Ukraine sceptics are gaining influence in the European parliament as Russia fights to avoid a stalemate, the historian and security expert writes
Mark Galeotti
October 5, 2024
The Sunday Times
Last Monday was “Reunification Day”, a holiday President Putin declared in 2022 to commemorate Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russia still doesn’t even control them all, but nonetheless, Putin asserted the “genuinely liberating nature” of his invasion and crowed that “all the goals we have set for ourselves will be achieved”.
Certainly, he has grounds for some confidence now, even as Ukrainian forces entrench themselves in the Kursk region, but he is also — true to form — ignoring some looming challenges.
Moscow is clearly relieved that President Zelensky’s recent visit to the US seems to have been something of a disappointment for Ukraine.
One British diplomat described Zelensky’s much-touted “Victory Plan” as a “shopping list rather than a strategy”. While the Americans sent him on his way with the promise of another $2.4 billion (£1.8 billion) in assistance, he didn’t get the go-ahead to use longer-range missiles against targets inside Russia, let alone the guarantees of future aid and the Nato membership he was seeking.
Wavering Europe
Meanwhile, European support for Ukraine is looking a little less constant than at the start of the year.
Populist parties opposed to backing Ukraine seem on the rise, following the successes of the right-wing AfD party in Germany, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France and the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria.
The Patriots for Europe bloc, which is often regarded as, if not always pro-Putin, at least Ukraine-sceptic, is now the third largest in the European parliament. With still just 84 of the parliament’s 720 members, there is a limit as to quite what the bloc can do, but it is being hailed by Moscow’s propagandists as a sign that the tide is turning Putin’s way.
Even more serious are the hints that not just Germany but elements in other mainstream governments are, behind their rhetoric, beginning to believe that Kyiv will have to accept some kind of “land for peace” deal. A German official who has been privately critical of his own government’s hesitancy in support of Kyiv in the past admitted last week that “it looks like the
war is becoming a stalemate, and we cannot pay for that for ever. [Kyiv] will have to become more realistic in its expectations”.
So far, Kyiv seems in no mood to make such a deal, but in the words of a Moscow academic close to Putin’s government, “if we can’t win on the battlefield, we can help the Ukrainians lose” by encouraging greater friction between Ukraine and its allies and despondency in Europe.
Discord also looms in the United States although there is some scepticism in Moscow that, were he elected, Donald Trump would or could carry through with his vow to impose a ceasefire, which would in effect favour Russia. The Kremlin-friendly tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets even recently ran a commentary headlined “Uncle Trump’s tales: Promises of ‘swift peace in Ukraine’ are worth less than nothing”.
Nonetheless, the Russians see the return of the “disruptor-in-chief” as their preferred option. However, even if Kamala Harris is elected, Moscow hopes that her opponents would cry foul and do everything to obstruct her policy agenda.
Slow grind
On the military side, Putin has clearly decided not to take Kyiv’s bait and divert his attention and forces from the Donbas front to deal with Ukraine’s Kursk salient. Russian troops have made some progress in pushing the Ukrainians back from the west, but so far they still control most of the territory they seized in August.
In south-eastern Ukraine, though, the Russians continue their advance. On Wednesday, they finally took the fortress town of Vuhledar, which they have been contesting for almost two and a half years. The strategic road and rail hub of Pokrovsk may fall this autumn. It is a slow, bloody grind in which the Russians are losing more than a thousand men a day, but they are maintaining their momentum.
The Donbas offensive will probably culminate — run out of steam — if and when Pokrovsk falls. The winter will see continued local attacks, but largely a much-needed period of reconsolidation on both sides.
Meanwhile, everyone waits to see just how serious the effect of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure will be. Last month Russia launched more than 1,300 Iranian-made Shahed drones or their Russian-made analogue, the Geran-2 — more than in any previous month.
Power stations and lines continue to be prime targets, with more than 70 per cent of Ukraine’s generation capacity estimated to have been destroyed. Power cuts this winter could be anything from four to 20 hours a day, as the International Energy Agency warns that it will be, by far, the Ukrainian power grid’s “sternest test yet”.
