As Putin bides his time, Ukraine faces ticking clock
Pressure mounts on outcome of counteroffensive
Both armies have tanks, artillery, and tens of thousands of soldiers ready to face off on the battlefields of Ukraine in a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia. But one thing clearly sets the two sides apart: time.
Ukraine is feeling immense short-term pressures from its Western backers, as the United States and its allies treat the counteroffensive as a critical test of whether the weapons, training, and ammunition they have rushed to the country in recent months can translate into significant gains.
If the Ukrainians fall short of expectations, they risk an erosion of Western support. It is a source of anxiety for top officials in Ukraine, who know that beyond battlefield muscle and ingenuity, victory may ultimately come down to a test of wills between Russia and the West — and which side can muster more political, economic, and industrial staying power, possibly for years.
As a result, there is a sense in Ukraine that its war effort faces a ticking clock.
“In countries that are our partners, our friends, the expectation of the counteroffensive is overestimated, overheated, I would say,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in an interview this past week in Kyiv, the capital. “That is my main concern.”
The expectations of military success are only one pressure point for Ukraine. A presidential election in the United States looms next year, with the potential for a new, less-supportive Republican administration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin faces his own challenges but is showing signs of operating on a much longer timeline, encumbered by economic and military limitations but free from the domestic political pressures that make continuing Western support for Ukraine so uncertain.
Having already mobilized about 300,000 recruits in September, Putin is laying the groundwork for a possible new round of conscription, having changed the law so Russian authorities can draft men by serving them with a “digital summons” online.
In private conversations, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has professed a willingness to dig in for the long haul, vowing to carry out more mobilizations if necessary and emphasizing that Russia is capable of conscripting as many as 25 million fighting-age men, a senior European official said.
Russia’s economy is under increasing strain, and its defense sector, like the West’s, is struggling to provide enough resources for the front. There are signs of simmering anxiety over the Ukrainian counteroffensive. On Friday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group, castigated Russian military leadership over a lack of ammunition and threatened to pull his forces from the fighting in the embattled city of Bakhmut within days.
But Putin has defined the war effort as a top priority and vital national interest, telling Russians in a New Year’s address that “we must only fight, only keep going” against Western democracies intent on Russia’s destruction.
“Certainly, I think there is a calculation in the Kremlin that Russia is more resilient than the West,” said Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as senior director for Russia on the National Security Council from 200407.
“They do think about these electoral cycles,” Graham said. “Who knows what is going to happen in 2024 in the United States? It’s not clear where the American people are on this over the long run. I think the Kremlin and Putin do believe that in that sense, time is on their side.”
Ukraine’s leaders, on the jittery doorstep of the counteroffensive, have been making a point of projecting confidence — but not too much.
If they appear too ambitious, they could stir fears that Russia could respond with a tactical nuclear strike. If they appear too modest, in contrast, criticism arises that billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine has been spent in vain.
Ukrainian officials point to the considerable successes they have already achieved: forcing the Russian military to retreat from Kyiv last year; sinking the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva; and recapturing thousands of square miles of territory in two counterattacks last fall.
“After that, the world is ready to see the next stage of this competition, if we can use a sports metaphor,” Reznikov said.
“We have a lot of supporters of Ukraine cheering for us,” he said. “That is why they are waiting for the next match. But for us, it’s not a sports game. For us, it’s a serious challenge. For us, it’s the lives of our soldiers.”
He said the operation must be viewed as part of a larger whole.
“For me, every success during this war becomes a new stage, a new step, on the road to victory,” Reznikov said. The counteroffensive, he said, will be “just one story” in the war.
Military analysts have pointed to a likely period of probing assaults, feints and long-range strikes in the opening phase of the attack. Degrading the Russian military’s combat abilities will be as important as liberating territory, Reznikov said.
Despite Ukraine’s worries about waning Western support, its allies have so far remained resolute, pledging hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and aid, training Ukrainian soldiers, imposing sanctions, and, to varying degrees, weaning their economies off Russian energy. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance must brace itself to back Ukraine over a long war and has singled out a summit planned for July in Lithuania as a moment to formalize that commitment.
Some analysts believe Putin’s calculation could change if the Ukrainian counteroffensive manages to threaten Crimea.
“In polls, the only thing the Russian public was not willing to negotiate over was the status of Crimea,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If Crimea is being bombarded, then it’s a failure. I think that would change things, potentially.”
Putin is also probably facing pressures that remain opaque to the outside world. In an authoritarian system, threats to the stability of a government often prove unpredictable.
Graham said Putin has security, business and political elites he still must keep on his side, noting that “it’s wrong to assume that Putin can just do anything he wants to at this point.”
“There are institutions of power and centers of power,” he added, “that you have to manage, control and dominate in some way if you’re going to stay in the game.”
‘In countries that are our partners, our friends, the expectation of the counteroffensive is overestimated, overheated.’
OLEKSIY REZNIKOV, Ukrainian defense minister