Is the battle in Ukraine just a “special military operation”? This remains his official Russian description. Or, to use this week’s words to Vladimir Solovyov, Russia’s state television presenter (and therefore propagandist), is “a war against Europe and the world”?
The answer is the second. Of course, Vladimir Putin wants full control of Ukraine because he deludedly believes that it is part of his country, but he also sees this as correcting a much broader mistake – the victory of a Western world that somehow way manages to be terribly powerful and at the same time hopelessly decadent.
His leading aide, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote earlier this month that “Ukraine has mentally become the Second Third Reich and will suffer the same fate.” Such words are too great to quell a simple nationalist uprising. They return to what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. They describe a complete victory in a global struggle.
If Putin wins this war, he will defeat the West. The consequence will be a massive shift of global power to autocrats and dictators led by Russia and China, with a new international economic and political order (or disorder) shaped respectively.
Even if Putin succeeds no more than conquering the Donbass region, he will present any progress in his pre-invasion position as a victory and will use any deal or ceasefire as a means of further progress. The battle will continue, under more unfavorable conditions than before. The West will fail.
Ukrainians have been aware of this from the very beginning, which is why they are so strong. They were tortured, starved, shot or deported by millions by Stalin, first during the violent famine and then in the Great Terror of the 1930s. Later, Hitler did almost the same with them.
Today, they face a comparable threat – fewer murders so far, but equal obedience. Addressing our houses of parliament in early March, President Zelensky used Shakespeare’s most famous words: for his country, it is a question of “To be or not to be.”
Does the West have the same clarity about the threat it faces? The good news is that NATO has responded unitedly to the invasion, albeit with uneven vigor. (I believe that little Estonia has spent more absolutely, if not proportionately, on active military aid to Ukraine than powerful Germany.)
This has led to positive results. Ukraine won the first stage of this war. Ukrainians believe they could not achieve this without equipment, training and intelligence, which come mainly from the United States and Britain.
In the current joke, the photo of Boris Johnson and Zelensky shaking hands in Kyiv gives them a shared bubble: “Thank you for saving me.”
This help is growing. In the second phase of the war, large stockpiles of small, wandering ammunition, such as the American Switchblade, were stored, which were difficult to detect as they circled over enemy sites in search of targets for their Javelin anti-tank warhead.
One month ago, Air Marshal Edward Stringer, now a senior member of the Policy Exchange, said Russia’s armed forces had reached their “elastic limit.”
He does not think their situation has improved since then: Russia is regrouping, but is trying to fight on three military borders without coordinated command and control, adequately trained troops or a proper logistics train. He calls the Russian bear “hated.”
The less good news is that many in the West still do not understand how much is at stake. Certainly most people hate Putin and love the Ukrainian fight. In villages like my spring blue-yellow flag, it flies on green and private houses. But does the West fully accept the point first made by Mr Johnson at the Munich Security Conference in February: “Russia must be defeated and it must be seen that it has been defeated”?
In a new essay, well-titled “Fear of Victory,” security expert James Cher sees most Western allies as “locked into a crisis management paradigm” instead of pursuing war. They have slogans like “Stop fighting” or “support for Ukraine”, but there are no goals for collective war, no “definition of success”. Even atrocities such as Bucha or the unfolding horrors of Mariupol tend to be seen not so much as examples of the evil we must defeat, as “humanitarian” situations in which both sides must stand aside for settlements that are practically in benefit to the aggressor.
Their mentality is also too frightened, as if the meaning of deterrence – such a powerful concept in the Cold War – has been forgotten. Putin only needs to hint at a nuclear threat to shake the West. As Cher says: “If the escalation, the risk of which lies in the war itself, becomes a phobia, the enemy will determine the rules of the conflict. He is the one who will stop us. “
If the wrong mentality persists, the West will simply be reactive. It will take only a small amount of Russian success to resume talks on peace plans that will benefit Putin. Countries like Germany, which are already lagging behind for fear of losing oil and gas, will be encouraged to postpone the closure of taps.
So far this week, Russia’s progress in the two main areas of attack, central Donbass and the Black Sea coast, has not been impressive, but they are still in the wrong direction for their victims. How long before the Russian jaws begin to tighten on the Ukrainian forces, which they outnumber? The West has the power to prevent such a disaster, but will it?
One of the joys of living in freedom is that you do not live forever in fear. The downside is that you lose your instinct for danger and outrage those who point out the dangers. As a result, public debate in free countries tends to avoid big topics and throw energy into second-rate ones.
Hence the insult to the Prime Minister about his blocking parties and whether he deliberately violated the rules. Not that the question doesn’t affect him badly: really. That is, such righteous anger on such a subject, at such a time, is disproportionate – intentional, I would say.
On Easter, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a sermon that attacked the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. I took the radical step of reading it.
Contrary to Archbishop Welby’s critics, the sermon also laments the fate of Ukraine – and deals with Covid and the cost of living crisis. But what is remarkable is his order of priorities. On the holiest day of the Church year, he described Rwanda’s policy as a great mistake, the only one mentioned that was “contrary to the nature of God.”
The archbishop did not cast such an anathema against President Putin, who led to the deaths (many murders) of thousands, bombings, torture, hostage-taking, rape, looting, impoverishment, the flight of millions from their homes and attempts to destroy a free state. I think that’s a little worse than Pretty Patel’s plans to handle asylum seekers in Africa, isn’t it?
The Germans have the expressive word Schwerpunkt, often used in military affairs. This means the center of gravity, the main thrust of what you decide to do. Vladimir Putin’s checkpoint has been taken over by aggressive war. Our Schwerpunkt must beat him.
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