Four Years of War
By 
My thoughts on four full years of the Russia-Ukraine War, publication delayed slightly by the onset of the latest Iran War:
There can be no question that the costs to Russia have vastly exceeded what Putin expected when he launched the conflict. Indeed, they have grown beyond what any country might rationally have expected to gain from the conflict.
Nor were these costs wholly unpredictable.
There’s a reason why so many observers, including Europeans, Russians, and Ukrainians, rejected the evidence in front of their eyes in February 2022.
Invading Ukraine did not make long-term sense for Russia, EVEN IF the operation had met the wildly optimistic timetables set by Russia’s leadership. Sanctions would have deformed Russia’s economy even as Moscow could have found itself contesting an extended Ukrainian insurgency, potentially backed by the Europeans.
Why? No sane leader would have launched this conflict in full knowledge of the costs that it would inflict, so why has Putin determined to continue the war despite this toll?
The short answer is that while the war has imposed immense costs on Russia, at no point have the anticipated costs of continuing the conflict exceeded the anticipated costs to Putin of concluding a peace. Russia has paid immense upfront costs and has permanently alienated not only Ukraine but wide swaths of Europe and Asia.
See also a UK panel from last week on where we’ve been and where we’re going.
I discuss this a bit in the article but want to make it clear; while it is obvious that Donald Trump is no friend to Ukraine, the argument that Trump enthusiastically and actively serves Russian interests in not sustainable. Whatever Putin might have expected to get from Trump, it is almost certain that he has been disappointed. Indeed, the Trump administration has thus far been a lose-lose for the Russia-Ukraine peace process, extending the war by giving the latter hope for a more comprehensive settlement while altogether failing to push the former from the conflict. It doesn’t matter what Trump “owes” Putin, because Trump never pays anyone what he owes.
This is to say that Trump chiefly furthers Russian interests not by active connivance but rather through general ideological sympathy combined with stunning incompetence. On what Russians really think of Trump:
Trump is objectively the most popular foreign public figure in Russia, second only to Putin in raw media mentions. But it is not for the reasons the White House would prefer. Russian TV routinely features jokes about how Trump can be manipulated into doing things that clearly damage U.S. interests. On-air banter mocks his “psychological deadlines” for Russia to accept a cease-fire as meaningless. Television hosts and studio guests don’t conceal their satisfaction with the current U.S. administration, not just because it includes people like U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard—whom Russian television has called “our girlfriend” for her frequently Kremlin-aligned views—but also because they see the United States’ geopolitical self-immolation as a boon that Moscow could never have engineered on its own. To Russians, Trump is the face—and often the punchline—of that process.
Trump’s malleability is a constant theme in these discussions. He is not portrayed as a serious politician to contend with but as someone between a useful fool and an irritating obstacle. Russian state TV flatters Trump when convenient, mocks him otherwise, and threatens him when he steps out of line. During one panel discussion, a military pundit calmly explained that Russia should force Donald Trump to make decisions that weaken the United States while reminding viewers that Washington remains “an adversary.” Nevertheless, Trump insists that he has a “great” relationship with Putin, who supposedly “respects” him. But it is Putin’s government that micromanages the media outlets that openly ridicule Trump.
Also, I don’t know whether to be happy about the Starlink cutoff helping Ukraine regain territory and undercut the Russian spring offensive, or worried that a war can turn on the whims of the world’s wealthiest man:
Soon after the drone incursion in central Kyiv last month, Ukrainian officials appealed directly to Musk for help. The newly appointed minister of defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, presented Musk with evidence of Russian forces using Starlink to operate their long-range drones, including the one that breached Ukraine’s most sensitive airspace. Fedorov wrote on X (which Musk also owns) on January 29: “Western technologies must continue to support the democratic world and protect civilians—not be used for terror and the destruction of peaceful cities.”
In a series of talks with Musk and his team, the Ukrainians offered a plan to block the Russians from using Starlink. According to several government and military sources familiar with the plan’s implementation, its first phase took effect in the last days of January, severely curtailing the ability of both warring sides to use Starlink for their attack drones. SpaceX, the company that operates the Starlink network, then developed a whitelist of Ukrainian users—and shut off access for the Russians. (The company did not respond to requests for comment.)
“The whitelist was created, software-wise, in, like, one day,” a person familiar with the implementation of the plan told me. The SpaceX team behind it received clear instructions from its bosses: “‘No limits. Take off the gloves; use Starlink for anything to help Ukraine.’” Even inside the company, there was confusion as to what exactly motivated Musk. “But there was a political decision from Elon for sure,” the person said.
By the first days of this month, Russian forces began to suffer severe problems with their battlefield communications. “Starlink is our Achilles’ heel,” Alexander Kots, one of Moscow’s most experienced war correspondents, who spends much of his time embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine, said. “Unfortunately, we will not get a proper replacement for this system anytime soon,” he told the host of a Russian podcast. “I can’t even imagine in principle how we can catch up with Musk’s creation.”
I guess it’s a bit of both. And while you can easily make an argument that Starlink should be nationalized… that doesn’t necessarily lead to a better outcome in this particular case.
Photo Credit: By Ssu.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=166885128