Who is Winning the Russia-Ukraine War?

The correct answer may be, both Russia and Ukraine are winning.  

How can this be?  In wars, if one side is winning, isn’t the other side by definition losing?  

Yes, if we only look at the battlefield.  But let’s cast our gaze more widely, and ask what the impact of the war has been on the the two nations, on their sense of identity, their cohesion, and the power and future prospects of their leaders.  If we do that, I would argue, both are in some senses doing very well.

Of course Ukrainians would never choose to undergo a terrible war, with tens of  thousands of casualties, millions displaced, children abducted, cities reduced to rubble, electricity and water systems bombed in the middle of winter.  But the war has, according to Ukrainians themselves, created a nation out of disparate pieces.  It has cemented a unity and a clear direction, towards Europe and the West.  It has made their leader into an international hero and a symbol of Ukrainian character and heroism.  It is clear now that Ukraine will never again be Russian and that it will receive military and economic aid from the US and Europe for the foreseeable future. 

Ukraine’s future might, of course, be tragic.  It might lose the war, or be a permanent battleground.  But it will go down fighting.  And if it wins or at least holds on it will have achieved something glorious that will define it for the ages.  

What the war is doing for Russia is less glorious but no less profound.  Russia too would never have chosen to be humiliated on the battlefield, lose its main energy market, be hit with sanctions and made into an international pariah.  But tyrants almost always find wars useful to justify repression, the mobilization of society, and isolation from the outside world.  Putin is using the extended conflict to reshape Russia, moving decisively in directions he had already taken but had not, until now, had the ability to fully achieve. 

Since the invasion all vestiges of an independent press, independent civil society, and independent political forces, have been destroyed.  Hundreds of thousands of potential opponents have more or less voluntarily fled the country, leaving Putin that much more secure.  Russia’s imperial nationalist identity has been reinforced, and the split with the West made deep and permanent.  Society has now returned to Cold War levels of distrust of the outside world, combined with a paranoid search for internal enemies.  The military and security services are exalted as the defenders of the Motherland.  Western companies, possible vectors of  alternative values, have left Russia, leaving the field open for Russian competitors.  

Like many past lovers of war, Russian nationalists see war as enabling a kind of moral purification. The New York Times recently quoted Konstantin Malofeyev, a crazed ultraconservative businessman:  “Liberalism in Russia is dead forever, thank God! The longer this war lasts, the more Russian society is cleansing itself from liberalism and the Western poison.”

Both Ukraine and Russia, in distinct ways, have had their national pride and unity reinforced.  It is quite possible that Putin will see it in his interest to continue the war indefinitely.  Despite terrible losses, life for most Russians has remained normal.  Eventually the costs will hit home; Putin’s version of Russia is like the proverbial dinosaur, already dead but waiting for the signals to reach its extremities.  As the cemeteries fill up and sanctions take their toll Russians will revolt, but it may take years to catalyze genuine resistance.

Every generation of Russians seems to find a new way to commit national suicide.  Ukraine is now making a bid to escape from this destructive cycle, like an abused spouse who has finally said “I won’t take it any more!”  But a prolonged draining war could also be fatal, with Ukraine unable to realize the fruits of freedom and falling into anger and despair.  The positive effects of war have been realized; more war is not in Ukraine’s interest.  Outside support is vital to keep hope alive for Ukrainians, bring the war to a quick end, and make it clear to Russia that time is not on its side.

In Orwell’s 1984 constant war is a tool to maintain the system.  Who the war is against is unimportant—every few years the enemy changes.  1984 is now one of Russia’s best selling books, and its continued relevance is clear from the state’s official attempt to distort what the book teaches:

 “For many years we believed that Orwell described the horrors of totalitarianism. This is one of the biggest global fakes … Orwell wrote about the end of liberalism. He depicted how liberalism would lead humanity to a dead end,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, said during a public talk in Ekaterinburg on Saturday.  

No more Orwellian statement has ever been made.  And no statement has better demonstrated the continued strength and relevance of liberalism.