51吃瓜

On February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to commemorate the occasion with a speech.

There wasn鈥檛 much for Putin to celebrate. The invasion had failed to dislodge the government of Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv or incorporate all of Ukrainian territory into greater Russia.

Over the last year, the Russian military has 60-70,000 fatalities plus nearly 200,000 injuries. It has half of its fleet of tanks, and monthly it continues to lose while only managing to replace 20 of them from the country鈥檚 only tank factory.

The call-up of new recruits for the army in the fall significant pushback throughout the country. The new soldiers, many of them well into , are and equipped. Russians of the Ukrainian front as a 鈥渕eat grinder鈥� because the Russian army has been throwing wave after wave of these unprepared recruits into the line of fire.

Russia Is Not Doing So Well

The much-anticipated Russian winter offensive to retake territory in the Donbas region has either not materialized or failed to make any mark beyond some negligible gains around the battered city of Bakhmut. Western intelligence that nearly all of Russia鈥檚 forces are now deployed to Ukraine, and all of these soldiers still haven鈥檛 been able to turn the tide in Russia鈥檚 favor.

The Russian economy hasn鈥檛 collapsed under the weight of international sanctions, but it isn鈥檛 doing well. Russian GDP shrank by last year. Hundreds of foreign companies have or suspended operations. The Putin government has kept the economy afloat鈥攁nd its war effort funded鈥攂y increasing exports of raw materials, especially fossil fuels. But this is not a sustainable strategy.

Somewhere between 500,000 and a million of Russians the country, either in protest of Putin鈥檚 policies or to avoid serving in the military. Although this exodus has reduced the ranks of Putin鈥檚 opposition, it has also robbed the country of its most creative professionals. Combined with the failure to diversify the economy away from raw materials, this 鈥渂rain drain鈥� means that Russia is mortgaging its future in order to wage war in Ukraine.

On the foreign policy front, Putin鈥檚 determination to expand the 鈥淩ussian world鈥� has served only to expand the coalition of forces equally determined to halt his advance. Sweden and Finland, despite decades of ambivalence, have signed up to join NATO. In Finland, public support for NATO membership, which stood at in 2018, rose to in fall 2022. Justifiably angry at NATO鈥檚 eastward creep, Putin has nonetheless provided the Western alliance with the motivation to add to its ranks, increase its military spending, and accelerate its coordination with non-members like Ukraine.

Meanwhile, after the invasion, Putin lost nearly all of his within European far-right parties. Even his non-European allies are wavering. Only seven countries voted against the UN resolution condemning Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine. Although China and India, among other countries, continue to buy Russian energy, often at a significant discount, they are not happy with the war and have pushed for a peace settlement.

Putin Still Carries On

Despite all of these failures, Putin remains committed to the war. At the very least, he wants to control all of the Donbas鈥攖he provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk鈥攁s well as the land in southern Ukraine that connects the Russian mainland to the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin seized in 2014. The Russian president believes that he can win a war of attrition, given that Russia has a demographic edge over Ukraine. Even though Russia has lost upwards of a million people to emigration post-invasion, far more have left Ukraine: around 8 million, around 20 percent of the population.

Putin also thinks that support in the West for Ukraine will decline and the military assistance will dry up. Polls in the and indeed confirm that support for unabated military assistance has ebbed. This hasn鈥檛 yet affected deliveries of weapons. But it could.

Ukraine is certainly concerned that a drawn-out conflict will not be to its advantage. That鈥檚 why Zelensky has been trying to get as many arms鈥攖he more sophisticated the better鈥攁s soon as possible. Much hinges on a second Ukrainian counter-offensive, slated for some time in the spring after the mud has dried up. If Ukrainian forces can drive a wedge between the Donbas and Crimea, it can isolate the latter and create an aura of inevitability around its efforts to expel Russian occupiers.

Call this the Croatian scenario, after the successful 1995 campaign by the Croatian army to push Serbian forces out of positions they occupied inside Croatia. Ultimately, Operation Storm led to a peace agreement that ended the Yugoslav wars and contributed to undermining Serbian support for strong-arm leader Slobodan Milosevic, who lost elections five years later.

The other scenario is the Korean one. As in the Korean War, the first year of the Ukrainian conflict has featured dramatic reversals of territorial control. What comes next might resemble the last two years of the Korean War, in which the two sides battled to a virtual stalemate around the original line of demarcation. If Ukraine and Russia battle to a similar stand-off, they might also agree to a reluctant armistice.

It鈥檚 hard to know which of these scenarios will transpire. If there is one salient take-away from the first year of the war in Ukraine it鈥檚 the unpredictability of the course of events.

Russia surprised nearly everyone by actually invading Ukraine. Kyiv then surprised almost everyone by successfully repelling the attack, followed by a surprise counter-offensive that pushed even more Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, despite many predictions of collapse, Russia hasn鈥檛 backed down.

Perhaps this second year will see the biggest surprise of all: an end to the war that is just, with the aggressor punished and the victim vindicated. That kind of peace is certainly worth fighting for.

[ first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.