Weary Ukrainians marked the second anniversary of the Russian invasion on their soil on February 24 wondering if normalcy would ever return. And whenever it does, what would be left of the country that has been reduced to an infrastructure rubble amid humongous loss of human life in the proxy war between superpowers on their land. If the dramatic Ukrainian pushback against the Russian military headlined the first anniversary, the second saw the enemy’s ingress in the east and its sharp attacks in the south. Flanked by Western leaders in a show of solidarity, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war can end only on his country’s own terms. What he left unsaid was that the West would have a say at the negotiating table.
Forcing a full retreat of the invading forces might not be doable as things stand. A counterattack against Russian forces in 2023 that was billed as a game-changer managed to produce only limited gains. It shocked Western donors and ended up in Zelenskyy sacking his otherwise able head of the armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The sacked General is now being seen as his political rival. If Zelenskyy was hailed as the David who gave the Goliath, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a bloody nose in the first year, the halo has since dissipated. With aid dwindling and soldiers lacking adequate firepower, the forward line appears to be wilting. War fatigue is setting in but people haven’t given up their territorial fight yet. However, a recent survey suggested that a whopping 72 percent of Ukrainians want Zelenskyy to open peace talks with Putin.
As for Putin, he appears to have managed the situation fairly well by internalising the economy to insulate it from Western sanctions and putting the wealth of oligarchs to national use. Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar had recently faulted the West for slamming almost all doors on Putin, forcing him into a China embrace. No wonder, Russia’s trade with China last year crossed $200 billion. But Jaishankar was confident that Moscow would not fully pitch its tent in Beijing as the former has an enormous tradition of statecraft.
A sizable chunk of war funds for Ukraine are already stuck in the US amid Republican roadblocks. Donald Trump is against bankrolling the war. His position is that funds can be released only as loan. It could be advantage Putin if Trump gets a repeat mandate at the White House.