The White House has sent a letter to congressional leaders warning that it’s running out of money to fund the proxy war in Ukraine and pleading for Congress to authorize more spending.
“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” wrote Shalanda D. Young, the head of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. “There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money — and nearly out of time.”
According to Young, Congress has authorized $111 billion to spend on the war since the Russian invasion, but the vast majority of the funding has been used up.
“As of mid-November, DOD has used 97 percent of the $62.3 billion it received, and State has used 100 percent of the $4.7 billion in military assistance it received. Approximately $27.2 billion, or 24 percent, has been used for economic assistance and civilian security assistance (such as demining) to Ukraine, which is just as essential to Ukraine’s survival as military assistance. State and USAID have used 100 percent of this amount,” she said.
Based on recent comments from Pentagon officials, the Biden administration still has a few billion to ship weapons to Ukraine directly from US military stockpiles, part of $6 billion that became available due to a so-called “accounting error” that overvalued earlier arms shipments. But Young said the US has had to limit the weapons packages it’s been sending Ukraine.
“Already, our packages of security assistance have become smaller and the deliveries of aid have become more limited. If our assistance stops, it will cause significant issues for Ukraine. While our allies around the world have stepped up to do more, US support is critical and cannot be replicated by others,” she said.
The administration has been arguing that funding the war in Ukraine is beneficial to the US “Defense Industrial Base,” which Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pointed out is another term for the Military Industrial Complex.
“The President’s most recent national security supplemental request will build on our successful efforts to date and will direct over $50 billion into our nation’s DIB, which builds on the funding that has already been invested in manufacturing lines across 35 states,” Young wrote in the letter.
President Biden has asked Congress to authorize about $61 billion in additional funding for Ukraine as part of a massive $106 billion spending bill, which also includes military aid for Israel and Taiwan and spending on border security. Biden requested the funds in October, but Congress has yet to approve it as Republicans are looking to separate aid to Israel and want more concessions on border issues.
The idea of the $61 billion is to fund the proxy war for another year despite it being clear that Ukraine has no chance of winning the war or driving Russia out of the Ukrainian territory it has captured.
Klitschko used his credibility with Westerners to confirm that Zelensky has indeed turned into a dictator, Stoltenberg is preparing them for bad news from the front, while Brown is telling them to expect a political compromise with Russia.
Zelensky was accused by an unnamed close aide in late October of having messianic delusions of victory over Russia according to Time Magazine’s damning cover story about him, and while he’s since sobered up a bit after Politico just mocked him, the Ukrainian leader still doesn’t realize that his side lost. Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, and the US’ top general Charles Brown Jr. all debunked his remaining delusions in each of their statements over the past few days.
Beginning with the first, this famous boxing champion told Der Spiegel that “Ukraine is on the path to authoritarianism” and that the local authorities are now “under enormous pressure” from the center. This makes Klitschko the latest of Zelensky’s rivals after former advisor Alexey Arestovich and Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny. His importance amidst Ukraine’s growing political divisions is that he could one day leverage his enormous respect among the capital’s residents to lead future protests.
As for the second, he told Germany’s Das Erste TV that “wars are difficult to plan” so “we have to be prepared for bad news” from Ukraine. This follows his admission last week that “even with this substantial significant military support from NATO Allies, [Ukraine has] not, over the last year, been able to move the front line. And that just reflects the fact that we should never underestimate Russia.” He’s basically preconditioning the public for the possibility of a Russian counteroffensive sometime soon.
Rounding everything out with the new Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, this leading military official told the Reagan National Defense Forum in response to a question about the Ukrainian endgame that “any military conflict, you don’t solve it completely by military means. It ends up with a diplomatic solution.” He then added that America’s armed aid to that country is aimed at “shaping” the outcome. Simply put, he tacitly admitted that Zelensky’s envisaged maximalist victory over Russia isn’t realistic.
Putting these three statements together, they collectively contributed to debunking the Ukrainian leader’s remaining delusions by informing the public of how ridiculous each aspect thereof is. Klitschko used his credibility with Westerners to confirm that Zelensky has indeed turned into a dictator, Stoltenberg is preparing them for bad news from the front, while Brown is telling them to expect a political compromise with Russia. All told, there’s no doubt that the Ukrainian Conflict is winding down.
