Brian M Downing
Putin invaded Ukraine five months ago, confident his forces would swiftly take Kyiv and overwhelm the rest of the country in short order. When the blitzkrieg failed, he shifted to a war of attrition. The conflict is almost certainly to be long and arduous.
Putin believes that favors him. He has the larger army, population, and economy. They have been crucial in outcomes from the American Civil War to the world wars of the 20th century.
The Ukrainian army
Russia is confident that by engaging its enemy along an immense front, stretching from Kharkiv in the north to the Donbas and along the Black Sea coast to Kherson, it can win. Central to the effort is the use of heavy artillery on a massive, relentless scale.
Recent successes at Severodonetsk and Lysachansk are templates. Weeks of heavy bombardments and ground attacks opened the way. Moscow believes this can be repeated in the east – around Kharkiv, and one day in a renewed attack on Kyiv.
However, Russia will have to contend with its own losses in the war of attrition, wear on equipment (especially artillery tubes), and Ukrainian attacks on supply depots.
The Ukrainian people
At the outset of the war, the world was inspired by the resolve of the Ukrainian men, women, and children. Putin sees it as a problem to be dealt with. Russia is inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian soldiers but he wants more – the destruction of the idea of Ukraine.
Russian missiles from Black Sea ships, Belarus, and inside Russia itself target Ukrainian cities. There is no effort to strike only military sites. The bombardments are intended to break the will of the people.
Putin is accentuating his forcefulness with operations aimed not simply at defeating Ukraine but at annihilating its culture and language. He intends to destroy the education system, literature, national monuments, and language until people no longer recognize their country and either flee or accept shipment to remote parts of trans-Ural Russia.
The longer the war, the more dread, death, and cities in ruins. Putin should know that the post-WW2 US Strategic Bombing Survey found no evidence that German will declined despite heavy bombing. He must surely know the Russian people did not give in during the Great Patriotic War.
The rest of the world
Russia is banking on declining support for Ukraine. Publics are no longer cheered by accounts of oafish Russians and resourceful Ukrainians. A grim, uninspiring war has set in and there’s no end in sight.
Western interest will further decline as costs hit home. Supplying weapons to Ukraine affects domestic spending and taxation. As Russian oil and gas imports decline, energy prices soar. Gas supplies are meager and winter isn’t far off.
Elsewhere in the world the war is more remote. There are no Russian troops about to cross the borders. Food and energy prices are up since February. People face hardships far more dire than in the West. Protests are on the rise. Governments may fall – unless they take extreme measures.
There is a reservoir of mistrust in the West in much of the world and Moscow has been exploiting it since the Bolshevik years. Russian diplomats will seek to channel popular outrage and elite insecurity into convincing Europe to abandon Ukraine. The emissaries will also point out that a new Sino-Russian order is in charge and it’s best to get on board now.
Such are Putin’s calculations. They may well be self-serving, optimistic, and wrong.
©2022 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to fellow Hoya Susan Ganosellis.