Ukraine's two fronts

Ukrainians believe they are at war with two different enemies at once – Russian invaders on the one hand, and Western fears, biases and procrastinations on the other, writes Ukrainian political analyst Mykola Riabchuk.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in London on September 9th, ahead of a visit to Ukraine. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / POOL / AFP 

by Mykola Riabchuk

A popular anecdote in Ukraine recalls the story of what presumably happened on the first day of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. US president Lindon Johnson was approached by his aides with a report on the Arab attack and the long list of military equipment requested urgently by the Israeli government. ‘Give them everything and twice more!’ the president allegedly said in this apocryphal story, without even taking a look at the list.

The story, all its dubious authenticity notwithstanding, reverberates perfectly with Ukrainian feelings – both in a positive way, as a pipe dream (‘what would have happened if we had received such a response back in 2022?’), and in a negative way, as a gloomy reality (‘give them twice less and as late as possible’). These feelings climaxed earlier this year when Ukrainians suffered heavy losses in the Donbas upon the dramatic delay of the Western military aid corollary of partisan bickering in the US Congress. And then, in April, those feelings rose up again, after Western allies spectacularly helped Israel to intercept Iranian missiles during a massive aerial assault.

The fact that Ukraine is not like Israel was difficult to swallow

The argument that Russia is not Iran and cannot be pacified the same way was more or less understandable. But the fact that Ukraine is not like Israel was more difficult to swallow. Resentments soared up and the ghosts of past betrayals – in Munich, in Yalta, and of course, in Budapest (with its ill-conceived Memorandum and ill-framed ‘security assurances’ for Ukraine) – were inevitably invoked. Grievances over the Western ‘hypocrisy’, ‘double standards’, immoral selfishness and cynicism flooded the press and especially social media. The overwhelming support for NATO declined from 82% in February 2023 to 77% a year later – quite notably although not dramatically, reflecting both disappointment in partners’ policy and recognition that there are no other partners in sight.

At the height of the debate, several sensible voices reminded fellow Ukrainians that we were not on a par with Israel for a simple reason: our European credentials are still questionable, our commitment to rule of law and the separation of powers, is not yet proven; we are not recognized yet as a member of their family. So far, we are just a suspicious candidate, a ‘nowhere nation’ (in the words of former US diplomat Jack Matlock) that bludgeons its way from a gray zone in the misty ‘Eurasia’ to the uncomfortable edge of Europe. One should not be surprised that assistance for ‘ours’ and ‘others’ is different; we may label it double standards but it’s human: we practice these ‘double standards’ daily when responding differently to the needs and requests of ‘ours’ and ‘others’. In practice, this means that Ukrainians should spend less time complaining and focus more on proving, through words and actions, that they belong to the West, leaving no reasons for any doubt.

Ukraine’s tested resilience

Ukrainian domestic politics and institutional reforms are definitely a major factor in these efforts. So far, they have brought mixed results. On the one hand, we observe the strong efforts of Ukrainian civil society, international donors, and reform-minded officials and politicians to promote changes and keep them irreversible. On other hand, however, we still notice the strong inertia of old structures and institutions, old habits and basic instincts, and a distressing lack of political will, professional competence, and integrity at the very top of Ukrainian leadership. Ukraine’s low institutional capacity was largely compensated by high civic mobilization in the first months of the war.

Ukrainians are not ready to give up the fight

As the war became protracted and routinized, however, old ills and deficiencies resurfaced. Once again, like in 2005 and 2014 (after the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions) Ukrainians appeared to be good sprinters but bad stayers; their spontaneous efforts, however impressive and sometimes heroic, have not been translated into a systemic and stable institutional framework. The president excels in international and domestic communication, but appears much less efficient in institutional management, relying too much on his office and its notorious head Andri Yermak, at the cost of all other institutions, including the parliament and cabinet of ministers. The recent shake-up of the government, intended to bring in some fresh blood and add ‘new, innovative ideas in the war effort’, turned out to be a mere reshuffling of the same, rather limited set of people, mostly from, or close to, the president’s office. These personnel changes are poor substitutes for the systemic changes of institutions, approaches and ways of management.

