A YEAR AFTER INVASION, WHAT’S NEXT FOR UKRAINE?
In the year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the world has thrilled to the pluck and the bravery of the Ukrainian people, its government and military in resisting the once mighty Red armies.
Bolstered by increasing arms support from the United States and its Western allies, Ukraine has fought the Russian armies to a standstill, even reversing some initial losses, halting offensives aimed at major cities and retaking parts of the country.
But though President Joe Biden’s administration remains steadfast, and its supply of Western arms is increasing, this war is in no ways won, Russian forces have repaired some of their initial errors, gone back on the offensive and sought to regain lost territory.
At the same time, they have continued their terror campaign to level Ukraine to the ground, unleashing missile attacks on civilian targets as well as military ones.
In the coming months, it seems inevitable the United States will seek to convince Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept some sort of settlement that falls short of his goal to recapture all lost areas — including Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014.
Unfortunately, as long as oil sales keep the battered Russian economy sufficiently afloat to fight the war and Putin thinks he can win it, reaching a settlement will be hard and achieving Zelenskyy’s goals impossible.
Biden is scheduled to go next week to Poland — and possibly Ukraine — to condemn anew the Russian invasion and re-dedicate U.S. and Western support to Ukraine’s independence.
One factor at issue is that Biden may be facing new constraints on U.S. support for Ukraine because of divisions in the Republican Party. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has strongly supported helping Ukraine and some Senate Republicans have even pressured the administration to move more quickly with additional weapons.
But House GOP support is less certain. While Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he favors continued help for Ukraine, he has warned that not all Republicans feel that way. Efforts to cut or end U.S. military support by the same far-right faction that sought to derail his speakership — led by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert — will test McCarthy’s slim GOP majority.
Ukrainian grit does not alone explain Russia’s failure to win a war that Putin and much of the West expected would take only days — or, at most, weeks.
In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Rand Corporation senior policy researcher Dara Massicot said the Russian invasion plan “was riddled with faulty assumptions, arbitrary political guidance and planning errors…which undermined its ability to conduct a large invasion.”
But she warned that Putin’s statements that he is prepared for a “long process” in Ukraine “show that the Kremlin can adapt its weakened position and condition its population for a long war.” The question now, she said, “is whether its changes will be enough.”
Putin must have missed Biden’s unambiguous words, both before and after becoming president, that proclaimed “America is back,” ready to resume its historical leadership role.
Perhaps the two biggest surprises were Germany’s willingness to help arm the Ukrainians and decisions by Sweden and Finland to end their semi-neutrality and seek membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
A weakened Putin has found himself confronting a re-energized and expanded Western alliance, rather than a divided one.
Celebrating that unity — and condemning the Russians — will be key themes for Biden next week.
But Ukraine’s independence remains in jeopardy and the trip’s more important aspect may be the private discussions of how to end his war before it levels the country to the ground, leaving it free but shattered.