DIANE FRANCIS
July 29, 2024
The Olympics in Paris provides a welcome distraction, but Ukraine is racking up significant wins in its struggle against Russia. Kyiv repelled Russia’s attempt to capture its second largest city Kharkiv, has driven Russia’s Black Sea fleet from its 240-year-old naval base in Crimea, and placed the peninsula under siege. Vital shipping lanes for Ukrainian exports are reopened and Western weapons flow again into Ukraine. Americans and other allies are “front loading” their military and financial aid to Ukraine in advance of a potentially disruptive November election outcome in the United States. Allies have also given Ukraine permission to use their weapons to destroy military targets inside Russia. But the crippling of Crimea is key and a measure of Ukraine’s technological superiority. Back in 2022, Ukraine had virtually no navy and no manpower advantage, but harnessed its brainpower to create sea and air drones to attack Crimea and save Odesa. Recently, an American military expert commented that “Crimea’s become a death trap for the Kremlin’s forces”. This provides leverage to Kyiv in any negotiations, curbs Russian oil exports, impedes its military supply lines, and undermines Putin’s reign.
Russian residents abandon Crimea and Russia’s Black Sea fleet is now “functionally inactive” after military losses there, according to former UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps. And more pain is on the way, said Ukraine’s top spy, Kyrylo Budanov, who hinted that attacking Crimea is more than simply a way to prevent the country from being landlocked. It is the preamble for a “serious operation” – a secret military plan to physically reoccupy the peninsula.
Such an achievement would mark a major historical milestone. The peninsula was conquered from the Ottomans by Czars centuries ago. In 1954, it was handed over by Moscow to Ukraine, but its naval base, Stevastopol, remained Russian territory. In 2014, Putin seized it all back and staged a fake referendum to annex Crimea. But he has never won the hearts and minds of Ukrainians living there nor its Crimean Tatars, who represent 15 percent of its population. Some have formed SOS Crimea, a clandestine group of thousands who have been helping Ukraine in the war. They resent being conscripted into the Russian army for this war, and the fact that Moscow has always mistreated them. If Russia pulls out of Crimea, said General Ben Hodges, former head of US European Forces, “it will be a huge step toward ending this war.”
In addition to military gains, here’s a review of recent developments and their significance.
The US election
The vote in November is critical because of the contrast between the two candidates. Kamala Harris will stay the course and support Ukraine and NATO if she wins. But Trump pledges to end fighting in months with a scheme that appears to consist of strong-arming both sides to work out a truce and peace deal. The specter of a Trump win has invigorated discussions about peace negotiations and resulted in the “front loading” of disbursements to Ukraine from its $61-billion package approved in April. And allies have begun to disperse to Ukraine interest payments
earned from Russia’s frozen assets. Ukraine currently has roughly two years’ funding in place. Finally dozens of much-vaunted fighter jets, the F-16s, are on their way. Facilities, at unknown locations, have been built to service them.
The European Union and UK
No matter who wins the US election, Europeans will back Ukraine, as will Britain. France’s President Emmanuel Macron pulled off a risky election call recently and has a clear path to remain in charge of the country’s foreign policy for the next two years. He is now the “strong man” of Europe and leads efforts to bolster military, humanitarian, and diplomatic support for Ukraine. “We are doing everything we can to help Ukraine defeat Russia, because I will say it very simply: There can be no lasting peace if there is no sovereignty, if there is no return to Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, including Crimea,” Macron said in March.
European leaders also grapple with Putin’s proxy, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. He is using his six-month position as President of the European Council to act as an unauthorized peace broker, and met with Zelensky, Putin, Xi, and Trump, without EU permission, allegedly to stop the war. This drew an official rebuke and Ukraine now threatens to cut off Russia’s gas and oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia that flow through Ukraine from Russia, in retaliation for their support for Putin. Orban dubbed this “blackmail” — but it’s a technique he has used for years against the European Union and NATO. Over the years, he has threatened to use his veto power to extract concessions or favors. For instance, he recently agreed not to veto NATO if it chooses to directly intervene on Ukraine’s behalf in return for an exemption that Hungarian forces must participate.
China
NATO recently called out China for aiding and abetting Russia’s war, and threatened retaliatory actions. Additional sanctions by the US against Chinese banks and others who act as middlemen for Putin’s war have already been imposed and are causing considerable damage to these intermediaries. The fact that Ukraine’s allies are upset at China is a threat to its economy because all are customers. Atop that worry, China faces catastrophic tariffs if Trump wins in November.
