Ukraine won the short war. Mobile and skilled, his soldiers inflicted heavy losses and thwarted Russian plans to take Kyiv. Now comes the long war. A war that will consume weapons, lives and money until one of the sides loses the will to continue fighting. At the moment, it is a war that Russia is winning.
In recent days his forces have taken the eastern city of Severodonetsk. They are advancing on Lisichansk and could soon control the entire Luhansk province. They also threaten Sloviansk, north of the neighboring city of Donetsk. Ukrainian leaders claim to be outmatched by Russian weapons and short of ammunition. The government estimates that up to 200 soldiers are killed every day.
Fortunately for Ukraine, it is not the end. The Russian advance is slow and costly. With NATO’s large-caliber artillery, new tactics, and sufficient economic aid, Ukraine has every chance of pushing back the Russian armies. As difficult as the lost territory is to recover, Ukraine can prove the futility of Vladimir Putin’s campaign and appear as a democratic and Western-oriented state. However, for this you need long-term support. And that is still in doubt.
At first glance, a long war suits Russia. Both sides use vast amounts of ammunition, but Russia’s reserves are larger. The Russian economy is much larger than the Ukrainian economy and its situation is much better. In pursuit of victory, Russia is ready to commit war crimes and terrorize and demoralize Ukrainians, as it did on June 27 by attacking a shopping mall in Kremenchuk. If necessary, Putin will impose severe suffering on his own people.
However, the long war does not have to be waged on the terms proposed by Putin. Ukraine potentially has a large number of motivated fighters. Western defense industry can supply them with weapons. In 2020, before sanctions, NATO economies were more than ten times larger than Russia’s.
Ukraine’s turn begins on the battlefield, halting and reversing the Russian advance. Putin’s generals will continue to have more weapons, but the sophisticated NATO systems that Ukraine is now receiving have greater range and accuracy. By adopting tactics devised in the Cold War, when NATO too was outnumbered by the Red Army, Ukraine should be able to destroy Russian command posts and supply depots. Ukraine scored a success on June 30, when it succeeded in expelling Russian forces from Serpent Island, a strategic jewel in the Black Sea, with NATO weapons. It should try to impose a “harmful stalemate”, with the recovery of territories of similar symbolic importance, such as the city of Kherson, which would impose a heavy price on Russia.
If Russia begins to lose ground on the battlefield, dissent and infighting could spread in the Kremlin. Western intelligence services believe that Putin does not receive truthful information from his subordinates. Putin has a habit of substituting the military chiefs for him; apparently, he has also done so with General Aleksandr Dvórnikov, whom he turned to after the chaotic first weeks of the invasion. The West may increase the cost to Russia of a long war if it continues to press sanctions that threaten lasting damage to the country’s economy. It can also distance Russia’s elites from Putin by welcoming dissidents from business and politics, and encouraging them to see that the country must not throw its future away by embarking on a futile and costly campaign.
Will the West stay the course? At a summit on June 23, the European Union granted Ukraine candidate status and promised a deep level of commitment over the next decade. At another summit held a few days later in Germany, the G-7 confirmed and tightened sanctions against Russia. And, in a third meeting, recently held in Madrid, NATO has recognized the Russian threat by substantially increasing its presence on the alliance’s eastern front.
Yet Ukraine carries a heavy burden. Western defense industries are formidable, but have difficulty producing large quantities (particularly ammunition). The Ukrainian government suffers from a monthly deficit of 5,000 million dollars, and the country will need to rebuild after the war. Public support for Ukraine in the West will be buffeted by a multitude of pressures, from inflationary to electoral; among them, already from 2023, the US electoral race in which the presidential candidacy of that ukranophobic admirer of Putin that is Donald Trump could be.
Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that the overall costs of a long war will increase. Putin has blocked grain and sunflower oil exports from Ukrainian ports, which will cause riots and starvation in poorer importing countries. He appears to be trying to create a gas shortage this winter in the European Union by preventing members from building up reserves over the summer. If the EU countries get into a fight with each other over gas and the unit falls apart when it comes to energy, it will also fall apart when it comes to Ukraine. To further complicate matters, NATO members fear that if Ukraine prevails, Putin will opt for escalation. That could drag them into a catastrophic war with Russia.
It is easy to see where Putin is headed. He will conquer as much of Ukraine’s territory as he can, declare victory, and then ask Western countries to force Ukraine to accept his terms. In return, he will spare the rest of the world ruin, hunger, cold, and the threat of nuclear Armageddon.
Accepting that deal would be a serious miscalculation. Ukraine would face permanent Russian aggression. The more Putin believes that he has been successful in Ukraine, the more belligerent he will become in the future. He explained his ambitions in mid-June in a speech in which, smirking, he recalled how Peter the Great had seized parts of Sweden. And he will fight tomorrow with whatever weapon works for him today. That means resorting to war crimes and nuclear threats, starving the world and freezing Europe.
The best way to avoid the next war is to defeat him in this one. The leaders must explain to their peoples that in Ukraine they are not only defending an abstract principle, but also their most fundamental interest: their own security. The European Union must shore up its energy markets so that they do not fracture this winter. Ukraine must receive more weapons. The risk of escalation today is real; But if Ukraine is forced into a bad peace, Putin’s nuclear threats will not go away. On the contrary, they will become more dangerous, especially if Russia’s conventional forces are at a disadvantage.
In the long war, ordinary Russians will suffer and Ukrainians will endure unspeakable pain because of Putin’s conceit. Winning means marshalling resources and strengthening Ukraine as a viable, sovereign, Western-leaning country – an outcome that its defiant people yearn for. Ukraine and its supporters have men, money and material to defeat Putin. Do all of them also have the will to do it?
© 2022 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.
Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
