Paul Workman: Has Ukraine forced Russia into a stalemate?

KRAKOW -

There is a gathering of opinion that Ukraine is winning against the Russians. It’s tempting to think so, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves based on shaky predictions. Be hopeful but practical.

How can you call destruction of beautiful Kharkiv winning? Or the vicious and continuous pounding of civilians in Mariupol? Or the loss of Irpin and Kherson, names we in the prosperous and peaceful west now recognize with horror.

At modest best, Ukraine’s military and thousands of volunteers have forced Russia into a stalemate. That is not winning. It’s like mosquitoes buzzing around your head and drawing blood, but well short of causing death.

Just as military experts say the Russians have yet to capture a single large Ukrainian city, as proof of their clumsy and ill-planned invasion, the reverse is also true. Ukraine has been unable to push the Russians back in any substantial way.

Stalemate conjures up trenches and exhausted forces dug in for a long and dirty war. That’s when victory becomes illusion. That’s where Ukraine may be headed.

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We hear good omens every day from the front lines, mostly fed to the world by Ukraine’s rather brilliant propaganda machine and its charismatic president. It’s what we desperately want to hear, even if it’s only quasi-truth: Russian forces are bogged down. Russian forces are running out of soldiers and ammunition. Russian forces are deserting by the hundreds.

The grim reality lies elsewhere, or perhaps everywhere. The Russians are still able to send long-range missiles crashing into Kyiv. They show little interest in sparing Mariupol from daily torture. They leave Odessa dangling like a piñata waiting to be smashed open.

Without being overly negative, let’s accept that Ukraine is giving the Russians a bloody nose, a black eye, and a throbbing migraine in the Kremlin. What does Vladimir Putin do next? Let’s also accept that he’s weakened, with his generals facing humiliation on the battlefield.

It should not be a surprise then if he turned to chemical weapons. It fits the playbook of his war in Syria. Attack hospitals. Destroy Aleppo. And for extra measure, sow fear and torment by firing shells that spread choking and deadly gas.

And then, deny it, or blame inept Russian field commanders for mistakenly using the wrong ammunition. Not very plausible for the master of plausible deniability.

The intention, it seems, would be more about baiting and provoking NATO, than killing Ukrainian civilians. Create chaos and division, something Putin is very good at doing.

Would NATO then step across its red line and engage the Russians directly at the risk of starting a much larger war, potentially going nuclear? What European nations might shrink at such a prospect, even if chemical weapons came into play? The Hungarians? The Poles? Little next-door Latvia where Canadian troops are stationed?

United they stand, divided they falter and Putin knows it.

Look at it this way: The invasion of Ukraine is the war NATO has been planning and training for, ever since the North Atlantic Alliance came into being in 1949. Always hoping it would never happen. The U.S. and Canada are the only two non-European members.

This is a war NATO desperately wants to win, but without sending a single soldier into battle. That’s an odd concept. A bloodless victory. On behalf of a nation, not even a part of the alliance. Ukrainians will do the dying. NATO will supply the weapons, the training; all the hardware and money it takes to stop the Russian advance.

And that’s when stalemate might very well mean winning.