It’s been a few weeks now since we took an in-depth look at the broad state of the war in Ukraine, and yesterday, President Putin gave us ample reason to come back and take a look:
President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the biggest battle of the Ukraine war on Thursday, declaring the port of Mariupol “liberated” after nearly two months of siege, despite leaving hundreds of defenders still holed up inside a giant steel works.
Ukraine derided Putin’s attempt to avoid a final clash with its forces in the city as an acknowledgment that he lacked the troops to defeat them.
In a televised meeting at the Kremlin, Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu: “You successfully completed the combat effort to liberate Mariupol. Let me congratulate you on this occasion, and please convey my congratulations to the troops.”
Putin’s definition of “victory” in Mariupol is a strange one: The city is flattened, to be sure, and Russian troops occupy many of the ruins, to be sure – but the city itself remains contested, with thousands of Ukrainian troops still holding the biggest fortress in the city itself – the Azovstahl steelworks. The Russian President, having invested significant resources in taking the city, now finds himself having to leave substantial forces there to try and “starve out” the Ukrainian defenders, mainly comprised of the controversial “Azov” battalion, who have resisted for an objectively extraordinary six weeks.
Elsewhere, the war does not seem to be going much better for the Russians: The vaunted “massive offensive in the east” has either not begun, or has begun and is stalling, depending on who you believe. What is clear is that there have been some minor Russian gains this week, amounting to a village or two, but no massive breakthrough despite heavy bombardment of Ukrainian lines.
All the while, Western Military equipment continues to flow into Ukraine, while western sanctions are depriving Russia of the opportunity to replace lost modern weapons systems. Nor is there any numerical advantage for the Russians: Estimates put the Ukrainian army in the field at between 300 and 350,000 troops, while the Russians have mustered perhaps 200,000. The Russian advantages seem to be in heavy armour and heavy artillery – but how long those advantages will last is not certain as Ukraine gains more western equipment, and Russia continues to try and break Ukrainian lines. Attacking fortified Ukrainian positions is likely to be costly in terms of men, and tanks.
The most fanatical Russian nationalists will and do insist, of course, that ultimate victory is still possible and indeed likely, and that the conflict will end with Russian troops marching through Kiev. That seems… very implausible. It would require a reversal of the trends of the war on a hitherto unimaginable scale, and the overcoming of increasing numerical and logistical disadvantages.
There is one wild card, though: Russia could, in theory, conduct a full mobilisation of its manpower, and bring hundreds of thousands of conscripts to the front lines of the war. In a contest of overwhelming, fully mobilised, force, one would expect the Russians to prevail. Easy to say, but harder to imagine: doing so would take months in the first instance, inflict serious economic damage in the second instance, and be humiliating in the third instance.
It is amazing, really, that such a prospect is even something to wonder about. After all, a war that was supposed to be a quick and decisive victory has turned, in the best-case scenario, into a bloody stalemate that has cost Russia untold thousands of troops, as well as three major ships. In return, the Russians have gained the still-contested rubble of Mariupol.
It hardly seems a sensible trade.
There is another factor, here, too: Putin may be a bad man, but he certainly is not a foolish man. He will have anticipated and prepared for western sanctions at the beginning of the war. But he will also have calculated that the victory in the war itself would be quickly achieved, allowing him to consolidate his gains in Ukraine, and begin overtures to the west to have the sanctions lifted and unwound in an acceptable timeframe. But the longer the war drags on, the longer the sanctions will endure. Which poses the question of how long the Russians can keep this going without a significant economic collapse.
Some of my colleagues here at Gript have argued that Russia’s isolation paves the way for a multipolar world and the end of the dollar as a reserve currency, and so on, and so forth. That may, or may not, be the case. But if a multipolar world does emerge, then the alternative pole is likely to be led by Beijing, not Moscow. Russia, after all, is now entirely dependent on the Chinese for trade – not the other way around.
Meanwhile, having cited as a reason for war unacceptable NATO expansion, Russia appears to have provoked just that: Finnish entry to NATO will extend the NATO frontlines with Russia for another 1,340km along its northern borders, putting NATO troops within striking distance of the key port of Murmansk, and the ancient capital of St. Petersburg. And there are few, if any, NATO countries who will be observing the performance of the vaunted Russian army in Ukraine and shivering in their boots.
And so, we are where we are: The once-mighty President of Russia resorting to declaring the liberation of a demolished city, even as his enemy still contests it. A vaunted Russian eastern offensive that appears either not to have appeared, or to be stuttering. A flagship at the bottom of the sea. And a President who has gone from one of the most powerful men in the world, in a matter of weeks, to Lord over Ashes and Rubble.
It’s a funny class of victory, right enough.