China’s angst is why Ukraine’s foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba just visited Beijing for the first time to obtain buy-in for Ukraine’s next peace proposal and to ask if it would be willing to mediate a deal to end the war. Kuleba told him that Ukraine was ready to engage “when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith,” but he added that “no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side.” Beijing’s foreign minister agreed and said “conditions and timing are not yet ripe.” Ukraine also works to increase diplomatic support for a second peace conference in November and to mount an appeal this fall for help from the UN General Assembly.
Turkey
Putin recently rebuffed an offer from Turkey’s President Erdogan to mediate a peace deal. He cannot be pleased that the Turks belong to NATO and have supplied drones and other weaponry to Ukraine. But Ergodan has remained on good terms with Putin and in 2022 was able to pull off a grain export deal between the two. However, Turkey has indirectly played a role in destroying
Russian naval power in the Black Sea. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey controls traffic in and out of the Black Sea via the Bosphorus and has refused to allow any warships in or out of the area.
Russia
On July, the Institute for the Study of War in Washington DC said that “Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing his country for the possibility that the war in Ukraine could last another 10 years.” It added that while Moscow has suggested peace, it demands that Ukraine cede all the territory Russia now occupies. And sources say that Putin won’t agree to retreat from Ukraine or to pay reparations and also wants all the frozen assets returned intact. He seeks capitulation, not negotiation. But the war takes its toll on Russia. There is rampant inflation, manpower shortages, and military demoralization plus desertions. His gigantic military is losing 1,000 soldiers per day, according to British estimates, and has made only tiny gains, failed to capture Kharkiv, and lost control over Crimea. Russia’s major partner, China, is under increasing pressure by the West to stop providing components and equipment to feed the Russian war machine. And The Economist estimates that Russia’s capacity to make heavy weapons will end within the next six to 24 months. Russia also faces more supply and manufacturing disruptions as a result of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks inside Russia. British General Sir Roly Walker estimated that it would take five years for Moscow to win the war and that it would lose up to 1.8 million soldiers just to fully capture Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. “I think the dilemma is on the Russian regime,” he concluded in an interview. “There has got to be more things for Russia to worry about than losing the best part of 1.5 to 1.8 million people for a slice of Ukraine with the way the world is going.”
Ukraine
Zelensky recently retreated from Kyiv’s stance that it would not sit down for talks until Russia withdrew all its troops from Ukraine. But Russia won’t budge from its demand for complete surrender of land claims first. Undeterred, Zelensky continues to obtain help. This month, he signed a 10-year security deal with the United States and obtained a loan of 46 billion Euros from G7 countries. He also wrapped up a multi-year security deal with NATO. And Ukrainians remain resolute and optimistic. “I know we will win — and how,” said Ukraine’s new military leader, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, recently.
In an interview with The Guardian, Syrskyi laid out the situation bluntly. Russia invaded with 100,000 soldiers, now has 520,000 in Ukraine, and hopes to grow this by the end of 2024 to 690,000. Ukraine’s armed forces have been pushed back steadily, mostly due to the delays in weapons from the West, but weapons now arrive. Russia’s attempt to seize Kharkiv “failed” and its casualties are “at least three times” higher than Ukraine’s. The arrival of F-16s will allow Ukraine to impede Russian cruise missiles and hit targets more accurately. Drones have successfully targeted 200 “critical infrastructure sites” inside Russia connected to military operations. And sea and air drones have made the Black Sea “a grave for them”. When asked if there was a plan to occupy Crimea, he simply said yes. “It’s realistic. Of course. It’s a big military secret.”
Diane Francis is an expert on Canada, the United States, Canada-US relations, Silicon Valley, future technology, geopolitics, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Putin, energy, business, and white-collar crime. Always provocative, her direct and forceful writing has established her international reputation in covering the personalities, trends, and financial backstories that affect companies, individuals, governments and societies. Her popular twitter feed on tech and corruption has more than 240,000 followers around the world. An award-winning columnist, bestselling author, investigative journalist, speaker, and television commentator, she is Editor-at-Large at Canada’s National Post and a columnist for American Interest, Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert, and Kyiv Post. . In 1991, Francis became Editor of Canada’s Financial Post, the first woman editor of a national daily newspaper in Canada, a position she held until the paper was sold in 1998. She is the author of ten books, including Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country (2013, featured in a cover story in Foreign Policy), Who Owns Canada Now?: Old Money, New Money and the Future of Canadian Business (2008), and Immigration: The Economic Case (2002).