While politicians in Britain pontificate, a thousand miles away, outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s war with Russia is intensifying. Kyiv has been forced to redirect thousands of troops to the north-eastern part of the front line to fend off Putin’s assault, leaving its defences exposed elsewhere.
The war is reaching a critical juncture, as yet again Western interest in aiding Ukraine is at risk of waning. President Zelensky appears to be aware that Ukraine’s time is running out: over the weekend, he called on US president Joe Biden and Chinese premier Xi Jinping to attend the upcoming Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland to advance a “real peace”.
Last week, Reuters reported that Russian sources were claiming that Putin himself was prepared to entertain the notion of a ceasefire. “Putin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire – to freeze the war,” one said. Asked about these claims, Putin called for negotiations to resume as long as they were based on “realities on the ground”. In other words, Putin would be happy to stop the war as long as he got to keep the territory he has occupied.
This chipper mood shouldn’t surprise us. Putin knows that, for now, he holds the advantage. Circumventing sanctions and strengthening ties with the likes of China, Iran and North Korea has allowed him to pivot his economy on to a war footing. While the Ukrainian army is forced to wait for Western aid and weapons to trickle in, Russia is catching up in its ability to produce ammunition that matches Ukraine’s Western technology in quality and far outstrips it in quantity.
Indeed, the delay in passing the £60 billion US aid package for Kyiv is surely in part to thank for the difficulty Ukraine has had in throwing off Russia’s advance on Kharkiv. Putin’s generals saw weakness and took their chance.
While Ukraine will soon see fresh recruits to the armed forces, thanks to new legislation passed last month expanding the age of conscription, meanwhile, the disparity in mass is beginning to tell. Russia’s population is approximately three and a half times the size of Ukraine’s and Putin certainly has no qualms about sending young men into the meat grinder. The harsh reality is that Ukraine risks simply running out of men to fight.
Zelensky’s team appear concerned that, as attention on both sides of the Atlantic turns to domestic elections and leaders are forced to pick between foreign and domestic priorities, Ukraine’s fight against Putin will fall by the wayside. He has good reason to think so. Despite Zelensky’s appeals, it appears that Biden is likely to skip his planned peace summit, apparently preferring to attend a fundraiser in California with celebrities including George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
Speaking yesterday, Zelensky condemned Biden’s reported plan to skip it, saying “[His] absence would only be met with applause by Putin.” But while these words would once have held weight, they now look likely to be shrugged off.
As Putin consolidates his strength and the West loses interest, it looks increasingly that Ukraine has just a few months of resistance left. While the general election here rumbles on, we should not forget the war in the East. A Russian victory in Ukraine would rewrite the map of Europe and present the continent with a threat not seen for more than 80 years. We must not forget this.