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Journalism of Courage
Earlier this month, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres sounded a grim prognosis about the prospects for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, which will mark a year on February 24.
“The prospects for peace keep diminishing,” he said in a speech to the UN General Assembly on February 6. “The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing.”
The world, Guterres said, was heading towards a “wider war”, and “I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.”
The US-led Western alliance is expecting Russia to launch another big offensive in the coming days. Ukraine fears that a fresh offensive could come as early as on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which collates official civilian casualty numbers, said on February 13 that from February 24, 2022 to February 12, 2023, there were 18,955 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 7,199 killed and 11,756 injured. Of the fatalities, 2,888 were men, 1,941 women, 226 boys, 180 girls, as well as 32 children and 1,932 adults whose sex was not determined.
As the war is being fought on Ukrainian territory only, the civilian casualties are entirely in that country. The number of military casualties is not clear yet, but could run into thousands on both sides. The war has displaced over 7.5 million people from Ukraine over the last year.
The expectation that Russian president Vladimir Putin might have had, of a quick operation in Ukraine that would perhaps end with a regime change in Kiev, was belied as Ukraine, under President Vlodymyr Zelensky, fought back. Both sides are currently trying to wear down the other by inflicting casualties and attempting to reverse territorial gains or losses. On Thursday, Russia let loose 32 missiles across Ukraine, its 15th such attack since the war began. Ukraine said it intercepted 16 of these missiles.
A US-led Western alliance, including Germany which was reluctant at first to break out of its pacifist mould and reconsider its economic dependence on Russia, quickly came together. These countries have poured billions of dollars worth of armaments into Ukraine over the last year.
Germany and the US have promised to send tanks to assist in Ukraine’s war efforts. The US has supplied its Patriot missile system, the UK has also sent missiles and tanks. Turkey chipped in with the Bayraktar attack drone; Australia, Canada and the US gave M777 artillery. The US also provided the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or Himars, which are reported to have helped Ukraine recapture Kherson last November.
The war has transformed the trans-Atlantic partnership, with Europe accepting America’s leadership of the alliance. It has also strengthened NATO. The Biden Administration is leading the show of support with over $50 billion worth of assistance, helping also with military advice and intelligence backing. With the promise of tanks and a consideration of Ukraine’s request for F16s, Russia sees this as nothing but a proxy war being fought by Ukraine on behalf of the US and the West. For Russia, this is an existential war.
The predictions of a long-drawn-out conflict suggest there is a realisation that Putin may still have several steps of escalation available to him, all well below the nuclear threshold. For the Western alliance, the question that is likely to come up is how long to keep supporting Ukraine and how to keep their unity intact, especially as the danger of an escalation carries the risk of drawing in the NATO, which in turn would immediately lower the nuclear threshold and bring the war to western Europe in unimaginable ways.
Despite the realisation of the dangers, no serious effort has been made to bring the war to an end. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told the AFP in an interview on Thursday that the security alliance must be prepared for the conflict with Russia to last “many, many years”, beyond the immediate invasion of Ukraine.
An article in the periodical Foreign Affairs last autumn claimed that Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were close to an interim deal in April: Ukraine would not seek NATO membership and Russia would withdraw to the pre-February 23, 2022 position when it controlled Crimea and parts of the Donbas region. There has been considerable speculation about why this did not lead to an agreement, with some reports linking the failure to a visit by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kiev at the time, during which he is said to have told Zelensky to stop the negotiations.
Whatever the truth, it appears that President Zelenksy no longer has the agency to sue for peace, with pressure against this from both domestic constituents (Ukraine is due for an election in 2024) and international backers.
The West may hope that a long-drawn-out war will bleed the Russian economy to the point of collapse. The sanctions, which have cut Russia off from western sources of money, have already affected its economy. Puzzlingly though, the International Monetary Fund said in January that the Russian economy would grow by 0.3% this year, and by 2.1% in 2024, mainly on account of its oil exports.
The US denied reports of backchannel peace talks after the Kremlin leaked that the head of its SVR foreign intelligence service Sergei Naryshkin and CIA boss Bill Burns held a meeting in Ankara on November 14. The meeting, US officials said, was to warn Moscow about the consequences of using nuclear weapons.
Delhi, which has maintained a barely nuanced balance between not condemning Russia outright for the invasion and maintaining important relationships with the US and Europe, has patted itself on the back for displaying strategic autonomy at this consequential moment in world geopolitics. But the difficulties of retaining this balance are becoming evident.
On the one hand, the pressures from the US to get off the fence have grown over the past year, despite all the public expressions of understanding for the position of a partner whose role is crucial to Washington in the contain China project. On the other, Delhi is facing up to the inevitable economic decline of Russia. India needs Russia to remain an autonomous power in the Eurasian landmass, one that will not accept Chinese geopolitical hegemony. An economically collapsed Russia as a Chinese satellite is the last thing Delhi would want.
National Security Adviser AK Doval’s visit to Moscow for a conference of regional NSAs, during which he met Putin, has triggered the speculation that Doval may have been carrying a message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Putin is not known to meet foreign dignitaries other than his counterparts, and his meeting with Doval was thus a rare one-off.
At this point, what Delhi would want most — and the Prime Minister has already articulated this to Putin through his oft-quoted remark “this is not the era of war” — is for this war to end. In the year of its G20 presidency, India has also indicated a willingness to make peace in Europe, and give a voice to the Global South, that wants this war to end quickly. Did Doval convey to Putin that it is time to find a way out of this dead end quickly? Though the proceedings of their meeting have remained under wraps, the two would not have met only to exchange pleasantries or to discuss the weather.
