Jarrod Gilbert: I gave the Ukrainians no chance of winning - now I truly believe they can

OPINION:

I hope all readers had a merry Christmas, but I must admit that my best wishes are across the other side of the world.

The war forced on Ukraine 10 months ago seems rather distant to most Kiwis, yet it’s incredibly consequential.

Russia initially thought they could take over their neighbour in a matter of days. In recent years, the Russian armed forces under Vladimir Putin had reformed into one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world. Or so we thought.

The war was bungled from the start through corruption and mismanagement, but also because of fierce resistance from the Ukrainians. A walk in the park for the Russians became a mire.

Ukrainian servicemen pose for a photo during the shoot towards Russian forces of self-propelled artillery at a frontline in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy famously turned down international suggestions for him to leave his country, reportedly stating: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

History books will forever record that heroism.

Zelenskyy’s resolve was reflected by the Ukrainian armed forces. The Russians were forced to retreat from their sojourn toward the capital of Kyiv, leaving evidence of war crimes as they withdrew. Bucha will now forever be remembered as a place of terrible atrocities.

Municipal workers demolish destroyed buildings after heavy fighting in Mariupol, in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. Photo / AP

The advances in the south and east of Ukraine were more successful. The Oblasts of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson were taken or partially taken and the Russians had a land bridge to Crimea, which they had already taken in 2014. The limp Western response to that aggression only emboldened Putin.

Putin’s rationale for the war was somewhat mixed, stating he wanted the denazification of Ukraine, which had both an undeniable fringe of ultra-right-wing extremists but also a democratically-elected leader, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish. That doesn’t pass a sniff test unless, of course, you are drinking Kool-Aid from the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. If there is a Nazi-like leader here, it’s Putin himself. And we should see him as such.

A further rationale was old promises about Nato expansion, and in fairness there is some truth in that, but let’s be clear that Russia was never under any threat. The West was trading with and investing in Russia, there was no intent or conceivable prospect of a Nato invasion of the country.

Whatever the arguments put forth, the one unequivocal reality remains this: Russia was not attacked, Russia launched the war.

The only vaguely comprehensible reason for the aggression was Putin’s view that Ukraine is simply a part of Russia. Inspired by political thinkers such as Alexandr Dugin, Putin had thoughts of grandeur that he was to have a legacy like that of Peter the Great. That’s not my comparison, it’s one Putin himself made in June this year. This is an imperial war.

Furthermore, it’s a war in which a larger authoritarian state is attacking a smaller democratic state. For a country like New Zealand, and the West generally, the defence of Ukraine is the most just cause imaginable.

We should support it with all we have. Not just because every moral bone in our bodies says we ought, but also because it is imperative geopolitically.

Democracy must always beat autocracy, might must not beat right, international law cannot be defeated.

And it can. Not only has Ukraine, with the help of Western armaments, pushed Russia back from Kyiv in the north, they smashed through Russian defences to rapidly retake almost all of Kharkiv. Then, in a tactical masterclass, they forced a Russian retreat from the swathes of lands on the western bank of the Dnipro River after a sustained attack on Russian supply lines.

Relatives of soldiers from the Azov Regiment, who were captured by Russia in May after the fall of Mariupol, sit at the Christmas table in Kyiv in a flash mob action demanding the prisoners be freed. Photo / AP

As winter descended on the battlefield, big advances went on hold due to the muddy fields. About now those fields will freeze, allowing large vehicles to advance. Due to Ukrainian successes, the frontline is smaller than it was. The Russians, primarily through the private military group Wagner, are charging headlong into the besieged city of Bakhmut, a meatgrinder of the conflict that it’s entirely possible Ukraine will lose. Ukrainian troops have held it against all odds to this point, reminiscent of the utter heroism in their defeat at Mariupol.

Following the initial thrust, the story of this war is not of Russia’s grinding advances, it’s of the surprising stoicism, and then utterly astonishing swift and large victories by Ukraine. The latter shocked, in the greatest way possible, us all.

And as the winter ground freezes, we can only hope the Ukrainians have another surprise up their sleeves. Another great push that proves utterly decisive in this war, perhaps taking Melitopol and cutting the much-coveted land bridge between Russia and Crimea.

But Russia, too, may have a surprise. They are building forces once again in Belarus, and may again push from the north toward Kyiv and toward the supply lines providing for the battles in the east on the front, but also attempt to cut the lines of Western supplies coming from Poland in the west.

Whatever it is, whatever it may be, I think of those Ukrainian soldiers in their freezing trenches, as well as all of the people of Ukraine suffering now so terribly as Russia attacks civilian energy supplies, and wish them Godspeed.

At the start of this war, like most, I gave the Ukrainians no chance of winning, Now, like so many, I truly believe they can.

This isn’t just their war, it’s ours too. The armed forces and the people of Ukraine ought to have our full and unequivocal support. And not just at Christmas, but for as long as it takes.

Dr Jarrod Gilbert is the Director of Independent Research Solutions and a sociologist at the University of Canterbury.