Putin’s indecision
Yet 2024 was always going to be a year in which Russia had the advantage in terms of ammunition and manpower. Ukraine had to reconstitute its forces after its 2023 counteroffensive, and Russia’s capacity to tap Iranian and North Korean stockpiles gave it a further magazine advantage. A Ukrainian officer told me he thinks the real story is not what Russia has achieved this year “but that it didn’t accomplish more”.
As is, Putin hasn’t done enough for victory to be in sight — but enough to allow himself to, true to form, put off tough decisions.
The economy is doing unexpectedly well, but his refusal to trade off butter for guns can’t last for ever. One Russian economist estimated the end of 2025 to be the “decisive point, at which the current equilibrium will break”.
Meanwhile, it is getting harder and more expensive to induce Russians to volunteer for the war. In Moscow, for example, contributions from the mayor’s office mean that new recruits receive a signing-on bonus of 2.3 million rubles (£18,000) and an annual salary of 5.2 million rubles (£41,000) — more than five times the national average salary. These figures led to a brief spike in recruitment, but it is now rapidly petering out.
Although his generals have for months been demanding another mobilisation, Putin, aware of how unpopular and disruptive this will be, is still wavering.
He is also closing his eyes to some troubling indicators for the coming year.
Ukraine will be in a position to launch a new counteroffensive at scale next year with the new equipment it is receiving and brigades it is forming. It will also likely receive permission to use longer-range American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles against military targets inside Russia.
Even without them, Kyiv has been using its own missiles and drones in a campaign against Russian ammunition depots that is already having an effect. On Tuesday, Ukrainian first deputy defence minister Lieutenant General Ivan Havryliuk asserted that whereas at the start of the year, the Russians could fire eight artillery rounds for every one of theirs, by the start of this month, the ratio had fallen to just three to one.
Costly war
Moscow has just announced its plans for the 2025 federal budget, which will see fully 40 per cent devoted to defence and security. For the moment it can afford this, as it dips into its remaining reserves and hikes taxes, but it is not simply a question of the money.
The labour market is painfully overstretched. Unemployment is down to a historic low. This means that there is no room for industrial expansion and wages are spiralling as employers compete for scarce employees. Even the defence factories, which are running 24/7 and offering up to four times the local average wages, are recording 90,000 unfilled vacancies. The police are already almost a third undermanned, and crime is rising.
The elite are dissatisfied, and the public unhappy — there was noticeably little enthusiasm for the Reunification Day celebrations, for example. Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin was more interested in celebrating the city’s ‘Day of the Metro Workers’ and announcing more investment into clinics than commenting on the annexations.
The stocks of Soviet-era armoured vehicles ready to be refurbished, which are vital, are running low. Of the 2,000 tanks deployed to the war last year, only 200 were actual new-builds, the rest lightly modernised hand-me-downs. Even 1950s-vintage T-55 tanks have made an appearance on the battlefield.
Russia’s penitentiary system, which has been heavily tapped as a source of recruits, has lost so many convicts to the war that it is closing prison camps.
Race against time
Admittedly, Ukraine faces its own challenges raising troops, but western ammunition production is expanding while aid is being channelled to helping it develop its own defence industrial sector. Most recently, Denmark has pledged the equivalent of £470 million to support its expansion.
Conversely, Russian allies such as China, North Korea and Iran expect to be paid for whatever assistance they provide, further draining Moscow’s coffers.
For the coming year, Putin is almost certain to be able to balance all these pressures. But he will be gambling that he can force some kind of peace on his terms, before the strains on his own system become too great.
Mark Galeotti is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian crime and security (which are often one and the same), which may explain why Moscow banned him in 2022. After a stint with the Foreign Office, he has been a scholar and think-tanker in London, New York, Moscow, Prague and Florence, and now heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is an honorary professor at University College London and a senior fellow with RUSI and the Council on Geostrategy. His more than 30 books include Putin’s Wars (2022), The Weaponisation of Everything (2022) and We Need to Talk about Putin (2019).