Russia’s neighbours are braced for post-Putin chaos; other countries — not so much
The gloomsters have gone quiet. A leading British pundit wrote in October “I hate to say it, but Kyiv won’t last till spring”. Foreign Affairs proclaimed in February “Ukraine is losing the war”, a line echoed by a Finnish thinktank report in March.
Not any more. Ukraine’s spectacular attacks on oil and naval installations 1,000km inside Russia humiliated Vladimir Putin at his annual shindig, the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). The message: nobody, nothing and nowhere in Russia is safe, at any time.
These attacks overshadowed what might otherwise have been seen as a diplomatic success, with the SPIEF gaining the attendance of an official US representative, Rodney Mims Cook Jr. Admittedly, Cook is not exactly Henry Kissinger: he leads the Fine Arts commission, responsible for Donald Trump’s pharaonic projects in Washington DC. But his presence highlights a growing, troubling rapprochement between Washington and Moscow.
This is bad news for European Nato allies, who await the alliance’s Ankara summit next month with trepidation. The Trump administration capriciously cancels troop deployments and arms sales, while blithely insulting its oldest and closest allies as spineless and useless (the latest example being Pete Hegseth at the D-Day commemoration).
But seen from Kyiv, the US is no longer so important. Ukraine has found other ways of gaining high-tech battlefield intelligence, and its domestic arms industries are increasingly capable: producing ever-larger numbers of increasingly accurate weapons, with heavier payloads. These are tightening the vice on Crimea, where Russian control now looks increasingly unsustainable. With no reliable land route into the peninsula through Russian-occupied territories in south-eastern Ukraine, the rickety Kerch bridge is left as a de facto humanitarian corridor for thirsty, hungry, cash-strapped and desperate residents wanting to flee.
As Anne Applebaum points out, the stunning pace of military innovation in Ukraine has shifted momentum on all fronts of the war. Ukraine, bleeding and battered, is not going to lose. Russia, complacent and brittle, is not going to win. Indeed, it now looks far more vulnerable: economically, military and most of all psychologically. Battle-hardened Ukrainians know they are engaged in an existential struggle. Putin told the Russians that victory would be quick and easy. His prestige, and that lie, are linked, probably fatally.
Don’t start cheering yet. Putin still has cards. To avoid further humiliation, he can hurl more men and deadlier weapons into the fight — vertical escalation — and he can escalate horizontally, trying to distract and divide Ukraine’s European backers. Nobody thinks Nato is ready for that.
If Putin’s last gambits fail and Russia crumbles, Ukraine still faces dilemmas: to take the best deal it can while it is ahead on the battlefield, or press home its advantage? To keep fighting prolongs the pain and danger. But a simple truce could give Russia a chance to catch its breath, rebuild its grip on Crimea, and come back for second helpings later. Views on this, in Ukraine and among allies, will differ sharply.
Thirdly, the West is unready for a political crisis in Russia, most likely involving an ailing Putin shoved aside by hardliners (bad for one reason) or by phoney liberals offering a “reset” (bad in a different way). Neither option means stability at home or abroad. The big question is what happens if “smuta” — Russian for a “time of troubles” — looms, with all the chaos that means for everyone. In my travels in the region I find the countries closest to Russia, from Finland to Poland, are grimly prepared for smuta. Countries further away find the prospect terrifying. Rows about this will be far stormier than during the Soviet collapse. Buckle up.
Edward Lucas is a British journalist, writer and security specialist