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A deal on enabling grain exports from Ukraine is imminent. It may take a small number of weeks to implement. Russia could still block the agreement with new demands. The Kremlin wants clarity that its own food exports are not sanctioned and won’t be.
But no diplomatic end to the war is in sight. Russia and Ukraine both think time is on their side. Here’s what I’m hearing.
Putin’s offensive in eastern Ukraine is bogging down, and his military forces are experiencing increasing difficulty in holding on to territory in the south.
Russian military doctrine would dictate a pause, while units recover and rebuild. If Russian generals fail to order that, the damage and risk increase and Ukraine has more opportunities to exploit. Who will break the news to Putin?
Compounding Russia’s “out of puff” problem is the effectiveness of Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, particularly long-range precision strikes. Fears that Ukrainian soldiers would splurge ammunition, Russian-style, proved unfounded. They learned fast and well. This is working out as planned. More bad news to bring to the boss.
The IDCC in Stuttgart, Germany is also working better than expected, matching Ukrainian needs with the wide range of supplies provided by foreign donors: a kind of military speed dating.
But Ukraine does not, yet, have the weapons or troops for a serious counter-offensive. Keeping it supplied with ammunition even for limited operations is quite a strain — one million kg of ammunition a day is one estimate I heard.
Ukraine has proved the concept of how to attack Russian invaders , but does not have the capacity (yet) to implement it.
One factor here is how far Western countries can get their arms industries to focus on providing the needed (but in Western terms largely obsolete) ammunition and spare parts. Efforts are under way on that.
A real push could come in the summer of next year, assuming Russia does not manage to reboot its tattered army before then. But before we get to summer, we have to manage winter, when the cost-of-living “crisis” in the West will put new strains on the diplomatic coalition behind Ukraine. That will be the point of maximum leverage for Putin.
The European Commission is making a big gamble here. It wants solidarity between gas-rich and gas-poor countries as the supply crisis bites. That didn’t work well during the pandemic, when national governments, at least initially, hoarded vaccines and supplies.
Western decision-making and public opinion shifts, not the Donbas or Zaporizhia, are the real frontline. Russia can’t on its own beat Ukraine on the battlefield. But it can browbeat the European and other allies to the point that they do the Kremlin’s dirty work. Expect months of military more-or-less stalemate while these battles rage elsewhere.
Assuming that Western nerve and unity hold through the winter, 2023 will be better for Ukraine. The hope in Western capitals is that Russia eventually realises it cannot achieve what it wants on the battlefield, and that it faces increasingly serious military setbacks. At that point it may be ready to talk. The Western aim is to have Ukraine in the strongest-possible military and diplomatic position when that point comes.
One other factor: Russia’s allies. Actually, Russia doesn’t have allies, only satrapies and mistrustful partners. But it’s worth remembering that we don’t really know what Xi Jinping thinks about this war.
I have been speaking at the weekly Ukraine rally in Whitehall, last week’s speech here and this week’s here.
I’ve been watching with interest the circular firing squad taking place under the guise of a Conservative leadership election. My Times column this week was on the strange absence of any real talk about illicit finance or relations with Europe.
My CEPA column was about the lack of political energy in the West — far more troubling than anything to do with electrons and molecules.
I reflected in Foreign Policy on the differences and similarities with the last cold war. (TL:DR ignorance stokes nostalgia).
I’m quoted in this long piece in Rolling Stone, from an interview I gave after the Lennart Meri conference back in May.
“I think Putin’s aim is 1) to render Ukraine non-viable — crippled, uninvestable, in political social and economic torment, and 2) to show that the West doesn’t have the willpower to resist him,” says Edward Lucas, of the Center for European Policy Analysis. […] “We have/had a choice of confronting Putin with a functioning 40-million-strong country on our side or waiting until Ukraine is defeated and doing it later in the Baltic,” Lucas says.
FWIW I think the article is too gloomy.
I’m doorknocking almost every day. The Conservative vote is soft, almost deliquescent, and the Labour supporters listless. So this was deeply encouraging (it’s from a site that asks that these predictions shouldn’t be used for campaigning, so I won’t put it on a leaflet).
If you are in London on September 12th, please come to this event with my friend Oliver Bullough.
If you are eligible to vote in British parliamentary elections, you can donate to my campaign here.
And if you would like to volunteer, sign up here.
Best regards, Edward