and support for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), that only the United States can deliver.

Russia has already taken advantage of this hiatus in U.S. support as it persists with its attritional offensives. There is an urgency to this Russian campaign that belies assumptions that Putin is deliberately playing a long game and simply waiting for Ukraine’s exhaustion. Putin wants the war over, but only on his terms. If the Ukrainians concentrate on strengthening their defenses, they can prevent Russia, which for now lacks combat power, from rapid victory. But the longer they have to wait for more U.S. support, the more difficult that task will become.

MORE BLOOD, NOT FRESH BLOOD

Perhaps because Putin thinks things are going his way, he sees few reasons for changing Russia’s approach. As the conflict has unfolded, Russia has shown an ability to adapt and innovate, but not so much in how it fights the ground war. Having dealt with Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, after he called off his June 2023 mutiny, and about to be confirmed for a fifth term as president in a rigged election in March, Putin is persevering with the same methods and largely the same team. Unlike other dictators, he has not promoted himself to field marshal and pretended to be guiding the military strategy himself. He is content for the generals to take the credit and the blame for the conduct of the war.

Thus, Putin has stuck with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Commander in Chief Valery Gerasimov, both of whom have occupied positions in the military leadership for years. Their loyalty to Putin is unquestioned, so he tolerates their crude and unimaginative strategies, including their frontal assaults on Ukrainian cities with little regard for either the Russian casualties involved or the state of the cities themselves when finally captured.

Earlier in the war, Russia offered glimpses of what a different military leadership might do. In October 2022, the more talented Sergei Surovikin was put in charge of Russian operations in Ukraine. He organized Russia’s missile and drone offensive against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, which the Ukrainians withstood only with difficulty. At one point, it threatened to leave Kyiv and other cities without electricity. To stabilize the frontlines, Surovikin also paid attention to Russia’s defensive needs. The “Surovikin line,” with its layers of minefields, dragon’s teeth, and fortified positions, withstood the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

But Putin was impatient for more territory and in January 2023, he put Gerasimov in charge with Surovikin serving as his deputy. Then, in the summer of 2023, Surovikin was sufficiently in sympathy with Prigozhin’s critique of the war effort that led to the failed mutiny that it was felt necessary to push him aside altogether. Indeed, it is clear from the period leading up to the mutiny that Shoigu and Gerasimov had many critics, not least for their willingness to sacrifice enormous numbers of Russian soldiers into the meat grinder of Ukraine. For now, that approach seems unlikely to change.

Zelensky is also secure in his position. Kyiv has made clear there will be no elections at a time of war and martial law, given that so much of the population is displaced and so much Ukrainian territory is under occupation. Zelensky remains popular, although not quite as much as before. Not unusually for political leaders, he has become more dependent on an ever-narrowing circle of trusted advisers. His early February replacement of his widely admired commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhny, with the older and more Soviet-influenced Oleksandr Sysrsky was not well received in Ukraine, especially among the troops. Some have raised concerns that Zelensky is looking for the military advice he wants to hear rather than the advice he needs. Although the move was attributed to the Ukrainian president’s jealousy of Zaluzhny’s popularity, the most likely reason is Zelensky’s frustration with Ukraine’s lack of progress in liberating territory over the past year, as well as his desire to shake up command and management practices.

Ukraine and its supporters invested a lot—too much—in last summer’s counteroffensive. Against Surovikin’s defenses, a breakthrough was always going to be difficult. (It remains an open question whether, given their available capabilities and lacking air superiority, the Ukrainians could have found a way to breach them.) Now, with shortages of both ammunition and manpower, Ukraine’s choices have become harder. The government’s main priority is to sort out the mobilization process to generate larger and fresher forces and to raise the quality of junior commanders. Sysrsky’s first big decision was to withdraw from Avdiivka. This was prudent, though the evacuation should have come earlier, and some Ukrainian troops were trapped. The move made clear that in the current stage of the fight, Ukraine must avoid squandering valuable human and material resources simply to defend the principle that no patch of territory will be yielded without a fight.

A GAME OF DENIAL

The wear and tear of a long war is taking its toll on Ukraine. But the Ukrainians have shown that they can keep fighting. The current Western fixation on Ukraine’s problems, and the difficulty of working out exactly what is going on in Moscow, has led to easy assumptions that Russia can keep fighting without also showing wear and tear. In fact, for all the resources that Putin has thrown into this war, the results have been meager since its opening weeks, when Russia acquired the bulk of the territory it currently occupies. Russia can find additional basic manpower, but it has a much harder time replacing lost junior officers and modern equipment.

Even if Ukraine is unable to gain a major advantage, it can accomplish a great deal simply by keeping Russia’s casualties high and denying it easy wins. Its frequent disruption of Russian logistics, and its hits on factories, oil refineries, and even ships within drone range, will be the most likely morale-boosters for its forces. Ukraine’s ability to continue exporting grain by sea and its threat to cut off Crimea from Russia do not offer Kyiv a route to victory, but they embarrass the Kremlin.

In a long war, it is much harder for David to beat Goliath.

The war is now at a critical stage. Ukraine will keep fighting, come what may, but it will have to move to a much more defensive stance if support from Washington continues to falter. If the U.S. aid package does come through, and without too much more delay, it should make it easier for Ukraine to hold its lines and, equally important, to recast its strategy for the longer term—the main task Zelensky has given General Sysrsky. That priority will also require Washington to reconsider its approach. The past year has made clear how much needs to be done to prepare Ukrainian forces for future ground offensives, but it also has shown how much can be accomplished with long-range strikes beyond the frontlines. The Biden administration has been uneasy about supporting such strikes (and will probably still not want to be seen as facilitating attacks on Russian territory). But the situation has advanced so much, and Russian strategy become so remorseless, that the United States will need to recognize the importance of Ukraine being able to hit more targets with accuracy and at distance.

In the Bible, David slew Goliath in a single encounter. But in a long war, it is much harder for David to beat Goliath. On the second anniversary of the war, there is no clear succession of battlefield wins, or an enemy in disarray, that points the way to an inevitable triumph. But Russia does not have such a credible path either. For there can be no stable peace as long as there is a hostile Ukrainian government getting closer to the West, building up its armed forces, and strengthening its economy, as Russia works out what to do with a depopulated territory that it has helped to devastate, along with a long frontline to defend. The war will end when one side believes it is no longer worth the effort and looks to cut its losses. That decision will be the consequence not only of military factors but also of economic, social, and political ones. It is hard to see Ukraine pressing for a cease-fire as long as so much of its territory is occupied.

For his part, Putin might be thinking about starting some diplomatic initiative after the March 17 presidential election, although it remains hard to see what could be a credible offer if he insists on holding on to all the territory that he claims to have annexed for the Russian Federation. Or perhaps he is hoping that Donald Trump will deliver Kyiv to him next January if Trump becomes U.S. president. In this, he may be exaggerating Russia’s strength and underestimating Ukraine’s staying power. If Western support can hold steady, Putin may still find that the war appears to be as unwinnable on its third anniversary as it appears now at its second.