Over the weekend, Finnish President Alexander Stubb suggested that Ukraine is in its “best position” since the start of the country’s war with Russia. He claimed that for every Ukrainian soldier killed, eight Russians are dying. Yet if that were true, the number of Russian dead would exceed the size of the Russian army. The war propaganda machine is back in full force, and it relies on the assumption that the rest of us cannot count.

In recent months, Ukraine has achieved several notable tactical successes. The most prominent were the strikes on Moscow and oil refineries near St Petersburg. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones have also become more effective at hitting critical supply infrastructure in places including Mariupol.

What is happening strategically, however, is more interesting. The really bad news for Ukraine is that Russia is making advances towards Kramatorsk, one of the two major cities in Donetsk Oblast that Ukraine still controls. The good news for Kyiv is that this year, the speed of Russia’s advance has declined or, according to some reports, even come to a net halt. Ukraine has managed to push back in a couple of areas in the Donbas, even if these are not critical areas. Despite this narrative, Russia is making progress in the town of Kostyantynivka, which is around 30 km away from Kramatorsk. This would suggest that Moscow is preparing an offensive in the direction of the industrial centers of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the two main Donetsk cities still under full Ukrainian control. Kostyantynivka lies on the road between the cities of Bakhmut and Pokrovsk, which were the two most strategically important Russian conquests in the area. If Vladimir Putin’s army managed to push past Kostyantynivka, the situation would quickly become critical.

Right now, Russia occupies approximately 90% of the Donbas, including around 80-85% of Donetsk, and all of Luhansk. In an effort to combat this, Ukraine’s defensive efforts are concentrated around Donetsk, but Putin is doubling down on his main war goal: the conquest of the Donbas in its entirety. This, however, is not a goal that can be delivered to him in a peace deal. The war will continue until the moment when Putin concludes that he has more to gain from peace than from continued fighting.

At the moment, there is still much to gain, and Russia has no immediate reason to give up. Western news reports painting a dramatic picture of rising opposition in Russia against Putin, or of an imminent coup, are overhyped. One can never exclude extreme events, but these reports have no real relationship to reality. Russia entered into a recession this year, but its public finances have been bolstered by the rise in oil and gas prices. The war economy effect is over but, after a short recession, Russia is still on course to outgrow Germany this year. Nobody is collapsing.

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in the Eurointelligence newsletter.

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Wolfgang Munchau is the Director of Eurointelligence and an UnHerd columnist.

EuroBriefing

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