Static frontlines, waning headlines
Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war has broadly devolved into a conflict of attrition, with occasional flashpoints recalling the ongoing threat of fresh escalation. Ukraine's recent drone strikes on Russia’s Leningrad region are one such example, but do they signal a new phase of the war, or the beginning of the end?
“Nowhere is safe” has become an often-repeated refrain among Ukrainians in the two years since Russia’s invasion, sending missiles, tanks and troops flying across their shared border from multiple directions.?
The phrase has been spoken by soldiers and civilians in western Ukraine, lamenting continual air raids and deaths caused by Russian missile strikes in a region previously viewed as a relative sanctuary compared to Donetsk and Luhansk, where fighting has raged since 2014. It was repeated by the UN in December 2023, in a report noting that almost a quarter of civilian casualties have occurred far from the active battlegrounds.?
The war space already spans thousands of kilometers from Ukraine’s western border with Poland to the Russian city of Saratov, 102 miles from the Kazakhstan border. Yet in late January, Ukraine further expanded the conflict’s geographical span by targeting oil and natural gas facilities in Russia’s Leningrad region with drones. The strikes will likely force Russia to cut exports of the fuel compound naphtha by around a third due to refinery damage.?
It’s not the first time this conflict has escalated in an unexpected direction. In June 2023, thousands of people were evacuated from their homes along Ukraine’s Dnieper River after an explosion ruptured the Russia-occupied Kakhovka Dam. Multiple Western intelligence assessments attributed the blast to Russia, allegedly as part of an attempt to halt Ukraine’s counter-offensive. Two weeks later, mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group advanced to within 120 miles of Moscow amid an armed rebellion led by the group’s commander Yevgeny Prigozhin. Two months later, Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash reportedly ordered by President Vladimir Putin himself.
Like these previous flashpoints, Ukraine’s drone strikes on Leningrad were a breath-holding moment. However, Factal’s Europe regional head Alex Moore said the strikes may represent an opportunity to begin winding down the conflict.?
“I think it could actually serve as the first way that the two sides could start to walk back the war effort, some sort of arrangement where they could mutually agree not to strike targets X kilometers from a delineated frontline,” according to Moore. “[For Ukraine], from a practical standpoint, it’s going to serve as a bargaining chip that will also potentially hurt Russia economically a little bit.”
Russia’s approach to the continuation of the conflict remains opaque. Reporting by the New York Times in late December indicated Putin has been exploring backchannel diplomatic routes toward a ceasefire, yet his public rhetoric toward Ukraine remains as hostile as the day the war began. What is certain, however, is that Russia has no hope of achieving the sort of military victory it envisaged two years ago.?
“Ukraine “won the war” for all intents and purposes in April 2022, when Russia reneged on their attempts to capture Kyiv,” Moore said. “Considering that it was a war of imperial conquest, Russia lost.”
Today, the two sides are mostly evenly matched militarily, although their strengths and weaknesses differ. Ukraine’s long-range firepower is bolstered by the West’s supply of weapons, while Russia outperforms with regards to artillery shell and drone production following? a decision to put a third of its economy on a permanent war footing. Neither country has sufficient troops to cycle out exhausted soldiers who may have been on the frontlines for as long as a decade.?
Ukraine is also grappling with a necessary transition from a country at war to a country fighting a war, as political wrangling in Brussels and Washington threatens support for its conflict-weary economy. Earlier in January, the country’s parliament was forced to withdraw legislation that would have relaxed the parameters for mobilization amid concerns over the cost of removing young men from the workforce and redeploying them to the frontlines. At least six million Ukrainians also remain displaced outside the country after fleeing in the early stages of the war; this proportion of the population are neither serving in the military nor paying taxes to support the economy, which President Zelenskyy described as an ethical dilemma in a speech back in December.?
Russia is not facing the same domestic concerns given the expression of any dissent against the war effort is so heavily controlled.?
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“We’ve seen the war catalyze an extreme lurch in Russia’s authoritarianism,” Moore said.
Press censorship in Russia is at its highest since the end of the Cold War. In 2022, Putin signed legislation criminalizing any reporting which contradicts the Kremlin’s official line on the war in Ukraine and instituted a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. Any public display of dissent against the war is also banned, including solo demonstrations, posting on social media and wearing of anti-war symbols.?
Upcoming presidential elections in March may give some indication of public discontent with the war effort, as voting tends to catalyze opposition to Putin, although any demonstrations are likely to be heavily suppressed where they emerge. Moreover, many of the typical opposition figures who may have led protests are in prison, missing, or fled the country soon after the war broke out.
“The way in which the war has fundamentally reshaped Russia domestically gets overlooked because they’re not the ones directly suffering the most,” Moore said. “But I think that’s part of the story as well.”
With military victory for either side a distant prospect, negotiations seem the most likely route toward de-escalation, Russia’s bellicose rhetoric notwithstanding. The machinations of a ceasefire process remain unclear, but one thing is certain: the prospect of additional surprises remains ever-present.
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