Never Ending De Facto Truce

The big Russian winter offensive everyone expected at the end of last year never materialized. Instead, fighting in Ukraine became centred around minor towns and villages. The most notable being the current siege of Bakhmut, which has been ongoing for months.

This has led to an apparent draw in which neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have gained anything. The lack of spectacular battle scenes to telegraph around the world has also created the impression that the war is contained, and that it's fought at a moderate level, with moderate casualties and material loss.

This impression has been further strengthened by western media which assures everyone that Ukraine will win the war, provided we send them the weapons and munition required to continue the fighting.

The result of this is that any calls for western mobilization has fallen on deaf ears. The narrative simply doesn't support it. Why risk our sons and daughters in a war that the Ukrainians will win anyway, provided we keep sending them money to buy military gear?

From a strategic viewpoint, this is exactly what Russia wanted to happen. By drawing things out in time and refraining from doing anything spectacular, they've avoided an escalation of the war. Foreigners aren't rushing in to fight shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainians. Instead, they are sending money and hardware into what is pretty much a black hole.

Bakhmut is surrounded on three sides. There's a single road leading into the town from the Ukrainian side, and soldiers and military equipment is being poured into battle through this road. However, nothing is coming out of the town, except dead and wounded soldiers.

Now that spring has come, we'll see less fighting going forward. Bakhmut is likely to fall to the Russians, and that will be the end of hostilities for now. It may even be the end of the war.

The Russians made it clear from the start that their concern was only with the safety and security of their Russian brothers living in the eastern regions of Ukraine. Now that this landmass has been secured by the Russians, their strategic goal has been accomplished, and the ideal outcome would be for the fighting to stop.

With the West unwilling to accept defeat, the Russians are unlikely to secure a peace deal. However, there's another strategy that can be employed which will reduce the fighting to nothing over time. It requires no written document, nor any acceptance of defeat by the opponent. It can be employed unilaterally, and has no expiration date.

The strategy is called "tit for tat", and is used as much in civil life as in military operations. The idea is that aggression by one side is immediately met with a fierce and targeted response. In the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Russians will respond to any counter offensive with fierce artillery bombardments of known positions. However, it there's no counter offensive, there won't be any hostility coming from the Russian side either.

This strategy is known to be effective in encouraging peaceful coexistence when applied all the way down to single soldiers and civilians. People refrain from acting with aggression when they know that aggression on their side will be met with a fierce and targeted response. Civil society operates this way, and so does the military.

Russia has succeeded in capturing the disputed eastern region of Ukraine without provoking the west into direct involvement on the ground. They are therefore likely to follow this up with a never ending de facto truce. A few years from now, the Russian-Ukrainian war will be as forgotten as Russia's stealth take over of Crimea. No-one will talk much about it. Civil life will continue as if nothing has happened.

Vladimir Putin

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link