Ukraine — a week later
The nightmare continues. The unthinkable is becoming real. The unlikely is becoming the expected. The shocking is becoming the everyday. The indiscriminate shelling of Ukrainian cities, the incredible victories of their defenders against the odds, the unprecedented sanctions and boycotts, the new repressive laws in Russia, events that individually would have seemed shocking just a fortnight ago are all happening, actually happening before our eyers.
We are in a vicious cycle in which the Ukrainians resist against terrific odds, under the gaze of the world’s media, forcing the decision-makers in the West (both states and private enterprises) to act and to keep acting, keep upping the ante by introducing new sanctions and boycotts. Russia, frustrated by the lack of progress on the battlefield and stung by the sanctions, also keeps upping the ante — by committing more resources to the war and bombing more and more indiscriminately. At the same time, it is having to introduce repressive legislation at home to silence the growing disquiet.
The results are there for everyone to see. Ukrainian cities — in particular Mariupol and Kharkiv — are being reduced to rubble. Civilians are shot at, killed as they try to escape through supposedly safe corridors that turn out to be mined or are shelled. Journalists are attacked. Once the dust settles, the wounds will take decades to heal, especially as visual evidence of the conflict is in abundance.
A week ago, I predicted that Ukraine will hold on. Despite Russia’s substantial gains in the South, the Ukrainian resistance is still unbroken. Even in the captured territories, Russian forces are having to quell protests and are taking losses. Their supply chains, especially for fuel, are under constant attack. In the North, they seem to be firmly stuck, making very slow progress. There is even talk of a big Russian climbdown — having gone into the war expecting to ‘denazify’ and ‘dimilitarise’ Ukraine, expecting to oust Zelensky and seize Kiev, they are now talking of only neutrality (Ukraine promising to not join the EU and NATO) and of Ukraine relinquishing their claim on Crimea and the two breakaway ‘republics’ in the East.
Information War. On the information war front, the Russians have hit back after being invisible in the first few days. The usual talking points such as ‘What about Donbass/Palestine/Iraq’ have started to appear, quickly followed by complaints about ‘NATO expansion’. The usual stories about ‘the Maidan coup’ are again doing the rounds. Contrarians have started ‘asking questions’ and ‘challenging the official narrative’. But the Ukrainian effort has been marvellous — as soon as the war started, they hit the ground running with a combination of open source intelligence, humour, images of destroyed and seized Russian tanks, pictures of kindness shown to POWs… above all they have shown themselves to be instantly relatable, made people in the West think ‘these are people just like me’.
With Trump, with Brexit, we have seen populist politicians being able to use conspiracy theories and lies to confuse and mislead. Russia is trying to do this here, with talk of false flag attacks and Nazis. Supposedly, Ukraine is shelling their own cities. Supposedly, the neo-Nazi Azov battalion has a key role in the entire army. Their efforts flounder against Ukraine’s clear, simple narrative, a tale of good vs evil. Conspiracy theories work best by offering simplistic solutions to complex problems when the real solutions are not trivial, however the theme of purging one’s homeland of invaders is one of the simplest narratives in existence. So is the theme of ‘David vs Goliath’, the underdog holding out against superior military might, confounding all experts. Ukraine has managed to present an image of upbeat defiance in the face of extreme adversity that has resonated throughout the world.
The humour alone is devastating — and seems to relate to the concept of ‘Laughtivism’ that was used to bring down Slobodan Milocevic in 2000. Images of Russian tanks towed by tractors, listed on ebay or even stuck in a ditch are very funny. The reaction to the viral video of a soldier trying to break into an electronics store, with the commentary, is also very funny.
The opposing Russian narrative is just too negative and bleak. It rests on the idea of Russia being a victim, of being oppressed and victimised by NATO expansion and ‘Nazis in Ukraine’. Victimhood does not cut it when you are the largest country in the world with a massive army. Grievance narratives might be great when rousing blue collar America to vote for Trump, however their grievances are connected with issues that they — or ‘people like them’ — have experienced or think they have experienced. They are not so good when talking of the grievances of people in far away countries. And Trump’s grievance narratives were always mixed in with bombast and telling everyone how he will make America great. Putin promises to make Russia great, and that works a treat inside Russia, however outside of it his propaganda has no positive message to offer.
Think of the two leaders. Zelensky — the epitome of the unpopular peacetime leader who has transformed into a fantastic wartime one — connects with the listener on a human level, is shown to be rallying the troops himself, close and approachable. It is an act, of course, but it’s a great act. Putin is remote, stodgy bullying, sitting at the top of his enormous table and attempting to talk tough to the world. He reminds one of an emperor, living in opulence whilst sending his troops to die.
Repression. Whilst Russians are currently not suffering to anywhere near the extent the Ukrainians are, the repression in their society has been turned up several notches in the past week. Internet restrictions on par with China’s are only a matter of time, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube banned and with the new law that criminalises ‘spreading fake news about the army’ (in reality this means any disagreement with the official narrative). The punishment can be up to 15 years imprisonment. This has led to foreign media deserting en masse, with even TikTok restricting services. BBC and Radio Free Europe have resumed shortwave radio services, like in the Cold War years.
Needless to say, this will turn Russia into an increasingly isolated, embittered, angry society. Whilst the war is bound to be spun into a massive success, there will be many families who have suffered losses, with either their children in the Russian Army or their relatives in Ukraine killed. It is not clear whether the sanctions or the boycotts (dubbed by some the biggest exercise in ‘cancel culture’ thus far) will be lifted when the guns fall silent, should Ukraine be forced to accept neutrality or the permanent loss of Crimea. This will mean unemployment and hardship, despite Putin’s promises of new links with China and India, which will take time to establish. It will also result in a brain drain as Russians flee abroad seeking jobs and freedom of speech. Even little Armenia, still struggling with the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, is reporting an increase of people and businesses moving over from Russia.
The West will, of course, be blamed for the sanctions and the massive weapons supplies to Ukraine. Any sort of links with the ‘liberal’ countries will be severed, links with the authoritarian China will be developed. With time, Russia could totally drift into the Chinese sphere of influence and erect a barrier on its Western border. The Iron Curtain will be remade anew. We may also see repression against LGBTQ+ people, driven by the association of sexual minorities with the very Western culture Russia is seeing as the enemy.
The Russian society is already polarised and divided between those who support the war and believe the official narrative and those who see it as fratricide. The pro-Putin side tends to take any opposing argument as either a personal insult or an insult of their country, openly accuses opponents of ‘being ashamed of being Russian’. Social media the flames, as always. There are stories of children being disowned, close relatives, friends no longer talking to each other, parents refusing to believe what their children see with their eyes. There is only a short gap from that to people being reported to the authorities for being ‘anti-Russian’ by their relatives, like they were being reported in older, darker times.
Militarisation. There will, eventually, be a peace agreement. It will be seen as a climbdown by both sides. Russia, whose stated aim was to remove a hostile presence on its border, will almost certainly have a far more hostile country with a newly-found unity and sense of self-belief. Even if they were to promise to stay out of NATO and the EU, Ukraine will be firmly out of the Russia sphere of influence. Ukraine, on their part will be smarting from the inevitable imposition any such agreement would entail. It is likely that the Russia-Ukraine border will be shut.
Both countries will militarise. Ukraine will want to ensure its military continues to improve, indeed they will see it as crucial for national survival. Russia will attempt a big reform that corrects the problems with logistics and morale that that will be seen in Russia to have cost them this war. This almost certainly means that a second war will only be a matter of time.