Ukraine’s War, 6-Months In

Kyiv is bracing for an intensification of Russian missile attacks to coincide with its Independence Day on Wednesday after the car-bomb killing of the daughter of an ultranationalist Russian ideologue. Whilst the main parts of the conflict, six months in, are a slow and grinding battle in the south and the east of the country, the direction of travel as to what happens next shows the dangers of unpredictable escalation.

Beyond the most urgent issue of the fighting around Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, one of these arcs is linked to Ukraine’s ability and priority given to targeting Russia within its own borders. Sudden attacks on arms depots or supply chains have given the Russian military a headache when it comes to the logistics of the conflict, but the use of targeted assassinations, if true (and it is a big ‘if’) could change the thinking from within a Kremlin whose logic has been erratic since the decision to invade.

The ability of Ukraine to target Russian assets in occupied Crimea succeeded in not only forcing Russian tourists to flee the peninsula, but also led analysts to question whether Kiev’s original war arms – the restoration of the situation pre the February invasion – could be more ambitious around reclaiming territory occupied in the eight years previous.

What the significant Western arms allow to Ukraine to do or not do will be tested in the coming months, but it seems a matter of consensus that we are not near the end of this conflict. Russian forces are digging in whilst talk of political theatre in which occupied areas declare independence continue. Whereas in the past Russian President Putin seemed the decision maker who could call an end to things, now such is the damage done that as with so many wars before them, things could be said to have spiralled out of control.

Ukraine claims to have lost some 9,000 soldiers and the estimates of civilian deaths have been hard to track, particularly in Mariupol, but are estimated to be over 5,000 with 1,000 children killed or injured in the fighting to date. Russian loses are not publicly acknowledged but the figures approximated by analysts puts them into the tens of thousands, more than any lighting run into Kiev in a war lasting a few days that some in Moscow may have predicted.

On the home front sanctions and diplomatic isolation have forced Russia closer to China and to draw down on its relationship with countries who have sought to avoid alignment as Europe sees the biggest war in its borders of the last half a century. European countries seem unified as to both the supply of weapons to Ukraine and the need to provide support to Ukrainian refugees. Yet over time the costs of these policies may grow higher, especially with the backdrop of an inflation crisis linked to Russia turning off the energy taps to those states it sees as hostile. A winter of discontent is ahead for the entire continent.

In Ukraine as the country prepares to mark its first Independence Day at war, curfews are being imposed and parades have been called off, as mass gatherings provide an easy target. In Russia there is more talk of forming new brigades of soldiers, of the economy being repositioned to support the production of arms and even the narrative being changed from a ‘special military operation’ into recognition of the war that it is.

A conflict that is escalating as both sides see routes to a military success has very little in the way of silver linings at present. Cultural separation continues with Ukraine banning Russian authors and music and attempts from Moscow to direct the school curriculum in areas under their control. The millions of lives that have been set off in different directions will seem start in September when Ukrainian children who would have expected to start their school years at home find themselves doing so in schools across Europe, or virtually whilst displaced inside the country or not at all, with ramifications for the future of Ukrainian society.

The grain deal brokered by the UN with huge involvement from Turkey remains one of the only areas where diplomacy seems to have gained an ascendancy. It must be supported and strengthened by all to expand the non-violent routes towards de-escalation and one day potentially even peace returning to Ukraine.