Despite disappointment in the West's limited support and the stagnation of domestic reforms, Ukrainians are not ready to give up the fight. Ukrainians overwhelmingly agree that no elections should take place until the end of the war, even though both the president’s and the parliament’s mandates expired earlier this year. Crucially, Ukrainians still express their trust in key institutions (the president, armed forces, security apparatus, local authorities), still support the war effort and still strongly believe in Ukraine’s victory.

This stoical optimism may run against the reality on the ground, where Russian forces slowly but steadily advance in the southeast, in particular in the Donbas, and barrage Ukrainian cities with bombs and rockets daily (or rather, nightly). But Ukrainians know something that too many international ‘peacemakers’ fail to grasp: Ukraine’s existence – as both a state and a nation – is at stake. The Russians do not hide their genocidal intent, stating openly that Ukraine is a tumor, a pathology on the healthy Russian body that should be eliminated. Ukrainians have signed too many ‘friendly’ agreements with Russia in the past to be well aware of their worth. Remarkably, not a single ‘peacemaker’ has yet explained how the much-discussed peace deal with Russia would be practically enforced and observed, and who would protect Ukraine from another, quite possible and very probable, Russian assault.

Changing the narrative

Ukraine’s successful military operation in the Kursk region of Russia has notably boosted Ukrainians’ morale, but also provided an additional argument to ‘peacemakers’ who would like Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow and who now consider the Ukraine-occupied territories of Russia as another bargaining chip in these negotiations. In fact, Ukrainians pursued quite different goals with the Kursk operation: it was probably more an act of despair than a part of a well-thought and minutely elaborated strategy. The first and perhaps the main goal of this operation has not materialized: Russians did not withdraw any of their troops from Donbas, proving clearly that a further advance in that region is their top priority. Putin did not rush to repel Ukrainians in Kursk, instead downplaying the incident as a minor ‘provocation’. In a sense, he was correct.

Some other goals of the sudden Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory might also be important. First, the Ukrainian operation reminded us of something we already know (since 2022 at least) but tend to forget – that the Russian army is not as formidable and invincible as many believe. And that Ukraine still has the capacity to surprise – not only its enemies but also its Western partners, who knew nothing about the operation in advance (and not without reason: in the past, several Ukrainian operations were brought down – either because of prematurely leaked information or the explicit ban from its partners, persistently scared of ‘escalation’).

The second goal was to change the narrative of the war—bringing it back to international headlines and proving that Ukraine remains inventive, resilient, and capable of ultimate victory. Last year, despite real success in effectively expelling Russian military ships from most of the Black Sea, Ukraine failed to capitalize on its own achievement. Instead, inflated promises about the counteroffensive, which ultimately fell short, overshadowed Ukraine’s success. This created an urgent need for a new, more optimistic narrative—one that reaffirms the message of Ukraine’s national anthem: ‘Ukraine has not yet perished.’

Kursk underscores the urgent need to lift restrictions on using Western weapons against military targets on Russian territory

The third goal of the Kursk incursion was an extension of the second: to send two interrelated messages to Ukraine’s partners. First, it aimed to challenge the notion of Russia’s so-called ‘red lines,’ which had captivated Western imagination and hindered timely, effective support for Ukraine. Second, it underscored the urgent need to lift restrictions on using Western weapons against military targets on Russian territory. Lobbying for this decision has intensified in recent weeks, with numerous op-eds, expert commentaries, open letters from civic activists and retired generals, and even an unexpected endorsement from a large group of House Republicans, including influential committee heads.

After severely criticizing the Biden administration for ‘senseless restrictions, combined with the longstanding slow-rolling of critical weapons approvals and deliveries, [that] are hindering Ukraine’s ability to bring this war to a victorious conclusion,’ House Republicans urged the government to reverse its course and lift the restrictions on ‘Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided weapons against legitimate military targets in Russia’, so that Putin’s regime should not have a ‘sanctuary from which it can execute its war crimes against Ukraine with impunity’. 