Pitching Congress with a proposal for more aid for Ukraine, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin conjured up a threat from Russia.
Austin said that if Congress does not appropriate $61 billion in aid for Ukraine it is “very likely” US troops on the ground in Europe will be fighting Russia.
Republican senators – for various reasons, including especially a dispute over whether to tie the aid to US border security – walked out of the briefing after only twenty minutes.
The threat that Austin imagined is that Russia, after it finishes with Ukraine, will launch attacks in Europe. Objectively, though, there is no evidence that Russia threatens anyone in Europe.
That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of Russians who think their generals should be threatenng Europe. After all, Europe is providing massive military aid, intelligence and technical help to Ukraine in the war with Russia, along with training Ukrainian troops and helping Ukraine develop its war plans. Stocks of European weapons, meant for NATO defense, have been shipped to Kiev. Most of them won’t be replaced for decades, if ever.
From Russia’s point of view the real land grabber is NATO. After all, despite Russia’s warnings and promises made to Russia that were blatantly violated, NATO expanded in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe. (The Russians were frequently assured, starting with a vow from former President Bill Clinton [it was the Bush I administration which first made the promise, not Clinton – NB], that NATO would not expand.)
Expansion has meant arming the new NATO members with top quality western weapons, building bases for NATO on their territories and threatening Russia directly.
One of the reasons Russia took over most of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II was to create a security buffer. That was not the only reason, of course; the Russians also were anxious to get hold of resources in these countries. One recalls that Russia suffered huge devastation and depopulation thanks to the Nazis and their allies.
None of this means Russia would not like to get back what it lost to NATO’s expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And, yes, it is quite true that Russia’s “Special Military Operation” can be regarded as a land grab in Ukraine.
But there is little sign that Russia intends any expansion in Eastern Europe or the Baltic States and virtually no intelligence of any kind supporting the Austin invasion thesis. If there were any concrete intelligence you can safely bet the Biden administration would let Congress know (especially when it has its hands out for more money for the war).
There are three reasons for crediting the opposite hypothesis, namely that Russia has no intention of expanding outside of the Ukraine conflict area.
The first reason is behavioral. With NATO’s war stocks at an all time low, Russia could have taken advantage of this vulnerability and moved its forces against NATO targets – for example NATO operations in Poland or in the Balkans – but have not done so.
The Russians have exercised unprecedented restraint and even tolerated aggressive intelligence flights and NATO naval exercises in the Black Sea, an extraordinarily sensitive Russian security worry. The Black Sea is not only the back door to Ukraine, it is also a route to challenge Russia itself.
Russia even exercised restraint when Ukraine used drones to hit an airfield inside Russia where nuclear bombers are based. Two of these bombers were either damaged or destroyed. Such an attack needed intelligence support from NATO, primarily the US, and the Russians no doubt understood that quite well. Yet the Russians tolerated the attack to a degree and took no steps to widen the conflict.
There is some evidence that the attack on the Soltsy-2 airbase was launched by the Ukrainians from Estonia, as Ukrainian drones did not have the range to reach the airbase.
Other examples of Russian restraint include the sinking of Russia’s flagship Moskva with US help, multiple attempts to destroy the Kerch Strait bridge connecting Russia to Crimea and multiple attacks on Moscow, including an attempt to hit Putin’s Kremlin office in what Russia says was an attempt to assassinate Putin.
The second reason to view Russia as reluctant to expand the conflict is that doing so would be immensely costly. Russia has already learned just how expensive the Ukraine war is, even though it is finally winning the war after nearly two years of fighting. But a war in Europe would add US and European fighter aircraft and bombers to Russia’s misery – even if NATO ground forces would have significant problems, according to a RAND study.
The greatest cost for Russia is manpower and casualties from the war. Figuring out actual casualties is difficult, because the Ukrainians and Russians alike either don’t tell the truth or say nothing.
