September 9, 2024
DIANE FRANCIS
Arguably, Russia has already “lost” its war against Ukraine. After ten years and two invasions, Putin occupies only 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory and has lost a chunk of its own. Its “red lines” have been breached: Kursk is occupied, and Crimea soon will be. Russia’s army is mediocre, manned by teenagers from its hinterland and corrupt generals, and Russia will go down in history as the first nuclear power to be audaciously invaded by a foe.
The staggering cost to Russia in caskets, a brain drain, and lost economic opportunities continues. It’s a pariah nation. Putin is a fugitive war criminal. It lost its biggest energy market in Europe and has become dependent on China. Putin’s atrocities have backfired and resulted in a significant expansion of NATO and the biggest militarization of Europe since Hitler was defeated. An oil giant, Russia’s gasoline and diesel are being rationed to its people because Ukrainian missiles and drones have destroyed refineries, storage facilities, and pipelines. Its defense budget is unsustainable. Given all of that, now’s the time to finish it off. But Western allies still pull their punches.
Ukraine has called Russia’s bluff and repeatedly ignored its “red lines.” President Joe Biden professes “unshakeable commitment” to Ukraine while continuing to forbid Kyiv from using American-made long-range missiles to destroy the Russian airfields and missile bases that damage Ukraine. The West has not provided enough air defense systems. So Putin now escalates his bombing attacks. On September 3, Russia’s single largest attack killed 47 and wounded 206 at a hospital and training center in the Ukrainian city of Poltava. After that, President Volodymyr Zelensky again asked Washington to remove its weapons restrictions so it could retaliate. “Ukraine needs air defense systems and missiles now, not sitting in storage,” Zelensky wrote. “Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not later. Every day of delay, unfortunately, means more lost lives.”
Ukraine has been forced to adopt a better-to-ask-for-forgiveness-than-ask-for-permission approach. For instance, it was told not to attack Crimea, and it didn’t listen. It devised and deployed thousands of marine and aerial drones that have driven Russia’s navy out of Crimea and placed the peninsula under virtual siege. Ukraine was also denied the tanks and jets it needed for months, but Kyiv improvised and scrambled globally to find enough to hold the line. Finally, the West eventually provided both.
It also boldly invaded Russia’s Kursk region by using troops and U.S., German, and British tanks. That audacious invasion resulted in the evacuation of 200,000 people and has done more to rattle Russia and its people than any other maneuver since the conflict began in 2022. This week, Ukraine announced it will occupy the area indefinitely.
The result is that, recently, some European leaders, including a German defense official, have stated that Ukraine be allowed to go ahead and destroy Russian missile and military targets anywhere. “Let Ukraine fight with whatever it has” and “hand over [$50-billion] in Russian frozen central
bank assets,” said Poland’s Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski. But Biden doesn’t budge. Perhaps Washington’s stance is simply a wink-wink-nudge-nudge gambit. More likely, its reluctance to provide permission is due to the U.S. State Department’s fears that the Russian regime will topple, leading to chaos or Armageddon. But that didn’t happen after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and frankly, an implosion leading to regime change should be the West’s goal and not something to avoid.
Whatever America’s reason, hobbling Ukraine is pure foreign policy folly. Does Washington think that a peace deal can be forged with Putin or that he would keep his word? Does it believe that he would give up and pull his troops out of Ukraine and let Ukraine join NATO and the EU? It’s delusional to think that Russia under Putin will become an enlightened and peaceful nation. Last week, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb bluntly stated that all restrictions on the use of weapons must be removed against Russia. They are “ridiculous,” he said, because Russia started an illegal war, violates international laws, and commits war crimes.
Ukraine has been bulldozing forward as it must, given that Washington is intimidated and Europe is still divided. And it’s working well. The “red lines” are ignored, and the Kursk incursion has been a success, stoking panic and criticism inside Russia and demonstrating the ineptness of Russia’s military. Not only was Moscow unable to prevent the breach at the border and occupation, but Russian troops fighting in the east had to be deployed to help out and remained weeks later unable to wrest Ukraine from the land. By the end of August, Ukraine’s commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his forces had claimed close to 500 square miles of Russian territory and forced Russia to redeploy 30,000 troops to Kursk. Others point out that the Kremlin’s lame military response also exposes weaknesses inside its military, including poor command and control. Kursk reveals that Russia has “limited capabilities,” concluded Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO.
To Ukraine, Russia’s “red lines” are red herrings. As allies dither, Kyiv pushes on and has recently announced another workaround and has developed long-range ballistic missiles, which, when added to thousands of drones, will hopefully circumvent the range restriction problem. This means that Kyiv won’t need permission to return fire against Russian sites that are raining missiles on its cities and civilians. It will be able to destroy military and infrastructure targets deep inside Russia.
Slow-walking and restrictions have cost Ukrainian lives. So has the failure to expedite the delivery of air defense systems. Unfortunately, these failed practices guarantee that Russia cannot be defeated or forced to negotiate. Fortunately, Ukraine’s leaders have realized this. Walter Russell Mead wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Zelensky and Gen. Syrskyi believe that Kyiv must reject the West’s timid strategic advice if it hopes to survive. They are probably right. Fighting an endless, losing positional war in the east while Ukraine’s weak-kneed Western supporters dither and debate ensures Ukraine’s ultimate defeat.”
Diane Francis: National Post Editor-at-Large; Kyiv Post; Atlantic Council in DC Senior Fellow Eurasia Center; Hudson Institute, Kleptocracy Initiative; Canada-US Law Institute; Case University Law School, Cleveland