The signatories dismissed the two main excuses that the Biden administration provided for maintaining restrictions. One of them, of purely technical nature, maintained that Russia moved much of its military equipment out of range of U.S.-provided weapons, so that very few potential targets remained. The Institute for the Study of War, however, assessed that ‘excluding airfields, there are over 200 legitimate military targets within range of U.S.-provided weapons to include military bases, logistics nodes, fuel depots, ammunition warehouses, and command and control systems’.

The second excuse is more serious, since it is based on many assumptions which are difficult either to prove or disprove. Usually defined as a fear of ‘escalation’, it is essentially a fear of nuclear war. Russia is fully aware of this Western fear and skillfully manipulates it. Every time the West considers delivering new types of weaponry, Moscow employs nuclear saber-rattling and poorly veiled blackmail. Because of that fear, Westerners have been reluctant to cross many ‘red lines’ since the beginning of the full-scale invasion: the delivery of Javelins, HIMARS rocket launchers, tanks, and aircraft, attacks on Crimea or on the border regions of Russia, and now, on targets deeper within Russian territory. The fact that Russia did not respond with a nuclear weapon to any of these line-crossings does not mean, of course, that it cannot and would not respond this way in principle. There are many reasons, however, why such a response is very unlikely.

Shifting the ‘red lines’

The simplest reason not to use so-called tactical nuclear weapons is their practical uselessness. As Stephen Blank, a seasoned expert in the field contends, ‘Soviet simulations in the 1970s proved that troops could not exploit nuclear strikes or advance into a nuclear cloud’. The strike, of course, might cause significant casualties, especially among civilians, but is unlikely to break Ukrainians’ will to resist or Westerners’ readiness to help. On the contrary, it will most likely lift all Western restrictions on anything, including the deployment of volunteer Western troops in Ukraine, the introduction of a no-fly zone over the country, and complete international isolation of Russia as a rogue state. All the countries that keep Russia fighting today by financing its war machine with petrodollars (or petro-rupees and petro-yuans) would be induced or even compelled to stop their complicity in appalling war crimes. 

The use of strategic nuclear weapons against the NATO members is even less likely – at least as long as Putin knows about the inevitable response. Therefore, it is the task of Western diplomats to support this confidence in Putin’s mind. He is neither crazy enough to commit suicide (as his extraordinary precautions during the Covid pandemic clearly indicate), nor is he as bold and courageous as he pretends (suffice to mention his feckless initial reaction to various crises and challenges). And, of course, even a suicidal leader cannot produce a global apocalypse on his own, since he needs at least several equally suicidal executors. 

The absence of a Western strategy ‘allows Putin to retain escalation dominance’

All these arguments, however, might be of little help when the stakes are too high and a 0.01% probability of the nuclear war looks just as scary as a 1% probability, or 10%, or higher. In situations like this, most people need a hundred percent certainty that no nuclear war would happen. Realistically, there are only two ways to achieve such certainty. One way, largely pursued today by the West, is to appease the bully and take care of his brazen demands. And the other way is to turn the table on the blackmailer and make him observe the red lines and fear possible escalation. So far, as Stephen Blank aptly remarks, the absence of a Western strategy in the ongoing war ‘allows Putin to retain escalation dominance and thus much if not all of the strategic initiative’.

There are many signs that the US and the Western allies will probably yield to Ukraine’s lobbying for more (advanced) weapons and for freer hands in attacks on military objects in Russia.  The decision will probably not be made before at least September 24, when world leaders are expected to meet at the General Assembly of the United Nations. It seems the West still believes in ‘dialogue’ and in the possible appeasement of rogue, fascistoid regimes. The Republican congressmen who accuse Biden’s administration of a covert desire to reset relations with Russia might be wrong. But they are thoroughly right when reminding that ‘the failed Obama-Biden Russia reset in the wake of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia made clear Vladimir Putin does not respond to appeasement and olive branches’. And that today’s conflict ‘will end only when tougher sanctions and Ukraine’s battlefield successes convince Vladimir Putin that he has nothing left to gain through war’.