It will be a greater tragedy if US and NATO stretch out Ukraine’s agony in their bid to teach Putin a lesson-World News , Firstpost

Representational image of Vladimir Putin. AP

We have heard of the phrase ‘fog of war’. How truth becomes the first casualty during an armed conflict. It is a truism that has stood the test of time. And yet, looking at the ongoing Russian invasion — now in its 15th day — it seemed there is no fog to speak of. The ‘right and wrong’ is remarkably clear.

This war, so far, has been defined by its distinct moral lines and monochromatic contours. There are no shades of gray. There is a murderous assassin on one side. Vladimir Putin, a dictatorial, amoral, bloodthirsty leader trampling over the plucky neighbour with his killing machine, presumably driven by a revanchist desire to restore the glory of Tsarist Russian empire. On the other side is Ukraine, a peace-loving, democratic country which got raided without provocation and is now putting up a heroic resistance against the aggressor led by its president who has in a fortnight become an inspirational global leader, earning standing ovations in Parliaments of Western democracies.

Putin is evil personified. Zelensky is demi-god. It pays to have such clear narratives in a 21st century world dominated by social media hashtags where attention spans are 15 seconds long and 1000-word articles are ‘long-read’. Narratives are important.

What makes this narrative even more appealing is that not only are the Russians evil, but they may also be losing. One of the most sophisticated armies in the planet which has in its arsenal the world’s biggest cache of nuclear warheads and state-of-the-art equipment, is being beaten back by an army quarter its size and lacking in resources. This unreal achievement is also rallying global support.

Social media is littered with images of Russian tanks getting blown up by drones, fighter jets crashing down and troopers losing men by thousands. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, don’t have enough men to even fight the aggressors and are appealing before the world to send volunteers but we are being told that they may still win the war!

At least that’s what the US secretary of state Antony Blinken told the BBC recently where he praised “extraordinary resilience” of the Ukrainian people. We are told that Russian ground forces have lost their aura, Putin’s invincibility has been shattered and “Russia has exposed to its European neighbors and American rivals gaps in its military strategy that can be exploited in future battles.”

File image of the US secretary of state Antony Blinken. AFP

One may suspect that a fair bit of mythmaking is going on around Ukraine by the West and its media. It is being said, however, that such urban legends “help dramatize tales of Ukrainian fortitude and Russian aggression” and is very important to keep up the morale. An American think tanker told New York Times that “If Ukraine had no messages of the righteousness of its cause, the popularity of its cause, the valor of its heroes, the suffering of its populace, then it would lose… Not just the information war, but it would lose the overall war.”

So, even as the Russian tanks roll deeper into Ukraine and shells flatten cities, the West’s soft power over narratives and mythmaking (which has been justified on grounds of moral righteousness), has ensured there can only be one winner, and that is Ukraine. That image, however, hides a more sober reality. Those that are not committed to upholding the urban legends of the war recount of a Russian force slowly but inevitably moving towards their objectives.

Kyiv hasn’t fallen. It is putting up a dogged resistance, but it is being slowly surrounded from all sides in a pincer attack, leaving only a southern route open for Ukrainian troops to retreat. Reporters not ideologically committed to any of the sides point out that “Russians will hold a line stretching south from the west of Kiev down to somewhere along the Moldavian border (Transnistria). Or west of a line along the M05 highway. This would completely cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea, a strategic objective.” 

US intelligence believes that Putin has been thwarted by a Ukrainian resistance far greater than he had anticipated, but he is determined to prevail. There is also the intriguing possibility that Russians have not unleashed their full firepower on Ukraine yet and is playing the waiting game. Pentagon believes that “it does not appear that Putin is ordering in troops or capabilities from other parts of Russia for the invasion” despite having “a lot of combat power in Ukraine.”

Veteran war reporter Aris Roussinos writes in Unherd that are “barely using their overwhelming air force, and indeed deploying assets they are known to possess like guided munitions and armed drones at a scale far below that seen in the distinctly less existential Syria conflict… perhaps because they are reserving their most modern equipment for a potential military escalation with NATO.”

That is a possibility also pointed out by Sumantra Maitra, national security fellow at the Center for the National Interest, a US-based think tank. Maitra writes that “It is crucial to remember that thus far in Ukraine, Russia has refrained from using its best assets, and the top-tier Russian air force has stayed out of the action. One can speculate that the Russian command is preserving their forces in case the war expands to a regional or continental scale.”

A more sober assessment of the war, therefore, tells us that Russia is still holding back and taking it slow, and keeping open the possibility of engaging its best assets should a larger war break out in the continent. That sounds ominous, but this assessment seems to have been interpreted by the West as an opportunity.

In this reading, the ultimate US objective would be to entrap Putin in a Ukrainian quagmire and drag out the battle till such time that it becomes impossible for Russia to continue, given that it is suffering heavy on-field damage and its economy is being battered by a bevy of western sanctions. US and NATO have declared that they won’t take direct part in the war, but short of putting boots on the ground, the NATO members are pumping in an unprecedented number of arms and equipment into Ukraine.

According to Wall Street Journal, most of around “$350 million in arms and assistance the Biden administration had pledged last month has been delivered. Congress is considering authorizing billions more.” Sweden is sending 5,000 antitank weapons, Germany is dispatching than 2,000 antitank and antiaircraft weapons, Italy and Spain have also promised to contribute.

And that’s not all. “Hidden away on bases around Eastern Europe, forces from US Cyber Command known as “cybermission teams” are in place to interfere with Russia’s digital attacks and communications”, while American and German intelligence officials are “beaming intercepts of Russian military units to the Ukrainian side within an hour or two”.

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The US is bolstering Ukraine’s cyber defences, there have even been efforts to transfer MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to replenish its forces against Russian air attacks but Washington has rejected Poland’s suggestions of routing Polish Mig-29 through the US. Still, the scale and speed of the arms transfers is unprecedented in history, and while it may contribute to delaying Russian advance, the inevitability of Putin achieving his military objectives is not lost on anyone.

One has to ask, therefore, what is the point of dragging a war that Ukraine realistically has no chances of winning?

Patriotic bravery of the Ukrainians is easy to applaud. It is also easy to take sides against an aggressor that regardless of its grievances, wages a 19th century war in 21st century world, shelling its way through civilian infrastructure, maternity wards and firing at fleeing refugees. Russia deserves no sympathy.

But these moral judgments are of no consequence during a war where decisions are to be taken based on hard realities. And these realities suggest that the longer the NATO and the US keep supplying Ukraine with military resources, the lengthier will be the destruction of Ukraine and greater will be the demolition of its civilian infrastructure.

Without any off-ramps on offer, the West has left itself with no space to manoeuvre on Putin who has little incentive to stop the war until he achieves his objectives, whatever those are. The moral absolutism and liberal consensus over Ukraine war may have galvanized the West, but it is Ukraine that will suffer the most.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the nation via his phone in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine. AP/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

President Volodymyr Zelensky is being set up by the West for failure, but even he understands the costs involved. In recent times, he has appeared to be warming up to a compromise with Putin and has declared openly that he is not interested in joining NATO. Russia, too, has hinted that it is not looking at regime change in Ukraine.<

This has raised hopes of a negotiated settlement sooner rather than later, but the biggest obstacle to this welcome development could be West’s desperation to teach Russia a lesson by firing from the shoulders of Ukraine. That would be a greater tragedy.

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Updated Date:

March 11, 2022 12:31:03 IST