Yet the fact that Russia needs to step up its military recruiting – has even filled gaps with prisoners – says that the war has taken many lives. It also means that the war’s popularity in Russia may be threatened if the numbers of killed and wounded grow too high.
It is hard to believe Russia would crank up a bigger war, given the impact on manpower. Nor would the war keep the support of the Russian people, who know how to oppose a conflict when it starts to bite them at home. That’s what forced Russia to leave Afghanistan, starting the withdrawal in May 1988 and completing it in February 1989. (That wasn’t enough to save Gorbachev or prevent a coup attempt and it led to the disintegration of the USSR.
The third reason that speaks against Russia expanding the conflict is the unanticipated wild card of Western sanctions on Russia.
In effect, responding to Putin’s “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine, NATO and many other countries aligned with the United States or with the European Union imposed heavy sanctions on Russia. This drove Russia into the arms of China and forced Russia to rethink its future. Above all it meant a realignment of Russia’s resources, trade and monetary system away from Europe and the west.
This is a decisive new factor that changes the strategic roadmap for Russia. It directly undermines the argument that Russia has something to gain from any attack on Europe. The truth is that the Russians are less and less interested in Europe or the United States. One can safely say that the extra-legal Western sanctions were a major strategic blunder for NATO and its partners and friends, as well as for the EU.
Even if a peace deal is made with Ukraine and Europe and the US lifts sanctions on Russia, it is probably too late to recover from the damage done to any future ties. Russia won’t reject trade with the West, but it is likely to make business deals only on its own terms. It is unlikely Russia will again allow western companies to operate inside Russia, and the country will increasingly team with China for technology and weapons development. In short, the west filed for divorce and the Russians accepted the final decree.
The Austin argument is, for the above reasons, false and misleading.
When the Republicans walked out of the secret briefing staged for the Senate to try and sell them on supporting more money for Ukraine, many argued that the Biden administration’s arguments were stale and unconvincing. The Biden effort to intimidate the Senate simply didn’t work.
Several days ago, the renowned, Pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published on his substack.com account an article entitled “General to General. A potential peace is being negotiated in Ukraine by military leaders.”
To be specific, Hersh said that secret talks about a possible peace are presently being conducted by Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny and Russia’s highest military officer Valery Gerasimov.
The main attention grabbing paragraph in the article was the following:
“The driving force of those talks has not been Washington or Moscow, or Biden or Putin, but instead the two high-ranking generals who run the war, Valery Gerasimov of Russia and Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine.”
The next most sensational point in the article was that part of the settlement foresees Russian acceptance of Ukraine joining NATO on condition that NATO formally commits ‘not to place NATO troops on Ukrainian soil’ or to put offensive weapons in Ukraine.
And the final key element in the settlement that would reward Russia for its acquiescence on NATO membership would be Ukraine’s recognition of Crimea as irrevocably Russian and the holding of a referendum in the Donbas and Novorossiya (Zaporozhie and Kherson) oblasts that were liberated by Russia and then joined the Russian Federation, a measure which in effect would be a fig-leaf for formal settlement of the fate of these territories as Russian once and for all.
This article has been widely commented upon in anti-establishment media outlets, which for the most part find Hersh’s revelations to be so incredible as to be unworthy of serious discussion. In a review article carried by the unofficial Chinese journal Asia Times, Stephen Bryen suggests that ‘Hersh has been sold a bill of goods, or duped…’ See “Is Hersh story on secret Ukraine peace talks true?”
In what follows, I will consider
1. why Seymour Hersh was the chosen vehicle of American intelligence operatives for bringing this remarkable story to the broad American and Western publics.
2. how elements in the story have been appearing in the writings of other more consciously (com)pliant journalists in recent weeks as a face saving ‘exit ramp’ from the failed Ukrainian adventure is being prepared by the White House
3. what from among the incredible elements exposed by Hersh may actually have some factual basis and give us a foretaste of the end-game in Ukraine as it is currently envisioned in Washington, and maybe even in Moscow
*****
After passing through a number of years in relative obscurity, after being blacklisted by all U.S. mainstream media outlets, Seymour Hersh emerged center-stage this past February when he published on his substack account a lengthy article which set out in great detail how the bombing of the Nordstream I pipeline was planned and carried out under instructions from the White House and Biden’s close advisers. Though Washington formally denied any involvement in what was arguably the biggest act of state terrorism in history, and though Germany and other interested states in Europe have since done their utmost to divert attention to a cock-and-bull story of Ukrainian responsibility for the bombing of Nord Stream I, Hersh’s account was an expose worthy of the journalistic exploits that once won him the Pulitzer and it remains highly persuasive.
