Graham Allison, an American political scientist at Harvard University, recently commented that although China “is and will be the fiercest rival a dominant power has ever faced,” the current “demonization” of the country “confuses more than it clarifies.” To “create and sustain a strategy to confront the Chinese challenge,” insists Allison, United States “must understand China for what it is”: not even the giant “three meters high” or “on the verge of collapse.” Post-Soviet Russia has never received such consideration.
By contrast, the United States has spent decades caricaturing Russia as both a quintessential villain and fragile. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, then-President Barack Obama disqualified it when describing it as “a regional power” that showed his own weakness. And following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the assumption was that Russia – and Vladimir Putin's regime – would quickly crumble under the weight of Western sanctions.
Putin's decision to invade Ukraine was fueled by wishful thinking. But that does not mean that the Western assessment of the situation was sensible. On the contrary, most Western observers seemed able to imagine only two scenarios: either Putin takes kyiv in a matter of days, turning Ukraine into a puppet of the Kremlin, or Russia is quickly defeated, forcing Putin to withdraw his troops and recognize the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
This helps explain why when Russia's initial offensive stalled, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, visiting Kiev, reportedly recommended Ukraine “just fight” rather than negotiate a peace deal. The logic was that it was better to let Russia lose (by weakening the country's economy, depleting its military, and damaging Putin's position, possibly irreparably) than to reward it for its invasion. And Russia would lose, according to the Western narrative.
The basis of such a view was that while Ukraine had the unconditional support of the West –with the corresponding flow of weapons and aid–, Russia did not have enough equipment, and what it did have was as outdated as its tactics. And that beyond the battlefield, unprecedented Western sanctions were destined to trigger a harsh backlash against Putin; the Russians could even storm the Kremlin to regain access to European handbags and American fast food. No one seemed to imagine that the demonization and contempt of most things Russian would galvanize the Russians against the West, or that Russia would be able to sustain a long war.
However, this is precisely what has happened. Russia continued to take advantage of her numerical advantage, while updating her battlefield strategy and pushing the production of military material. ANDAt home, he minimized the costs of sanctions, not only by circumventing them, but also by ensuring that local actors – including the Russian state – took ownership of Russian operations from Western companies leaving at rock-bottom prices. Meanwhile, he has developed his war economy.
For ordinary Russians, things are not bad at all. Store shelves are well stocked and restaurants are bustling. Pensions and salaries have risen, not as much as inflation, but enough to support the Kremlin's narrative that Russia remains strong despite Western efforts to destroy it.
Far from recognizing how dangerous this narrative is, Western leaders continue to reinforce it, with Polish President Andrzej Duda, for example, saying in June, at the start of Ukraine's failed counteroffensive that “Russians have to feel the bitter taste of defeat.”
The war remains unpopular in Russia: 56 percent of Russians surveyed in October by the Levada Center favored a transition to peace talks. But at the same time, only 34 percent of respondents stated that they would support the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and the return of Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, Putin's approval rating is close to 80 percent. It's the Stalingrad effect.
A great paradox
As Russians rally around Putin, Ukraine's Western supporters appear to be losing their resolve. Earlier this month, European Union leaders failed to approve a 50 billion euro ($55 billion) financial aid package for Ukraine, although they have agreed to start EU accession talks. This failure occurred when the United States Congress refused to approve a new military aid package for Ukraine this year.
Furthermore, now US President Joe Biden promises that the United States will be with Ukraine not “as long as it takes,” as he used to claim, but “as long as we can.” He continues to maintain that Russia lacks the “resources and capacity” to sustain a long war in Ukraine, and it is true that sanctions will eventually take their toll on the Russian economy. But Putin will put everything he has into this war, and will likely maintain considerable popular support along the way.
The decline in foreign aid is already weakening Ukraine's position on the battlefield, after a year of little tangible progress by Ukrainian forces. Meanwhile, a rift appears to be growing between Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny.
Three scenarios
There are three plausible scenarios. First, the West recommits itself to supporting Ukraine. But the political obstacles – the Republican opposition in the United States and the Hungarian (and now Slovak) veto in the EU – are great. But even if this is achieved, Ukraine will have difficulty recruiting enough new soldiers.
In the second scenario, NATO puts boots on the ground in Ukraine. Although Putin has never intended to invade a NATO member country, the idea that a Russian victory in Ukraine would trigger more Russian invasions could be used to justify sending Western troops. The risk is that the Stalingrad effect would be turbocharged, the Russians would rise up to defend the Motherland and instability would engulf Europe.
In the third scenario, the West finds ways to communicate with the Kremlin. Russia is far from invulnerable, but it is not on the verge of collapse, and Putin probably has several years left as president. Even if he were removed from power, Russians' deep distrust of the West would persist. With this in mind – and the harsh reality that Ukraine is unlikely to regain all of its territory – the West should focus on shoring up Ukraine's defenses, while preparing to seize any opportunity to engage in realistic talks with the Kremlin.
NINA L. KHRUSHCHEVA*
© Project Syndicate
Moscow
Professor of International Affairs at The New School. She is co-author (with Jeffrey Tayler) of 'In Putin's Footsteps: In Search of the Soul of an Empire Across Russia's Eleven Time Zones' (St. Martin's Press, 2019).
Putin shot
Russian leader Vladimir Putin's popularity reached 78.8 percent with two months to go before the presidential election, according to a poll published Friday. That figure is five tenths of a percentage point lower than in mid-December (79.3%), according to the survey carried out by the government-run Public Opinion Study Center (Vtsiom). The popularity of the head of the Kremlin, whom more than two-thirds of Russians also encourage to continue leading the country, has remained around these figures in recent months, despite the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. Furthermore, according to the survey, 76.8% of those surveyed support the management of Putin, who has been in power since 2000, when he received it from the first democratically elected president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. According to the same survey, Putin, 71, should win the elections with more votes than in 2018, when he received more than 76% of the votes. Everything indicates that there will be Putin for a while.
EFE
'Aid is stopped': US
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