Thomas Graham
The grisly Russia-Ukraine war is well into its fourth year with no end in sight. Russia has the advantage on the battlefield, pounding Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, defense industries, and major cities from the air and slowly but steadily pushing the front lines deeper into Ukraine. The cost in Russian lives lost and materiel destroyed is staggering. The dead and wounded now number north of one million; the materiel losses are incalculable, but Russia’s stocks of weapons have been depleted to the extent that it relies on extra supplies from North Korea and Iran.
Yet Putin vows that Russia will continue this war of attrition until he has achieved all the goals he set out when he launched the invasion. At the same time, his lead negotiator with the Ukrainians boasts that Russia will fight for decades, as it did in the Great Northern War of the early eighteenth century, if that is what it takes to gain victory. The Kremlin shrugged off President Donald Trump’s recent decision to step up arms deliveries to Ukraine and levy harsh sanctions should Russia not agree to a ceasefire.
The great irony is that for all practical purposes, Russia has already largely achieved its goals, while prosecuting the war further saps the strength Russia will need to hold its own in the intensifying great-power competition that will shape world events in the years ahead. An astute strategist would recognize that it’s time to declare victory,A year ago, Putin laid out his goals: No NATO membership for Ukraine, Ukraine’s recognition of Russia’s annexation of five of its provinces, its demilitarization, its denazification (code for regime change), and the lifting of Western sanctions. Where do things stand at the moment?
Now, Ukraine is unlikely to join NATO anytime soon. Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the United States and its European allies have emphatically demonstrated that they are not going to risk war with Russia to defend Ukraine. They are not now about to commit to doing just that by admitting Ukraine into the alliance.Further, Russia now occupies roughly 85 percent of the Ukrainian territory it has formally annexed. Its land bridge along the Sea of Azov to Crimea is next to impregnable. While Kyiv refuses to recognize de jure Russia’s control of this territory, it has conceded that it cannot regain it by force.
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