The Economist - UK (2022-04-16)

TheEconomistApril16th 2022 BriefingThewarinUkraine 19

UN General Assemblyresolutions,votes

SuspendingRussiafromtheHumanRightsCouncil

CondemningtheRussianinvasionofUkraine

Absent Against

Abstentions

In favour

Infavour

  





↑ In Volnovakha, between Donetsk and

Mariupol, Russian infantrymen wait for

the next assault.

Kramatorsk

Izyum

Huliapole

Donetsk

Mariupol

Luhansk

Kharkiv

ansk

tsk

as

Luh ansk

Donetsk Areacontrolledby

Russian-backed

separatists

beforeFeb24th

Do

nba

s

UKRAINE

RUSSIA

75 km

Mariupol

ClaimedasRussian-controlled

AssessedRussianadvances*

AssessedasRussian-controlled

ClaimedUkrainian

counterattacks

Aprilth

*Russia operated

in or attacked, but

does not control

Sources: Institute for

the Study of War; AEI’s

Critical Threats Project

The war in the east

As Russia prepared a large-scale attack on

Ukrainian forces in and around Donbas,

a 13 kilometre convoy of military and

supply vehicles is snaking its way towards

Izyum. But Russia is struggling to muster

the necessary manpower.

heaviest  price.  The  war  which  Mr  Putin
launched  on  the  basis  of  a  belief  that  Uk­
raine does not exist and should not exist is
proving the opposite. 
Military improvisation has always been
part of Ukrainian self defence. The tachan-
kas—machineguns  on  horse­drawn  car­
riages—fielded by Makhno’s army were the
forerunners of the armed Toyota pick­ups,
or “technicals”, now seen in low­intensity
conflicts  around  the  world.  In  a  Facebook
post  Anton  Kolumbet,  a  fighter  in
Ukraine’s  territorial  defence  force,  de­
scribed the self organisation of the defend­
ers in today’s “wild field”:

In  one  small  forest  next  to  a  village  being

fought  over  you  can  see  the  following:  the

Ukrainian army, the national guard, territo­

rial defence units, the police, a few glorious

patriotic  fighters,  military  intelligence,  the

secret services, some other strange military

professionals and some dodgy types jump­

ing about with weapons...Whenever the en­

emy  tries  to  enter  the  village,  he  is

obliterated.  When  he  is  obliterated,  dodgy­

looking  guys  run  under  the  shelling  to  get

their hands on trophies drenched in blood.

Some kick Russian helmets. Some take pho­

tos  of  the  corpses.  Others  write  combat  re­

ports.  Suddenly,  a  tank  appears  and  goes

after three Russian armoured personnel car­

riers. It destroys them, and then trundles off

somewhere else....Where are all these people

coming  from?  How  are  they  armed?  Where

are  they  headed?  The  people  don’t  know

themselves...No  military  academy  any­

where  in  the  world  can  teach  you  how  to

fight such a thing.

“We are a very chaotic nation,” says An­

driy  Khlyvnyuk,  “A  nation  of  musicians

and  warriors.”  The  lead  singer  of  a  group

called  BoomBox,  which  is  hugely  popular

in Russia as well as Ukraine, Mr Khlyvnyuk

was on tour in America on February 24th.

He  immediately  cancelled  the  rest  of  the

tour and returned to Kyiv to join the terri­

torial  defence  force.  A  viral  video  of  him

singing  “Oh,  the  Red  Viburnum  in  the

Meadow”, a protest song from 1914, in front

of Kyiv’s St Sofia cathedral, rifle slung over

his  shoulder,  has  been  embellished  in

mash­ups  by  Lithuanian  opera  singers,  a

South African producer and satirist called

The Kiffness and, in their first new song for

28 years, Pink Floyd. 

Volodymyr Zelensky, a television come­

dian  before  he  was  elected  president  in

2018,  fits  the  same  “you  do  what  you  can”

picture. “The first thing that I understood,”

he said in a recent interview with The Econ-

omist, was “that we the people have agency.

People are leaders and political leaders are

losers, some of them.” (The Arena research

found that politicians were the group Uk­

rainians like least.) As with everyone else,

his  wartime  role  has  been  to  do  what  he

does  best—communicate  with  his  people

and with the world. He is not trying to run

the country so much as letting the country

run itself. 

Nowhere is this more visible than in the

army,  where  Valery  Zaluzhnyi,  a  charis­

matic 48­year­old, enjoys free rein as com­

mander­in­chief.  Unlike  older  officers,

General Zaluzhnyi never served in the So­

viet army; on taking over last year he told

his officers to “turn your face to the people,

to your subordinates.” He has allowed local

commanders  to  take  a  lot  more  initiative

than  is  normal  in  post­Soviet  armies;  he

listens to the advice of his senior officers. 

How the self­organising spirit will fare

after the war’s end will depend a great deal

on what sort of end it is. If Mr Zelensky sur­

vives in office he is likely to be the most po­

werful  politician  for  generations.  The

machinations  of  the  country’s  oligarchs,

which  have  held  the  country  back  for  

years,  will  matter  much  less.  Giving  in  to

the  predilection  to  just  let  things  sort

themselves out once the crisis is over will

look more culpable. That all argues for the

possibility of reform. 

But there will be a risk of backsliding on

democracy  and  liberalism  in  a  country

which  will  be  focused  on  its  security  as

never  before.  “It  is  unlikely  that  Ukraine

will have political elections in the next few

years,”  one  observer  of  Ukrainian  politics

says. That may make eventual integration

into  the  Europe  of  the  euharder.  “Abso­

lutely liberal, European—it will not be like

that”, Mr Zelensky told journalists on April

5th.  “It  will  definitely  come  from  the

strength of every house, every building, ev­

ery  person...We  will  become  a  ‘big  Israel’

with its own face.” 

The tank traps that have replaced occa­

sional  uprisings  and  everyday  bustle  on

Maidan  will  in  time  be  taken  away.  What

the Ukrainian people will put in their place

remains to be seen. n