Roy Shinar Cohen
You may have recently noticed increased attention to the Ukraine War by media and world leaders. In the two and a half years since Russia invaded the country, hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have fled. While Russia confirmed the death of 50,000 of its soldiers, Western intelligence services estimate the Russian death toll at half a million. On the Ukrainian side, at the War’s two-year mark, President Zelenskyy confirmed that 31,000 soldiers died. But, considering the substantially larger Russian casualty assessments, the number could be higher. These jaw-dropping numbers keep growing, as the war continues and Russian troops advance to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and make some of their most substantial advances since the war began. This, however, brings us to the incredibly dangerous current situation.
President Zelenskyy visiting the east of Ukraine. December 6, 2021. Credit: rawpixel.com, CC0 1.0.
Russian troops began a summer offensive on the city of Kharkiv on May 10th. Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the northeast, near the Russian border. Before the war, it housed 1.5 million people, and earlier this year this number was reported at a million. Now, after months of attacks against the city’s infrastructure, including the power grid, Russian troops are within artillery range of the city itself. According to Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russia is amassing troops near Kharkiv from other regions, and training for further operations, though Russia does not year have the capacity to capture the city itself.
Map of Ukraine. Credit: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Time, however, may be playing into Russia’s hands. According to Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who was interviewed by The New Yorker, the Russian strategy is “to make life in [Kharkiv] unpleasant” and encourage people to leave the city. An element of this tactic has been to target the city’s electricity, water, sewage treatment, and television infrastructure. In addition to the Russian offensive, in recent months Ukraine has faced challenges enlisting recruits and has confronted fears of ammunition shortages, although the latter has been temporarily relieved by the recent 61 billion-dollar American aid package. Nevertheless, the recent Russian advances in the northeast are worrisome to Ukrainian and Western leaders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin aroused further alarm in a recent tactical nuclear weapons drill near the Ukraine border. The drill, which was held on May 21st, was deemed a response to increased Western involvement in the war and a warning against further escalation. Russian troops rehearsed the loading of launch vehicles, driving to launch sites, and loading planes with hypersonic missiles, all of which were done in the Rostov-on-Don region near the Ukrainian border. Before that, at the Russia Victory Day parade on May 9th Putin said the country’s “strategic forces” are always combat-ready.
Amid all this, Zelenskyy pleaded for more Western support, while the country awaits the much-needed American aid approved in late April. Apart from arms shipments, since May 13th, the West has been weighing a major shift in policy: allowing Ukraine to carry out attacks within Russian territory, which many fears could provoke a severe Russian escalation. The first to announce such a change, before Zelenskyy’s plea to the US on the matter, was UK Foreign Secretary Cameron during a visit to Kyiv on May 3rd. He said it is up to Ukraine to decide how it uses the weapons the UK provides, including the pursuit of targets within Russian territory.
Soon thereafter, more leaders announced their support for ending targeting restrictions. During an interview for The Economist on May 24th, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joined Cameron in calling upon NATO allies to permit Ukraine to strike Russian territory. France’s President Macron joined the call on May 28th, and the next day Politico reported the German government was “cautiously ditching its reservations about allowing Ukraine to hit military targets inside Russia.” As more countries announced support for the policy change, pressure built on the Biden administration to make up its mind on the matter. However, according to American officials, after a long series of deliberations with advisors, Biden has reached the same conclusion.
Zelenskyy and Stoltenberg in Brussels, 2019. Credit: President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Finally, on May 30th Politico reported that Biden secretly allowed Ukraine to strike targets within Russian territory near Kharkiv. The US still prevents Ukraine from performing long-range strikes within Russian territory or hitting civilian infrastructure. The importance of this change is Ukraine can now better defend itself. On the one hand, it can use the weapons the US and many other NATO countries provide to shoot down rockets and missiles targeting Kharkiv. On the other hand, it can attack troops and bases on the Russian side of the border to try and prevent the troop buildup aimed at the city. According to The New York Times, the decision is the first time an American President “allowed limited military responses on artillery, missile bases and command centers inside the borders of a nuclear-armed adversary.”
The US characterises such strikes as self-defence. According to an American official, the policy means Ukraine can “use U.S.-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them.” Moreover, American officials told The New York Times that if Russia would launch attacks on Kharkiv from deeper within its territory “the president’s restrictions could be subject to further loosening.” This led a senior American official to conclude this is a “new reality” and “perhaps a new era” in the Ukraine War.
Biden and Zelenskyy in Ukraine in 2023. Source: Executive Office of the President of the United States, PDM 1.0
In addition to allowing Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia, Western states are expected to announce further measures of support. First, France is seeking partners to train Ukrainian troops within Ukraine, according to reports. Until now NATO countries have trained approximately 100,000 Ukrainian troops in allied countries. This is expected to ease personnel shortages faced by the Ukrainian military. More importantly, the US and Ukraine are close to signing a bilateral security pact, which would be the most significant such agreement Ukraine has signed with a NATO country. The pact is expected to be signed next month on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy and will lay out long-term commitments to Ukraine’s security.
These developments lead to the simple, yet crucial, conclusion that we are at an extremely risky point in time. Russia’s advances threaten Ukraine’s second-largest city and are reshaping the frontline dramatically with immense human costs. In parallel, the Western consent to use their weapons against Russian territory is a substantial escalation. This policy comes as the risk to Kharkiv is increasing and Russian troops are moving further within artillery range of the city. Since Russia knew the Western policy prevented Ukraine from hitting its territory, it built many important bases for its offence right behind the Ukrainian border. Accordingly, a senior American official described the Russian border in that region as an “artificial line” dividing the battlefield that kept Ukraine from responding to Russian attacks. Allowing Ukraine to attack within Russian territory will provide it with more strategic depth around Kharkiv and let it hit important Russian targets. Ukraine and its Western allies believe these attacks will help push the Russians back and ensure Kharkiv’s safety.
The substantial risk with this policy is the Russian response. It will test Russia and the escalation ladders at a time when, as mentioned above, Russia has been flexing its (nuclear) muscles. We should assume secret messages, or at least signals, have been conveyed between Washington and Moscow and analysts worked extra hours assessing escalation avenues. Yet miscalculations are always a danger, and when between nuclear states, they are even more paramount to avoid.
Additionally, these changes are happening in the months leading up to three important elections: the European Parliament next week (June 7-9), the British general election (July 4th) and the American election (November 5th). All of these will, inevitably, lead to some internal political instability (or, as we saw on January 6th 2021, more than “some” instability). This is especially true considering that, for the most part, the Republican party accepted Trump's refuted claims about election fraud in 2020, and top Republicans are spreading allegations of fraud in the upcoming election. Furthermore, they hold the potential for substantial policy changes towards Ukraine, especially in the American case if former President - and as of yesterday, convicted felon - Donald Trump were to emerge victorious. Accordingly, the current Western push to aid Ukraine may be seen as one of the final few before the tide in Washington changes and Putin may finally get his way.
Even though the world seems to be burning for so many reasons, the current state of the Ukraine war may be among the most important. The war has already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and has caused millions more to flee. Ukraine is imminently expected to launch a Western-backed counter-offensive, including in Russian territory, to defend Kharkiv. However righteous this resistance may be, it risks substantial escalation with a nuclear power that does not seem to play by the normal rules. As Oxford’s Timothy Garton Ash recently said, people are “absolutely right to be deeply, deeply concerned about what is happening in Gaza, but I would ask them not to forget about what is happening in the Ukraine.”
