The awful truth is dawning: Putin may win in Ukraine. The result would be catastrophe
A Russian victory would herald a new age of instability, economic fragmentation, hunger for millions and social unrest
A Russian soldier patrols at the Mariupol drama theatre, which was hit by an airstrike last month. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images
Sun 24 Apr 2022
Last modified on Sun 24 Apr 2022 04.36 EDT
The contrast was startling. In New York, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, launched a belated, desperately needed initiative to halt the war in Ukraine.
“At this time of great peril and consequence, he [Guterres] would like
to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace,” his spokesman said. The
UN chief, he revealed, was proposing immediate, in-person talks with
Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv.
At
roughly the same time as this hopeful development unfolded, the UK’s
Boris Johnson, riding a “Partygate” getaway plane to India, was
colourfully rubbishing peace efforts.
Putin, he claimed, was an untrustworthy reptile. “I really don’t see
how the Ukrainians can easily sit down and come to some kind of
accommodation. How can you negotiate with a crocodile when it’s got your
leg in its jaws?” Johnson asked.
This
gaping disconnect is doubly disturbing. It suggests lack of
coordination between the UN chief and a permanent member of the UN
security council on how best to proceed. It also highlights a wider problem:
diverging, sometimes opposing, occasionally self-serving, approaches to
the crisis by western leaders who have hitherto trumpeted their unity
of purpose.
The outrage in western countries
sparked by Putin’s 24 February invasion is starting to fade. Likewise
the burst of optimism that followed Ukraine’s success in repelling the
Russian advance around Kyiv. Now, as Moscow begins a huge, slow-motion offensive
in the east, concern grows that this conflict has no end-point and that
the enormous economic and human damage that results may be permanent –
and global.
Johnson
supports a free, independent Ukraine but, like other alliance leaders,
appears to lack a thought-through, long-term plan to achieve it
Johnson,
typically, is not looking much beyond the present moment. The UK and
Nato, he said, would just “keep going with the strategy” of imposing
sanctions on Russia and supplying weapons to Kyiv. Johnson supports a
free, independent Ukraine but, like other alliance leaders, appears to
lack a thought-through, long-term plan to achieve it. What if Ukrainian
forces start losing? What if the country is partitioned, or nears collapse?
The
price of failure – the true cost of a Putin victory – could be
staggering. It is potentially unsupportable for fractious western
democracies and poorer countries alike, beset by simultaneous
post-pandemic security, energy, food, inflation and climate crises. Yet
out of myopic self-interest over issues such as Russian oil and gas
imports, and from fear of wider escalation, western leaders duck the tough choices that could ensure Ukraine’s survival and help mitigate such ills.
The
past week furnished a grim glimpse of the future that awaits if Putin
is able to continue to wage war with impunity, commit more heinous
crimes, threaten nuclear and chemical blackmail and trash the UN
charter. Drastically downgrading its growth forecasts due to the
conflict, the International Monetary Fund predicted global economic fragmentation, rising debt and social unrest.
David Malpass, head of the World Bank, said a “human catastrophe” loomed as an unprecedented, estimated 37% rise in food prices,
caused by war-related disruption to supplies, pushed millions into
poverty, increased malnutrition, and reduced funding for education and
healthcare for the least well-off.
More than 5
million people have fled Ukraine in two months, and more will follow,
exacerbating an international migration emergency that extends from
Afghanistan to the Sahel. In drought-hit east Africa, the World Food
Programme says 20 million people may face starvation this year. Putin’s war did not create the drought, but the UN warns it could hurt efforts to reduce global heating, thereby triggering further displacement and forced migration.
The
broader, negative political impact of the war, should it rage on
indefinitely, is almost incalculable. The UN’s future as an
authoritative global forum, lawmaker and peacekeeper is in jeopardy, as
more than 200 former officials warned Guterres last week. At risk, too, is the credibility of the international court of justice, whose injunction to withdraw was scorned by Putin, and the entire system of war crimes prosecutions.
In
terms of democratic norms and human rights, the full or partial
subjugation of Ukraine would spell disaster for the international
rules-based order – and a triumph for autocrats everywhere. What message
would it send, for example, to China over Taiwan, or indeed to Putin as
he covets the vulnerable Baltic republics? Islamist terrorists who now furtively plot to exploit the west’s Ukraine distraction would relish such a victory for violence.
Failure
to stop the war, rescue Ukraine and punish Russia’s rogue regime to the
fullest extent possible would come at an especially high price for
Europe and the EU. In prospect is a second cold war with permanent Nato bases on Russia’s borders,
massively increased defence spending, an accelerating nuclear arms
race, unceasing cyber and information warfare, endemic energy shortages,
rocketing living costs, and more French-style, Russian-backed rightwing
populist extremism.
In short, the dawn of a new age of instability. Why on earth would politicians such as America’s Joe Biden, Germany’s Olaf Scholz,
and France’s Emmanuel Macron tolerate so fraught and dangerous a future
when, by taking a more robust stand now, they might prevent much of it
from materialising? By supposedly avoiding risks today, they ensure a
much riskier tomorrow.
Sending weapons and best wishes is not enough. Conferring last week, western leaders debated
providing security guarantees for Ukraine after the war. All well and
good. But this war is happening now. Who will guarantee Ukraine’s
survival in the possibly decisive next few weeks? Who, if push comes to shove, will move beyond training missions and provide direct, in-country military support?
Let’s get real. For all its heroism and sacrifice, Ukraine
may lose this fight. Dreadful though it sounds, Putin could win. If the
west so abandons its principles and values to let that happen, the
long-term price, for everyone, will be a whole new world of pain.