In early November, Ukraine’s top general Valery Zaluzhny admitted that the war in Ukraine had reached a stalemate and that help from Western allies was running out, The Nation reports.
In December, Republicans did not support the Biden administration’s request for billions in new military aid to Ukraine. Hungary vetoed badly needed cash aid from the EU. President Biden’s promise that allies would support Ukraine “as long as it takes” turned into a promise to support the country “as long as we can.” Clearly, the time for magical thinking has passed.
Washington mobilised its allies to provide arms and support, and imposed tough sanctions against Russia. NATO was reinvigorated and expanded. In just over a year, the US gave Ukraine $75 billion in major military aid, an amount almost equal to Russia’s entire annual military budget.
However, that was before. Now, with another harsh winter looming, the much-publicised Ukrainian “offensive” has failed. China, India and much of the global South have stepped in, the Russian economy has recovered from sanctions. Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe, is engaged in a war of attrition with a country that is bigger, has more people, more troops, more artillery and control of the air. The US plans to increase production of 155 million artillery shells from 30,000 a month to 90,000 or 100,000 in 2025. Russia plans to produce 2 million a year.
Ukraine is running out of men, weapons and ammunition. Its economy is in ruins. More than 20 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced, including 6.3 million refugees. It is estimated that it will take 757 years to clear the country of the mines that are now scattered across the countryside. The cost of rebuilding is estimated at $400 billion, according to The Nation.
With NATO on its side, Ukraine may be able to stand its ground. But the problem with a proxy war is that war fever is hard to sustain without risking lives. The administration’s venal pronouncements have become increasingly shrill: from “Russia will collapse quickly” to “using Ukraine to weaken Russia is a cheap investment”, “if Russia wins, American men and women will fight it in Europe, and helping Ukraine is a jobs programme at home” and (as Trump’s former national security adviser Fiona Hill put it), Putin is fighting to “remove the United States from the world stage”.
It’s time to take a sober assessment of the situation. After all, Barack Obama got it right almost a decade ago. After the 2014 coup against an elected Ukrainian leader sympathetic to Russia, Obama rejected plans for military intervention, saying that “the fact is that Ukraine, which is not a NATO country, would be vulnerable to Russian military domination no matter what we did.”
After the mass casualties and destruction, no settlement will be easy. Both sides have good reasons not to trust each other. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s admission that the West used the Maidan agreements to buy time to build up the Ukrainian military gives Vladimir Putin good reason to doubt any new agreement, The Nation reports.
Yet there are reasons for both sides to consider a ceasefire. The damage and casualties inflicted on Ukraine cannot be sustained. Outgunned and outnumbered, distracted by allies, it can only lose even more ground and suffer even greater devastation in a war of attrition. A long war could cause Ukraine to lose territory and suffer even more destruction.
However, Russia is genuinely interested in a conflict resolution that will not fuel the rage that leads to constant terrorist attacks. It wants to end sanctions and negotiate claims for damages from the destruction of Ukraine. The stability it would like is impossible without a sustainable settlement.
Clearly, any further support for Ukraine must involve a serious search for a dialogue with Russia. This requires a reassessment and a change of course and movement towards negotiations, ceasefires and reconstruction – not a continuation of a bloody war of attrition, senseless killings and fighting to the last Ukrainian in the hope that the power in Russia will change.