Of course, at age 86 Hersh did not go out and track down the story he published in February. It was brought to him on a silver platter from unidentified sources, i.e. actors within the Administration whose motives remain unclear.
The unidentified sources who have now brought the story of secret negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian generals to end the war could count on Hersh’s profound ignorance of Russia and his desire to again win plaudits for a ‘scoop.’ Here the motives of the ‘leakers’ are not hard to find: Hersh was indeed being duped in an operation to condition Western publics for an end to the Ukraine war under conditions that present defeat as victory.
Let me be perfectly clear: the notion that Russia’s General Gerasimov could on his own volition enter into talks with his Ukrainian opposite number to end the hostilities is a notion that can be entertained only by someone who fails to comprehend what the ‘vertical of power’ in Russia is all about.
At the same time, presumably to illustrate the high standing of Gerasimov, Hersh has placed at the very start of his article a photo of Putin and Gerasimov seated face to face under which we read the following caption:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting with General Valery Gerasimov at the headquarters of the Russian armed forces in Rostov-on-Don in October”
This photo is more interesting than Hersh and most readers of his article could imagine. Indeed, this very meeting in October was given video coverage on prime time Russian television on the day it occurred. We saw how Putin arrived by car well after dark following a flight to the Rostov headquarters by helicopter, how he shook hands with Gerasimov and with Defense Minister Shoigu who was also present; then we were shown how Putin departed. There was not a word about the content of these top level talks. Only a couple of days later in a dedicated television news segment did we learn that Russia had just carried out a full scale test of the battle readiness of all three arms of its strategic nuclear triad, which may be described as a direct message to Washington to proceed with great care in the Ukraine war and to think twice before authorizing any further escalation of its deliveries to Kiev of advanced offensive weapons.
A similar news report on Russian state television less than two weeks ago showed Putin, Gerasimov and Shoigu holding talks in secret at the Rostov-on-Don military headquarters. However, in the time since then no extraordinary event in the war or in overall military activities that could be matched with the talks in Rostov. I believe that Putin’s preparing Gerasimov for a meeting with Zaluzhny would fit that description.
At the same time, it is fantasy to think that Ukraine’s general Zaluzhny would risk accusations of treason if he were on his own, acting out of ambition or out of motives to save what is left of the Ukrainian armed forces, to defy President Zelensky and the standing decree prohibiting talks with the Russians so long as Putin remains in power. To suggest that he was doing so because he received backing from Washington as the Americans seek to bypass the obstinate or delusional Zelensky and find an escape path from the Ukrainian disaster is also to misunderstand how things work even in Ukraine, however dysfunctional the ruling elites may appear to be. Let us instead, turn things around: Zaluzhny would assume the role of savior of the nation only at the urging and with ironclad guarantees of protection coming from the Biden administration.
*****
The elements of a possible peace set out in the Hersh article have been circulating for weeks now in the publications and television appearances of mainstream U.S. journalists and academics. There are numerous variations in the combinations of compromises that both Ukrainian and Russian sides are called upon to make according to which academic or pundit is penning any given article.
Let us pause for a moment to look at what one widely read academic / journalist is saying. I have in mind Anatol Lieven and his latest article published on responsiblestatecraft.org: “Biden’s role in Ukraine peace is clear now.”
In popular estimation, Lieven is a middle of the road expert with great depth of experience reporting on Russia. In my estimation, he is a chameleon who speaks out of both sides of his mouth to win over the maximum number of fans. Lieven wallows in the celebrity he enjoys while saying what the bosses in the Administration want him to say.
