No World War III for now – but neither Russia nor Ukraine wants peace talks

The conditions for World War III appeared to have been met by reckless Russian aggression for a period on Tuesday night. A missile struck a farm at Przewodów, in Poland, killing two people, although evidence suggests it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.

Technically, that missile attack, with lethal consequences, constitutes a military aggression against a NATO member state, triggering Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all…”

Fortunately, Poland and its allies appear to have sensibly decided that this incident comes under Article 4 of the Treaty, which prescribes: “The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.” Since the missile strike both violates the territorial integrity and security of Poland, such consultation is urgently required. Poland convened its defence council and the Baltic States and Hungary are similarly holding urgent security discussions.

All these intimations of military insecurity and geopolitical crisis are a consequence of the behaviour of one rogue state. Russia has arrogated to itself the right to occupy the territory of a neighbouring nation, to imprison, torture and deport its citizens, to burn its towns and cities and to rain missiles down upon it, regardless of the lives of innocent people. Whether or not the missile was fired by Russia, it is the root cause of the deaths in Poland. It is intolerable that people working on drying grain, on a farm, in a country at peace, should brutally be deprived of their lives because of an entitled and incompetent aggressor.

It is notable, too, that throughout nine months of ruthless war, no city on Russian soil – save the occasional conflagration at munitions dumps, suggestive of sabotage – has suffered bombardment, missile attacks or degradation of infrastructure. It is a contest with biased rules, whereby one belligerent effectively fights with one arm tied behind its back; that makes it all the more striking that it is the handicapped contender that is winning.

Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson was a global humiliation. We may be sure it was watched, inscrutably but shrewdly, by analysts in Beijing, as well as everywhere else. Russia’s isolation at the G20 meeting in Bali was striking. It highlighted the difference between the former Soviet Union and today’s Russian Federation, a distinction that will be crucial as the events of the Ukraine war play out.

Superficially, the resemblance between the USSR and Russia is considerable. Both were, or are, expansionist military states, ruthless and amoral in pursuing geopolitical goals, while keeping their populations rigidly policed. But the USSR did not represent itself as a nation state, but as the vanguard cadre of a global revolution. Everywhere across the world, from Britain’s clubland to the South American jungle, agents and fellow travellers tirelessly worked to secure the interests of the Soviet Union. Out of the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow poured graduates, including Carlos the Jackal, trained to lead developing nations onto the sterile path of Marxism.

When the Red Army was exercising its innate penchant for beastliness in one unfortunate country or another, voting in the United Nations General Assembly invariably registered significant support for the crimes of the Praesidium, wrapped in rhetoric about Yankee imperialism. Putin’s Russia does not possess that hinterland of ideological support, since its currently prevailing ideology – bare-faced Russian expansionism, on the model of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great – does not appeal to other countries.

President Xi Jinping of China has never condemned Russia’s aggression, but neither has he given the slightest encouragement to his supposed ally. The successive Kharkiv and Kherson debacles have given him further reason to distance himself from a loser. North Korea and the embattled Iranian regime, precarious in the face of headscarf-incinerating schoolgirls, are Putin’s allies and arms suppliers now. And while it is a given that the Russian population largely swallows his propaganda, there is a known limit to that passivity.

We know that, from the precedent of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, which itself prefigured the fall of the Soviet Union. The biggest single factor in forcing the regime to execute that withdrawal was the growing pressure from soldiers’ wives and mothers, appalled by the casualty rates among Russian troops. Those casualties, over nine years, amounted to 15,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. The US military estimates that, in nine months, Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties in Ukraine. Considering the lethal character of modern weaponry and the inadequacy of Russian medical care, 80,000 of those are likely to be fatalities.

Ukraine, too, has a large butcher’s bill, but it is unlikely to be on the same scale as Russia’s. Ukrainian commanders are miserly with their men’s lives, Russian generals profligate with theirs. Despite the tight censorship in Russia, modern social media favour the dissemination of information. How long can Vladimir Putin preside over an abattoir in Ukraine until public opinion turns against him? Of course, there is a paranoid, masochistic streak in the Russian character whose instinct is to rally to the motherland when the rest of the world condemns it. Putin knows how to exploit that.

But there will come a tipping point. Meanwhile, the United States, with a GOP-controlled House in office from next January, less committed to Ukrainian aid, is urging Volodymyr Zelensky to enter peace talks. Zelensky is dependent on America, Britain and the EU for the armaments he needs to win the war, so he dare not appear unreasonable or hawkish. He has declared himself open to “genuine peace talks”, but has set out the red lines in the Ukrainian position: the restoration of all Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, reparations for the damage done to Ukraine and bringing war criminals to justice.

The scale of Ukrainian casualties dictates that all territory must be recovered, to reassure bereaved families that their menfolk did not die in vain. Vladimir Putin, in contrast, recently held a baroque ceremony in Moscow at which he purported to “annex” the territories whose return is demanded by Ukraine. Putin could not contemplate such loss of face, so the prospects for peace talks are slim. Why would Ukraine rush to the negotiating table when it is winning militarily?

The notion that Ukraine cannot win the war is looking increasingly unpersuasive. Russia’s tactic is to inflict terrible hardship on Ukraine’s population, particularly the elderly and parents with young children, by depriving it of heat, light and water, through missile attacks on the infrastructure. But Russia’s conscript army faces a Stalingrad winter in trenches, with notoriously inadequate clothing and unreliable supply of provisions. Its morale is already at rock bottom and Ukraine has pledged to fight all through the winter.

The Ukrainian public, though likely to become exhausted by energy deprivation, is on its home ground, with at least minimal levels of support and amenities. It is also buoyed up by successive large-scale victories in Kharkiv and Kherson: it trusts and respects its army and leadership; it believes it can win. Contrast that with the freezing conscripts in the Russian defence lines, with little interest in the purpose of the war, experience only of punitive casualty levels and retreats, contemptuous of their commanders.

The trend of the war suggests that, rather than prioritising Donetsk, the Ukrainian commanders intend to advance on Crimea, raising the stakes in an effort to present their Western allies, especially America, with a fait accompli. The most doveish American leader appears to be General Mark Milley: considering his woeful part in the Afghanistan debacle, it is unlikely the vengeful Ukrainians, sensing the possibility of eventual victory, will pay much heed to that siren voice. Peace talks before 2023 are now unlikely.

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