It is ironic for them to be led in this struggle for survival by two Jews, while founding hero Bohdan Khmelnytsky was second only to Adolf Hitler in terms of anti-Semitism and genocide. Instead of facing opprobrium, Khmelnytsky has a city and a region named after him, countless streets named after him, and even the bodyguard that guards President Zelenskiy is named after him. Given the distrust of the nationalists in the president of Ukraine, despite his outstanding performance from the first night of the war until now, Zelensky cannot afford to be seen as a man of compromise in the relationship with Russia. But like all leaders that really matter, Zelenskiy knows that this war can only be ended through negotiations because no one is going to march on Moscow to demand the Russians surrender. “Regime change” is something very seductive, but it is a much too optimistic scenario, not at all feasible, and ignores the fact that Putin’s replacement could insist even more on the book of war. Prigozhin was applauded in Rostov for calling for the dismissal of incompetents from the Defence leadership; the Russians want some generals to occupy Kiev, as they did Berlin in 1945. Even if they fail to do so, the Russians can bomb Ukraine daily, sporadically, and with less purpose, but this only proves that Russia will not make peace by ceding Crimea to Ukraine. Now, Ukraine does not have the necessary force for a quick attack on the southern front because it does not have the necessary equipment. Ukraine got the German Leopard tanks, but it seems that the Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles are really excellent; neither the Leopard tanks nor the promised Abrams do very well against these missiles. But even if Ukraine’s current offensive is not successful, it is becoming clear that Ukraine’s strength is growing, and that should bring Russia to the negotiating table. And Putin wants these negotiations as much as Zelensky. Yes, it is perfectly true that Putin started this war determined to conquer Ukraine in less than a week with a very advanced war plan based on the “Gherasimov doctrine”. But, one morning in February 2022, Putin discovered, together with Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, but also together with the secret services of the USA, France, and Germany, that he was seriously mistaken. Putin then refused two alternatives. The first was to do what many believe Putin actually did: actually fight. But for that, he would have had to declare war, mobilise over 2 million Russians, invade, and overwhelm the Ukrainian army, exactly the opposite of Gerasimov’s plan, which attacked with 150,000 soldiers (including dentists here). Why didn’t Putin do this? Not because he was afraid of a nuclear response—Chancellor Olaf Scholz had just declared that Germany would not give up on the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Washington had long since given up on “extended nuclear deterrence,” when nuclear weapons can be used in response to a conventional attack against US allies, not to mention Ukraine. But Putin feared something else just as powerful. Every Russian military unit except the Air Force includes 18- and 19-year-old boys. If they died on the front, the mothers of these children would immediately go out to Red Square and all over Russia to protest. Modern Russia is as “post-heroic” as any other country with low fertility, where there are not enough children to be sacrificed for national glory. Of all the military powers, China has the fewest children to sacrifice. Putin didn’t want to declare war and then have the police fight mothers on the streets of Russia. Not only did he refuse to mobilise the army, but he also excluded the word war from all official communications.  On the other hand, Putin could not stand idly by and retreat in the face of provocations from the “neo-Nazis” in Kiev. Therefore, he pressed on with the “special military operation” and demonstrated to the whole world that Russia has something unique: total self-sufficiency. Unlike China, the Russian Federation is self-sufficient in food, energy, and industry and thus can keep its military and civilian population on a war footing, even if the people lack a few luxuries. Therefore, Putin only lacks enough military to fight indefinitely and wait until his enemies lose patience. Putin also has rubles. Now, a contract with the Russian military brings a volunteer a bonus of 600,000 rubles, then 204,000 rubles a month (that’s about $2,300). In the event of a death, the family receives 5 million rubles from the president and another 2-3 million rubles from the regional authorities. War widows will receive a pension of 25,000 rubles per month. Many Russians entered the military for financial reasons. And there are still many Russians barely enlisted in the eastern regions, as well as in the former independent state of Belarus (a country that Putin de facto conquered in 2022). So Putin can afford a war of attrition. But he still won’t be able to get the victory. The reason is called Elvira Nabiulina. She is the formidable head of the Central Bank of Russia. She was well respected before the war, and now she is a heroine who saved the public finances and controlled inflation—better than the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve did, for example. Nabiulina is said to oppose printing rubles not out of fear of debt (Russia has far less debt than the US or Britain), but because of inflation. For Putin, inflation is a bigger threat than what is happening on the Ukrainian front. Inflation can immediately affect poor Russians on the Siberian steppe. However, these Russians are Putin’s biggest supporters. This is why Putin has begun to signal that he may consider a compromise. Last week, CIA chief William Burns telephoned his Russian counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, to reassure him that the US had nothing to do with Prigozhin’s march on Moscow. This conversation is a sign that, beyond the fantasies of leftists, the Biden administration (backed by most Republicans) does not want Russia to be destabilized by this war. The US is well aware that Russian force is the only thing preventing the Chinese from absorbing much of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. And Washington also knows that Russian weapons are now going to countries fighting against China: India (on land) and Vietnam (on sea). Here’s the paradox: Although Russia, Ukraine, and the US want to end the war, the fighting continues. Why? Thanks to a virtue that is also a sin. The war in Ukraine is not an all-out conflict like the world wars were. It is a “limited war”, with Russian and American embassies still operating in Washington and Moscow, Russian and American astronauts sitting in the same space capsules, and phone calls between the CIA director and his Russian counterpart. War is influenced by this mutual restraint. The Russians do not attack American planes and ships that bring weapons to Europe for delivery to Ukraine. On the other hand, the Americans are not giving the Ukrainians weapons with which to attack Russian cities. Putin himself calmed the hot-headed Russians and said that the nuclear weapon would only be used if Russia faced imminent destruction—nnuclear destruction, that is. In other words, the good news is that the war in Ukraine is a “limited” and “polite war” like the wars of the 18th century, not the limitless ones of the 20th century. The bad news, however, is that as long as the Ukrainians are under enemy fire, none of the protagonists will have strong enough reasons to end the fight. Therefore, as happened with the Seven Years’ War in the 18th century, there is a risk that this conflict will be extended for another 500 days”.

By Paul Bumman