The harsh truth about the Ukraine war – for the Russians, at least – is that 500 days into it, Ukraine has already “won” the most important battle – expectations.
“Winning” in wars, not unlike elections or sports, is often a matter of expectation. If Luton Town FC finish ninth in the UK Premiership next season, with everybody predicting relegation, then they will be undisputed winners without having achieved anything. If Aontu takes six seats at the next election, then their supporters will crow that they are winners – entirely correctly – without having really changed the political dynamics much at all. It’s the same with the war, to some extent: That Ukraine has held of the Russians for a year and a half is something nobody would have expected pre-war, which makes their performance to date enough of a victory to keep them in the fight pretty much indefinitely.
After 500 days, Ukraine has fought the mighty Russian Army to a stalemate. Russia appears incapable of launching large scale offensive actions (their last was a four month campaign to take a town not much bigger than Dundalk) and is on the defensive across the front. In recent weeks there was a large scale rebellion by Russian mercenary forces against their own command. To the extent that either side is making (small) gains, it is the Ukrainians.
So, we can probably forgive Ukrainian President Zelensky a bit of crowing about his country’s successes: They have been hard won – and none harder than the battle to keep and hold Snake Island, which was the focus of his 500 day message over the weekend:
500 days of the full-scale war.
Snake Island. The free island of free Ukraine.
I am grateful to everyone who fought here against the occupiers. We commemorated the heroes who gave their lives in this battle – one of the most important during the full-scale war.
Glory to… pic.twitter.com/RODccfWkWm
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 8, 2023
“Ukraine will regain every bit of its territory”, he says. He may not be wrong about that, but the flip side of the above analysis is that it sure seems unlikely, 500 days in, that Ukraine will regain its territory through military means alone.
It should be said that Ukraine’s apparently “disappointing” counter-offensive over the summer has, in the first instance, not yet been completed, and in the second instance been judged by the standards of keyboard warriors rather than the standards of what is militarily realistic. Ukraine, for all the talk of NATO support and equipment, has quite noticeably never received the kind of air power and air cover that are standard for most NATO countries conducting offensive operations.
The Americans, for example, would never dream of sending troops into assault a position without first obliterating it from the skies. 500 days into the war, Ukraine has about 200 combat-ready aircraft, the vast majority of which are obsolete cold-war era Russian MiG fighter jets. That is about half the strength of the Royal Air Force (466 aircraft) and a fraction of what the Americans (5,217 active air force planes) could bring to bear on an enemy. It should also be noted that NATO in recent years has tended to fight against desperately overmatched enemies in the middle east who lack any kind of Air Cover at all. The Ukrainians are fighting against a Russian army commonly reckoned before the war to be one of the world’s three great fighting forces, alongside the Chinese People’s Army and the US Army. Looking at the equipment shortfall, particularly in the air, it is a wonder the Ukrainians can gain any ground at all – especially as they are attacking well-fortified Russian positions.
Usually, in such a stalemate, calls for negotiations and peace – or at least a ceasefire – would make sense to both parties. The problem is that in the case of the Ukraine war, both sides have reason to think the other might simply collapse.
The Russian theory of the case probably rests on Donald Trump.
More broadly, it rests on the notion of the west getting exhausted with the costs of the war in Ukraine, in terms of material, refugees, and the enduring economic impact of sanctions on Russia. The election of Governments in NATO countries that are more interested in “peace” than they are in “supporting Ukraine” might, they believe, result either in Ukraine being forced to negotiate, or Ukraine being abandoned by its allies and losing the supply of western equipment that has kept them in the fight to date. Trump is their best bet here: He has sounded notes of scepticism about the war, and pledged to solve it “within 24 hours”. Should he be elected in November 2024, and should the war still be going on when he takes office in January 2025, then they will believe that he will apply pressure to Ukraine to at least come to the table. They are probably right about that.
The problem for the Russians is that most of the polling (against Joe Biden) shows that Trump would not be a favourite to win, and that supporting Ukraine remains a 60% supported idea amongst American voters. And in the case of Ukraine’s other western backers of note – the UK, Poland, and the eastern NATO states – support for Ukraine is not an issue of controversy. Keir Starmer, for example, would not reverse the UK’s course. For Russia, it’s probably Trump or bust.
For Ukraine, the theory of the case is that the recent Wagner rebellion was a sign of the rot setting in for Putin: The war has been a national humiliation for Russia, with its army’s competence cast out of doubt and into the status of joke. There are signs that Russian conscription is deeply unpopular, and that Russian supplies of tanks and other offensive equipment are almost exhausted. Ukraine has the western Arms industry supplying equipment, by contrast, and its soldiers – being trained in Britain and the US – are better trained than the Russian conscripts. Apply enough pressure over enough time, and the Russian positions – or Russian state – might just collapse. There are enough signs of that for Ukraine that coming to the negotiating table now would be foolish.
And so here we are: 500 days of war, and an effective stalemate in which both sides retain hopes of a deus-ex-machina cracking open the war and delivering a victory. And a war which has been so costly for both countries that any kind of peace would feel like a brutal loss for either.
I’m no expert, but if I was a betting man, I’d put my money on another 500 days, at least. Unfortunately.