The Economist May 21st 2022 Europe 49
is offlimits. Russia has laid mines, too.
About 80 foreign ships are now stuck in
Ukrainian waters; some have been sunk.
“Mining is easy; demining is compli
cated,” notes a Western diplomat. Ukraine
lacks the capacity to clear the necessary
sealanes. Moreover, says another dip
lomat, “If things are demined for the pur
poses of letting the wheat out, but then
Russians are allowed to sneak in and attack
Odessa, that’s a problem.” As the Russian
advance falters, however, President Volo
dymyr Zelensky has told visiting American
congressmen that arming Ukraine with
more antiship missiles could allow de
mining to start.
Protecting convoys might require a
substantial nato naval presence. This rais
es questions related to the Montreux Con
vention of 1936, which regulates shipping
in the Turkish straits. Turkey has invoked
Article 19, in effect barring passage to the
navies of belligerent states—a move that
affects Russia more than others. Turkey
has informally told other countries not to
deploy warships in the Black Sea. It could
take such measures formally under Article
21 if it felt “threatened with imminent dan
ger of war”.
The convention anyhow limits war ves
sels from nonlittoral states, and how long
they can stay in the Black Sea. A nato oper
ation would thus require the frequent rota
tion of ships. Turkey is a nato member and
faces no such limits. But its dealings with
Russia are ambiguous: it has sold Ukraine
the muchcelebrated Bayraktar tb2 com
bat drone, but has also declined to impose
sanctions on Russia and has allowed oli
garchs’ superyachts to shelter in its waters.
The debate over convoys has echoes of
the earlier one over imposing a nofly zone
over western Ukraine: are nato allies rea
dy to risk a direct fight with Russia? Presi
dent Joe Biden said no to a nofly zone.
That would risk “World War III”, he said.
Without American backing, it is hard to
imagine others confronting Russia.
The faint hope is that international
pressure, particularly from nonWestern
countries, may persuade Russia to relent.
Some in the un think—or hope—that Vlad
imir Putin, its president, will not want to
be accused of causing global hunger. Antó
nio Guterres, the un secretarygeneral, has
suggested a deal whereby Russia would al
low food shipments out of Odessa in ex
change for easing of sanctions on fertiliser
exports from Belarus and Russia.
Many officials think Mr Putin is, if any
thing, even more determined to crush Uk
raine economically given his failure to
conquer it militarily. Western diplomats
say reopening Ukrainian ports is not a
practical option for at least six months. A
Ukrainian one is blunter: “There is no
point in escorting merchant ships if nobo
dy is prepared to shoot back at Russia. The
onlyanswerisforustodefeatRussia.”
America, which currently holds the
presidencyoftheunSecurityCouncil,is
pushingforactiononimprovingfoodse
curitygenerally.Theeffortisintendedin
parttoprovetofencesittingcountriesthat
thewarinUkraine,andtheeconomicdis
ruptionitiscausing,shouldbeblamedon
Russia,nottheWest.
Westerncountriesmayyetputforward
a motioncallingforthereopeningofOdes
sa,ifonlytoforceRussiatouseitsveto.
TheunGeneralAssembly,whichincludes
allmembers,requiresanycountrycasting
a vetotoexplainitselfbeforetheassembly
withintendays.Russiamaynotcare,says
RichardGowanoftheInternationalCrisis
Group, athinktank.“Insome waysthe
greatestriskisthatRussiasaysyestore
openingOdessabutthencreatesallman
nerofproceduralobstacles.”n
Kramatorsk
Barvinkove Slovyansk
Izyum
Severodonetsk
Donetsk
Belgorod
Luhansk
Kharkiv
L u h a n s k
t s k
bas
Luhansk
Donetsk Areacontrolledby
Russian-backed
separatists
beforeFeb24th
Do
nba
UKRAINE s
RUSSIA
Mariupol
Siverskyi
Donets
75 km
ClaimedasRussian-controlled
AssessedRussianadvances*
AssessedasRussian-controlled
Claimed Ukrainian
counter-attacks
May 18th 222
*Russia operated
in or attacked, but
does not control
Sources: Institute for
the Study of War; AEI’s
Critical Threats Project
Ukraine
The relief of
Kharkiv
And the imminent fall of Mariupol
E
ighty yearsago the second Battle of
Kharkov was raging in what was then
the western Soviet Union. The Red Army
had heroically driven the Nazi Wehrmacht
back from the gates of Moscow. It gathered
in a bulge west of Izyum, a town to the
south of Kharkov, as Ukraine’s second city
was then known. The subsequent Soviet
offensive, launched on May 12th 1942, was a
disaster. Soviet armies were driven back
and encircled. Over 170,000 Soviet troops
were killed. Nikita Khrushchev later fo
cused on the battle when denouncing his
tyrannical predecessor as Soviet leader.
“This is Stalin’s military ‘genius’,” he
sneered, citing the crude tactics of frontal
assault. “This is what it cost us.”
The Russian army is once again gath
ered around Izyum. And once more it is in
retreat from Kharkiv, as the city is now
called, after another underwhelming cam
paign failed to take it. Ukrainian counter
attacks to the north and east of the city
have forced the Russians back tens of kilo
metres, out of artillery range of the city
and, in places, back to the border. It has
been over a month since Russia, having
abandoned its assault on Kyiv, launched a
fresh offensive in the east. The idea was to
encircle Ukrainian troops in a large salient
stretching from Izyum in the north to the
city of Donetsk in the south, in part by driv
ing south from Izyum.
There have been minor successes. Rus
sia has now taken almost all of Luhansk
province—it held only the southern part
before the war—bar a salient around the
welldefended city of Severodonetsk. It has
also pushed south of Izyum, taking villages
towards Barvinkove, an important rail
junction, and the industrial cities of Slo
vyansk and Kramatorsk. Yet progress has
been slow—one or two kilometres a day—
and casualties heavy. The war is now
dominated by grinding artillery duels,
rather than swift mechanised offensives.
Much of Donetsk province is still in Ukrai
nian hands, though its port city of Mariu
pol has now fallen to the Russians, bar the
presence of a small number of fighters still
hunkering down in the Azovstal steel
works in the east of the city. On May 16th,
an initial group of 264 fighters surren
dered; others have since followed.
The Russians’ generally slow progress
is no surprise. Conventional military theo
ry says that attackers need a threetoone
advantage over defenders to break through
defensive lines. Russia is far short of that.
Its units are operating below their full
strength, some severely so, despite efforts
to coax exservicemen back into action
with big pay packets. Even if Russian forces
get as far as Severodonetsk, Slovyansk and
Kramatorsk, the heavy casualties from ur
ban warfare are likely to sap their capacity
to fight yet further.
Ukrainian forces are grimly confident.
Their warplanes are active over Donbas, in
cluding Izyum itself, despite the proximity
to Russian airdefence systems over the
border to the east. In the past two weeks,
Ukrainian drones and jets have also repeat
edly struck Russian helicopters, landing
craft and surfacetoair missiles on and
around Snake Island, a tiny outcrop in the
northwestern corner of the Black Sea, near
Odessa. And while Russia is struggling to
replenish its forces, Western arms—in
cluding heavy artillery—are now flowing