Going back more than a year, Lieven was especially sympathetic to the Ukrainian side in the war, never more so than when he returned from a visit to Ukraine during which he landed in a hospital and soaked up the anti-Russian vitriol of his fellow patients. He was a longtime defender of Ukrainian resilience and moral strength in standing up to the Russian bully. He was a seeming believer in ultimate Ukrainian victory. Now he has shifted to a position acknowledging the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the hopelessness of the Ukrainian military prospects.
His message today has changed 180 degrees and yet he seeks to find a way to present defeat as victory, in keeping with the boys in the White House staff. I quote at length:
“A ceasefire and negotiations for a peace settlement are therefore becoming more and more necessary for Ukraine. Indeed, if the fighting stopped along the existing battle lines, more than 80 percent of Ukraine would be fully independent of (and bitterly hostile to) Russia and free to do its best to move towards membership of the European Union.
“Given the Kremlin’s original aims when it launched the invasion last year, and of the history of Russia’s domination of Ukraine over the past 300 years, this would be not a Ukrainian defeat, but, on the contrary, a tremendous Ukrainian victory. If, on the other hand, the war continues indefinitely, there is a real possibility that Ukrainian resistance may collapse, whether through the exhaustion of its manpower or because Russia’s additional forces allow it to reopen the fronts in northern Ukraine that it pulled back from last year and that Ukraine lacks the troops to defend.”
Following from this, Lieven argues for a settlement now, well in advance of the U.S. elections, when a Ukrainian collapse would be very damaging for any Democratic candidate.
He says that to bring the Russians around, Washington will have to make major concessions to the fundamental Russian demands from before the start of the war:
“[Russia] will need to be assured that Washington is prepared to discuss seriously a final settlement involving neutrality for Ukraine (of course, including international security guarantees), mutual force limitations in Europe, the lifting of sanctions, and some form of inclusive European security architecture to reduce the danger of more wars in the future.”
Lieven hopes that the Global South and China, in particular, can be induced “to issue a strong collective call for a ceasefire and peace talks.”
The elements in the concessions to Russia that Lieven proposes are somewhat vague. They are considerably more generous than what Seymour Hersh is proposing. No matter. Both gentlemen and dozens of their peers are being encouraged by the policy formulators in the Administration to prepare the Russians to enter into talks and to prepare the American and European publics for an end to the war that is a defeat dressed up as a victory.
*****
As I intimated above, it is entirely possible that there have been direct talks about ending the war between Gerasimov and Zaluzhny in the past couple of weeks, though neither would be an independent actor as Hersh mistakenly believes.
I will go one step further and say that it is entirely possible that the Russian side suggested that it could accept Ukraine’s entry into NATO if there was a public commitment never to post NATO forces on Ukrainian territory and not to deliver offensive weapons to Ukraine. Such things can be monitored and if there are violations they can lead directly to revocation of the agreement before any harm is done to Russian security interests.
The possible advantage to the Russian side would be to offer the Americans a face-saving exit ramp, thereby ending any possibility of dangerous escalation of American – NATO involvement on the ground should the Ukrainian forces collapse.
Vladimir Putin has been very cautious in conducting this war precisely because the Russians have a decidedly low opinion of the professionalism, and at times even of the sanity of their American counterparts. Putin is strong enough in his entourage of elites and in the broad Russian public to make a persuasive case for any settlement that ensures Russian security interests are served and that the sacrifices in men and fortune that this war has cost will be justified by the outcome.
Even in the less attractive peace terms set out by Hersh, the positive results for Russia would be the definitive liberation of most of the Russian speaking territories of Ukraine from rule by Kiev and their incorporation into the Russian Federation, the de facto demilitarization of Ukraine given its losses on the order of one million men dead or incapacitated, and the confidence that Ukraine can no longer be used as an advance attack platform of NATO against his country.
