Ukrainian bravery makes compromise seem cowardly – but this is how the war will end

What is happening, apart from tragedy? There are three questions. Each is crucial. All are inter-related. All seem unanswerable. The first is double-headed: Putin’s state of mind and his control of the Russian state’s central power structures. The second is his current objectives. The third is the West’s – and the Ukrainians’ – scope for offering him an escape route so that he could agree to a ceasefire without losing all his prestige.

One thing is clear. Putin grievously miscalculated. He expected a blitzkrieg. His forces would overrun eastern and central Ukraine, including all the major cities. There would be a western rump based on Lviv, but the Ukraine as Peter the Great and Stalin understood it would be back in Russian hands.

The West would protest. There would be boycotts and talks of sanctions: so what? The EU’s scope for non-verbal retaliation was circumscribed by energy dependence. Europeans seemed keener to impose sanctions on J.K. Rowling than on their strategic enemies. For years, European electorates had been offered a peace dividend. As long as it was paid, they did not show much concern about the peace element.

As for the Americans, Putin had snaffled Crimea. The response? In Macbeth’s words, sound and fury, signifying nothing. The Russian leader had heard President Obama claim that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a red line. They were used. There was redness, from spilt blood. There was no line. Then came the abandonment of Afghanistan. For years, to continue in Macbeth-speak, it was possible to believe that Western foreign policy was a tale told by an idiot.

One suspects that no-one in the Russian secret service has ever suffered career damage by telling Putin what he wanted to hear and that the words “worst-case analysis” do not translate into Putinese. Equally, the products of an authoritarian social system might be contemptuous of the cultural chaos in much of the West and fail to realise that this is often much more superficial than it seems. As for the Americans, someone should have reminded Putin of Churchill’s dictum, that the Americans always do the right thing, but only when they have exhausted all the other alternatives. After Afghanistan, Joe Biden had exhausted the weak alternatives – especially with the mid-term elections now approaching. So it seems certain that the Putin entourage seriously underestimated the West’s willingness to fight.

They also misread the mood in Ukraine. Given proximity, that was an extraordinary mistake, and a gravely culpable one. Again, it appears to be a case of convincing yourself as to the truth of what the boss wants to believe.

Some of Putin’s commanders also appear to have overestimated their own fighting qualities. A forty-mile column: what can that possibly mean? The answer: a failing military doctrine. Failure also seems to apply to a lot of Russian kit. In recent years, a number of Western analysts have been impressed by Putin’s attempts to upgrade Russian weaponry. Admittedly, given the travails of the Type-45 destroyer, we Brits are not in a strong position to gloat over malfunctioning weapons’ systems, but the Russian materiel is not as good as we – and they – thought. Could corruption and embezzlement be to blame? It does seem that the oligarchs’ yachts work better that some of the hardware which they sold to pay for them.

In the last few days, there have been hints that the Russians were ready to modify their war-arms and concentrate on the Donbass. If that were true, we might be seeing a glimpse of hope for a cease-fire. 

Yet it is still possible the Russians will simply persevere. The tanks will roll forward, the shell-fire will pound away, the hellish conditions in besieged cities will grind down the inhabitants’ morale. As for Russian casualties, matters might have improved since 1944/45, when Zhukov would complain that some of his subordinates were “too reluctant to break matches” – by which he meant lose vast numbers of their men’s lives. But body bags may not break the Russians’ fighting zeal as quickly as we hoped.

That has risks. Russian military doctrine includes the use of battlefield nuclear weapons (by them). If they are determined to win this war, the world has now become a dangerous place.

In view of the heart-rending courage of the Ukrainian populace, it seems cowardly to talk of a compromise. Yet ultimately, there will have to be one. However magnificently the Ukrainians are fighting and resisting, they will never reconquer the Donbass. Moreover, when Western politicians talk about a war-crimes trial for President Putin, they are wasting their breath. In recent days, there have been suggestions that some powerful Russian securocrats have doubts. Will this turn out to be fatal for Putin, or will the doubters hold their tongues. After the disasters of 1941, there must have been some secret doubters in Stalin’s Kremlin, who simply set out to be secret survivors. 

Perhaps there could be a different outcome now, but there is no reason to believe that any growing Puto-sceptic faction would be assisted by Western attacks on him: fantasies about putting him in an English prison and what have you. That might even help him to posture as a Russian patriot.

We can be confident on one point. We will never have to ally with him as we did with Stalin. But if Putin were toppled and the new regime offered an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks, we should shake any proffered hand with enthusiasm, without insisting that it should first be tested for blood-stains.