Year Five
What is there to say?
There has been some self-serving and sanctimony in the posts we have read marking the fourth anniversary of the ‘full-scale’ invasion.
It is right to underline that the invasion started in 2014: ignoring that is ignoring the Ukrainians in Crimea and Donbas who have suffered under Moscow for 12 years. Ignoring that normalises Moscow’s brutal repression of millions of Ukrainians, abandoning them to a fell future. The notion that those people and their lands are somehow Russian has already become consolidated in political and diplomatic discourse, testimony to the pestiferous force of Russian manipulation.
The other point about marking 23/24 February has been the jocoserious tone from many, the NAFO crowd and others mocking the Russians for getting stuck in Ukraine. So far, so hilarious.
Like the duration of the war, or the ratio between land won vs people killed bothers Russian President Vladimir Putin much. Again, to josh about ‘Kyiv in three days’ and ‘the SMO is going to plan’ seems callous, denigrating the deaths of the thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians who have been killed.
This mindless neglect of the human costs that the Ukrainians are paying continues in this ridiculous trope about ‘resilient Ukraine’. The Lvivksi project has been involved in the war long enough to know that this casual remark is patronising. It reduces the real human toll to a fetish, a throw-away comment to use at seminars and lectures; it excuses us from any real human engagement with the Ukrainians which would necessitate us helping them properly.
What next?
The Lvivksi project’s staff have had an exceptional record in the last decade in advising governments over likely Russian actions.
However, now we find it very difficult to see how the war develops. Europe is hoping on Russia’s economy to run out of fuel, to an extent where the Kremlin has to reconsider how it funds its invasion. We are not economic experts, so are unable to offer any assessment of where Russia’s economy is heading. In any case, economic experts appear irreconcilably divided on how long Moscow can pay for the war.
Even if Russia does relent, or concedes, or admits defeat, or collapses, then the issue of its relationship with Ukraine—and Europe—needs to be solved.
Russia and Europe
Russia is not Europe: beware, there appears to be a surge in information manipulation across social media that Russia is in fact part of Europe.
Pro-Russian nationalist reporter Leonid Ragozin, 23 February
This is categorically not the case. Russia is distinct from Europe, culturally, civilisationally, linguistically, socially, and geographically. We wager that people who claim otherwise are formulating a skewed homology and lack a sophisticated understanding of categorical relationships, or are being deliberately manipulative.
The real test case of the relationship between Russia and Europe is over Ukraine: if Russia really was a European country, then it would withdraw from Ukraine completely. Its people would countenance a total retreat. And yet that seems highly unlikely: the Kremlin (whose Foreign Policy Concept defines Russia as a unique ‘Eurasian’ country-civilization) seems likely to want to be included in Europe on its own terms, as a ploy to infiltrate and distort Europe into a body that Moscow can dominate.
The best—only—thing that Europe can do it to stick to its values and preserve them forcibly. This means prioritising collective security and preparing to counter a Russia that views its national mission in opposition to Europe’s. This is unlikely to be resolved in 2026, or any time soon.
This should be enough to warn Europeans of the mirage of cordial relations or negotiations with Putin. Why should we assume that is prepared to see hundreds of thousands of his people killed, why would we presume that he views non-Russians more favourably?