‘Agency’ might be the word of the decade so far. When applied to the Ukraine war, the term is usually taken to mean that we must follow the lead of Ukrainians themselves – keeping mum about peace talks, sending more weapons, and supporting the maximalist aims of the Kyiv government. John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus, has described those calling for diplomacy as ‘blinkered and arrogant’, urging them to ‘listen to our progressive brothers and sisters in Ukraine’ instead of ‘some set of abstract principles’. Writing in Foreign Policy, Alexey Kovalev has condemned the ‘twisted worldview’ of peace activists for whom ‘Ukrainians have no agency and Russia is the victim of a proxy war’. For such commentators, there is no need to untangle the knotted historical context or weigh up competing Ukrainian interests; we can simply switch our brains off and outsource all decision-making to those under attack. This discourse is prevalent across the ideological spectrum, including on the left. At best, it has served as an intellectual cheat code for eliding the conflict’s complexities; at worst, it has shut down debate and silenced dissent. What are its underlying assumptions? And does its image of Ukraine align with the reality?
Pro-war commentators tend to see ‘Ukrainian opinion’ as a monolithic entity, embodied by those who oppose negotiations with Moscow and favour fighting until the country’s borders are restored to their pre-2014 lines. This notion is particularly prominent in the US and UK, where martial political cultures have fed the public images of a unified Ukrainian people who ‘will never surrender’, regardless of the toll it takes. After a recent trip to military hospitals in Lviv and Kyiv, Boris Johnson wrote that wounded Ukrainians ‘don’t want any anthems for doomed youth or moaning about the pity of war. They want to get on with killing Russians and expelling the invader from their land.’ Any Westerner who contradicts them is accused of being condescending or aloof.
It is true that most surveys depict a Ukrainian public that overwhelmingly backs the continued war effort – which is hardly surprising in a nation that has suffered unjustifiable aggression from its neighbour. But such polling has often excluded those in Russian-occupied or separatist-controlled areas, along with the millions who have fled the country, many of them from Ukraine’s south and east. More comprehensive studies suggest that Ukrainians are, in fact, divided on the question of a ceasefire when these demographics are taken into account. Support for one is significant among the displaced population, and is reaching around 40% in regions that have been hit hardest by the war.
In Crimea, separatism – whether joining Russia or becoming an independent state – has fallen in and out of favour since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It may not have commanded a majority in 2014, when Putin used a dubious referendum to justify his seizure of the territory. Yet a series of polls since then show that most Crimeans are now content to remain part of Russia. This is likely connected to the post-2014 Ukrainian retaliation against the region, which included cutting off its water supply and creating chronic shortages for its residents. While the 2014 annexation was a naked act of aggression, it would be hard to argue that a military reincorporation of the region into Ukraine would be legitimate either. It would certainly be contrary to the people’s will, or ‘agency’. (According to Zelensky’s government, at least 200,000 Crimeans would face collaboration charges were the territory recaptured by Kyiv.)
The picture is more complicated in the Donbas – but even there, ‘listening’ to Ukrainians throws up certain difficulties. When I interviewed two communists in Donetsk last autumn, Svetlana and Katia, both told me that Ukrainian shelling, which their communities have suffered since the eruption of civil war in 2014, had worsened significantly since the start of the Russian invasion. ‘This is primarily due to Western arms deliveries to Ukraine’, said Katia. ‘There are no safe places left in Donetsk.’ Svetlana recalled an incident where shelling had killed a young girl and her grandmother in the city centre, and vented her frustrations at the city’s constantly ravaged infrastructure. When I spoke with her, Ukrainian forces had just bombed the local water supply. ‘Every time our workers fix something, the next day it’s totally destroyed.’
While neither had any love for Russia or for Putin’s invasion, they explained how events like these – along with what Katia described as a long-standing and worsening ‘Donbassophobia’ in the country’s west – had left them out of sync with the perceived national mood. They both favoured peace talks and an end to the fighting, even if they were pessimistic it would hold. There is good reason to think Svetlana and Katia’s views are not unique. Within the Donbas, public opinion on the most desirable political outcome – whether it’s autonomy within Ukraine, absorption by Russia or outright independence – is fluid. A majority appeared to favour some kind of secession from Ukraine in 2021; and the most recent major surveys, conducted in January 2022, found that just over 50% of respondents in both Kyiv-controlled and separatist areas agreed with the statement ‘It doesn’t matter to me in which country I live: all I want is a good salary and then a good pension.’ This sentiment may well have hardened over the subsequent months of bloody warfare.
