The Economist - UK (2022-03-26)

TheEconomistMarch26th 2022 BriefingThewarinUkraine 17

“Are youconfidentthatUkrainewillbeableto
repel Russia’sattack?”%ofUkrainianspolled, 2022
100
50
0
Jan Feb Mar

No

Yes

↑ The aftermath of Russian bombing.

Fires burn in Livoberezhnyi, a residential

district, on the morning of March 22nd.

Maternity

hospital

Massgravesites

Drama

school

Mariupol

Livoberezhnyi

Port

5 km

Sea of Azov

UKRAINE

AssessedRussianadvances*

AssessedRussian-controlled

Mariupol,Marchrd 

*Russiaoperatedinorattacked,butdoesnotcontrol

Sources:InstitutefortheStudyofWar;

AEI’s CriticalThreatsProject

Claimed Russian-

controlled

The massacres in Mariupol

In Mariupol, strategically situated

between Donbas and Crimea, the intensity

of Russian bombardment increased.

Ukrainian forces rejected a demand for

their surrender, but apparently now hold

only part of the city.

the  pressure.  A  cost  the  Russians  do  not
talk about is their mounting death toll. Ac­
cording  to  a  nato estimate,  7,000­15,
Russians have died; the organisation puts
the  total  number  of  those  dead,  injured
and  captured  at  around  40,000.  If  casual­
ties are indeed in that sort of range then al­
most  a  quarter  of  the  original  invasion
force is out of action. 
But the Ukrainians are not sure that the
Russian negotiators know how bad the sit­
uation is. The team is “second tier”, accord­
ing  to  an  intelligence  official  in  Kyiv;  Mr
Kuleba says they do not appear empowered
to resolve issues such as the nature of the
security guarantees Ukraine wants. 
Mr Putin’s failure to provide better ne­
gotiators could well reflect a lack of inter­
est  in  seeing  the  negotiations  bear  fruit,
perhaps  because  he  thinks  time  is  on  his
side. Though many Russian advances have
stalled, there are quite a few places where it
could increase its bombardments. A secu­
rity official in Kyiv says that Ukrainian in­
telligence has had several warnings that a
massive,  sustained rocket  attack  on  the
capital  is  imminent.  For  unknown  rea­
sons, no such attack has materialised. But
it remains a possibility. And Ukraine does
not  yet  have  the  resources  for  decisive
counterattacks.
Yet Mr Putin has been wrong about this
war before. He may be again. Ms Rudik, the
mp,  says  time  is  of  the  essence.  She  just
doesn’t know who it favours. “The Russian
economy  is  collapsing  but  we  are  dying.
The question is who falls first.” n

Russia’s reactionary turn

The cult of war

O

n march 22nd,  in  a  penal  colony

1,000km  north­east  of  the  front  lines

around  Kyiv,  Alexei  Navalny,  the  jailed

leader  of  Russia’s  opposition,  was  sen­

tenced  to  another  nine  years  imprison­

ment.  To  serve  them  he  will  probably  be

moved  from  Vladimir,  where  he  has  been

kept for more than a year, to a yet harsher

maximum­security jail elsewhere. 

The  crime  for  which  he  was  sentenced

is fraud. His true crime is one of common

enterprise  with  that  for  which  the  people

of  Ukraine  are  now  suffering  collective

punishment.  The  Ukrainians  want  to  em­

brace many, if not all, the values held dear

by  other  European  nations.  Mr  Navalny

wants the same for Russia. Vladimir Putin

cannot countenance either desire. As Dmy­

tro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, told

The Economist, “If Russia wins, there will be

no Ukraine; if Ukraine wins, there will be a

new Russia.” That new Russia is as much a

target  of  Mr  Putin’s  war  as  Ukraine  is.  Its

potential must be crushed as surely as Mr

Navalny’s. 

This crusade against a liberal European

future is being fought in the name of Russ-

kiy mir—“the Russian world”, a previously

obscure historical term for a Slavic civilisa­

tion  based  on  shared  ethnicity,  religion

and  heritage.  The  Putin  regime  has  re­

vived,  promulgated  and  debased  this  idea

into an obscurantist anti­Western mixture

of Orthodox dogma, nationalism, conspir­

acy theory and security­state Stalinism. 

The war is the latest and most striking

manifestation  of  this  revanchist  ideologi­

cal  movement.  And  it  has  brought  to  the

fore a dark and mystical component with­

in it, one a bit in love with death. As Andrei

Kurilkin,  a  publisher,  puts  it,  “The  sub­

stance  of  the  myth  is  less  important  than

its  sacred  nature...The  legitimacy  of  the

state  is  now  grounded  not  in  its  public

good, but in a quasi­religious cult.”

The cult was on proud display at Mr Pu­

tin’s first public appearance since the inva­

sion—a  rally  at  the  Luzhniki  stadium

packed  with  95,000  flag­waving  people,

mostly  young,  some  bused  in,  many,  pre­

sumably,  there  of  their  own  volition.  An

open octagonal structure set up in the mid­

dle of the stadium served as an altar. Stand­

ing  at  it  Mr  Putin  praised  Russia’s  army

A set of beliefs which once looked like a sideshow is now centre stage