*
There are also the many Ukrainians who do not wish to fight. Following the invasion, the government immediately barred men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Many of those who tried to flee were stopped by authorities, separated from their families and sent back to be conscripted. Since then, scores of Ukrainians have defied the order, resorting to elaborate schemes – often costly, sometimes life-threatening – to escape across the border. Thousands are facing criminal proceedings for doing so and hundreds have already been convicted. A Ukrainian official revealed in June that the Border Guard was detaining up to twenty men per day trying to make the illegal journey, while the BBC recently found that 20,000 men have fled to avoid conscription since the invasion.
Those still in Ukraine have gone to great lengths to not be drafted, staying off the streets, resorting to bribery and consulting Telegram channels set up to help people avoid military recruiters, some of which have more than 100,000 members. Reports suggest that recent conscripts are overwhelmingly poor, whereas those with money have increasingly been able to buy their way out. A petition opposing aggressive recruitment strategies received more than 25,000 signatures last year, above the threshold necessary to elicit an official response from the president. None of this paints a picture of, in the words of Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates, a wholly ‘determined partner’ that is ‘willing to bear the consequences of war’, nor of a people who ‘do not fear a long war but an inconclusive one’, as one former CIA officer remarked. Nor does it indicate a population that uniformly views peace talks and concessions as greater evils than prolonged bloodshed.
There are, indeed, a considerable number of Ukrainians who believe that ‘even a “bad” peace is better than a “good” war’. After the invasion, prominent politicians and media figures called for negotiations and, in one case, outright surrender. Should we have listened to them simply because of their nationality? Or, indeed, to the minority of the population that actively support Russia? Left-wing Ukrainians who oppose diplomacy and a ceasefire are sometimes cited in the Western press and held up as a paradigm for their Western comrades; but their views are hardly unanimous. Volodymyr Chemerys, the respected human rights advocate who played a leading role in multiple Ukrainian revolutions and staunchly opposed Moscow’s invasion, has called on Zelensky to negotiate since the start of the invasion. When I interviewed him last year, he complained ‘that several small groups that call or called themselves “left”, in fact, have become personnel serving the Kyiv authorities, supporting imperialism and war, denying the existence of Nazism in Ukraine, rejoicing about repressions against left-wing activists and the banning of left-wing parties.’ Marxist groups like the Workers’ Front of Ukraine, and prominent activists like the Kononovich brothers, have taken similar anti-war positions. Listening to Ukrainian voices, given their diversity, is more complicated than Western pro-war commentators suggest. It is inevitably selective, and it requires an exercise of political judgement to decide between contradictory viewpoints. How could it not?
There is also the obvious fact that a population’s ‘agency’, or what we might usually call public opinion, is not static. It is influenced by a variety of factors and subject to external manipulation. Ukrainian views on the war have emerged in a climate of intense patriotism and heightened government repression, with pacifists and leftists facing prosecution, imprisonment and even torture for their political views. Opposition parties have been banned en masse and media outlets shut down or placed under government control, with the Ukrainian parliament recently voting to strengthen the system of state censorship.
As peace activist Ruslan Kotsaba – now in the US after being persecuted for his anti-war views – told me, ‘All opposition figures previously promoting the peaceful resolution of conflict with Russia have either fled or are in prison’, giving peace talks the air of ‘playing for Putin’ or being ‘the work of enemy agents’. When he visited Ukraine in March, Anatol Lieven found that Ukrainians open to conceding Crimea as part of a negotiated settlement dared not make their views known on the record. The bellicose ‘consensus’ in the country reflects these dynamics. With nonconforming positions marginalized by the media and political class, mass opinion is shaped by officials in Kyiv.
Such malleability is perhaps best illustrated by Ukrainian attitudes toward NATO – another issue frequently cited by Western hawks who defend the country’s ‘sovereign right’ to join the alliance. Until 2014, only a minority of the population expressed support for membership (more have favoured a military alliance with Russia at various points since the breakup of the USSR). Historically, a plurality of Ukrainians have viewed NATO as a threat. George W. Bush’s attempt to draw the country into the military compact was met with angry protests that saw American flags set aflame on the streets of Kyiv. Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks revealed that Ukrainian officials, rattled by the scale of opposition, joined their American and NATO counterparts in stressing the need for ‘public education campaigns’ to persuade the Ukrainian population. This was as clear a violation of Ukrainian agency as you could get – yet you’ll be hard pressed to find establishment commentators, then or since, who objected to it on those grounds.
*
Throughout the war, Ukrainian ‘agency’ has only been invoked by Western governments when it happens to align with their geopolitical interests, and steadfastly ignored when it doesn’t. NATO states and their client media have, on various occasions, been more than willing to defy the Ukrainian leadership. For months after the invasion, Zelensky called, both publicly and privately, for Western support in negotiations with Moscow, to no avail. Even after the discovery of the war crimes committed in Bucha, he insisted that ‘we have no other choice’ but diplomacy. In May 2022, a majority of Ukrainians polled by the National Democratic Institute – a quasi-governmental entity connected to the US Democratic Party – favoured peace talks. Yet, curiously, those insisting that the West defer to Ukrainian wishes did not amplify Zelensky’s pleas. They expressed no outrage at this denial of his agency and ignored the well-corroborated fact that the US and British governments worked to scuttle a tentative peace deal he was negotiating. Instead, they spent months arguingagainst a negotiated settlement and in favour of a total military victory. They proved willing to overlook both the Ukrainian president and people in pursuit of this goal, regardless of the risks involved.
For almost two years, Ukrainian agency has only counted when it means prolonging the war – not when it might mean ending it. Nor does it apply to the designs of Western multinationals on Ukraine’s natural resources, nor to EU plans to use the country’s ballooning national debt and reconstruction costs – which grow with every week the war continues – to impose neoliberal shock therapy. Few invoked national sovereignty and agency when the US and Europe pressured Ukrainian leaders to enforce brutal austerity on their own people and open their farmland to foreign ownership. Today, reports suggest that Washington may finally be nudging Kyiv toward peace talks, only now against the wishes of Zelensky, whose vehement opposition to compromise no longer aligns with Washington’s evolving view of the war as a lost cause that is siphoning resources from a future showdown with China. In each case, the Western commentariat has had zero qualms about overriding Ukraine’s hallowed autonomy. It appears that certain forms of external interference – namely, those that come from the world hegemon and its relays – are considered entirely legitimate.
In a long–divided country like Ukraine, whose fault lines have deepened after years of civil war, public opinion is complex and differentiated. That Western war enthusiasts refuse to acknowledge this, and display no interest in the views of Ukrainians like Svetlana and Katia, is not especially surprising. Like other concepts that have migrated from liberal identitarian politics into the international arena, such as ‘Westsplaining’ and standpoint epistemology, the selective invocation of ‘agency’ was never really meant to reflect the nuances of Ukrainian thought. More often than not, these buzzwords are used to flatten them out. The result is a stifled political discourse and a rigidly conformist outlook the war, from opinionators spanning right and left.
The stakes are larger than Ukraine, as great as those already are. Before this war is even over, another great power conflict is brewing between the US and China. Once again, the ‘agency’ and ‘voices’ of those caught in the middle – this time on the island of Taiwan – are being wielded to whip well-meaning Westerners behind Washington’s aggressive foreign policy, even though it is those same people who will suffer most from its recklessness.
Here, we should pause to consider whether ‘public opinion’ – mutable, unstable, subject to ideological and circumstantial pressures – can be a reliable touchstone for the left. We should also question the wisdom of grounding our political positions in certain identities or experiences that are said to hold particular epistemic authority. In matters of war and peace, our political judgment ought to be informed by the ‘public’; but as in the domestic sphere, this can only be done by recognizing its heterogeneity, and by interrogating the complex factors that give rise to the ‘majority view’. Asking us to follow the latter uncritically may simply be a matter of political expedience for Washington and its subsidiaries, but coming from leftists, it’s a demand for intellectual cowardice.
