Nina Khrushcheva on the state of the Russia-Ukraine War
Nina Khrushcheva on the state of the Russia-Ukraine War
Nina Khrushcheva may be more widely known as the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev than for her qualifications as a foreign policy commentator. But she’s a professor of international affairs at the New School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue.
In this interview1, she gives her evaluation of the internal Russian politics around the Russia-Ukraine War. She seems to be careful about generalizations and repeatedly mentions the difficulties in taking a reliable measure of public opinion there.
She doesn’t expect an immediate end to the war. It has often been said that for serious official peace negotiations to take place, both sides (Ukraine and Russia) will need to get to a place where they decide at some level that there is more risk than opportunity in continuing it. And even then, factors like patriotism and nationalism will have real influence on decision-makers.
Just after 21:00 in the video, Khrushcheva says that it’s “a war of attrition” in which Russia likely sees itself as having an advantage.
I actually think that the longer it goes, the less questions [Putin] would have to answer [from the Russian public]. If it’s not a complete loss, if it’s not a complete, you know, they are running out of all ammunition altogether as [Wagner Group head Yivgeny] Prigozhin kept saying, kept suggesting.
I actually, at the beginning of this war, and probably even on [a previous] program I said that it’s a new Afghanistan, it’s going to last for a long time. I don’t see the victory in it, I mean, once again, [there are] many unknown unknowns, I don’t see victory of it. And so, it’s going to be a long war of attrition until it can no longer continue.
So I would even imagine it goes into next year and maybe some remnants of it or maybe full scale of it even further and further. I really don’t think we can know. At the beginning it was, oh, two weeks and then until January this year. And then until the spring and then until the summer, it keeps going on.
And, so far, Russia is not winning the way it wants. And Ukraine is not losing enough to really want to do something else.
For Western strategists who are focused on the goal of weakening Russia militarily, a longer war looks more likely to achieve that goal than a shorter one.
On the other hand, the longer the war goes on, the more destruction of Ukrainian lives and infrastructure there will be. The fighting is taking place almost exclusively on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine and Russia are making extensive use of the kind of anti-personnel landmines2 outlawed by the Mine Ban Treaty (aka, Ottawa Treaty) of 1997, to which Ukraine is a party. But not Russia (or the US).3
The Ukrainian government was claiming last November that a least 30% of the country was mined.4 A more recent BBC report declared, “there are thought to be 174,000 square kilometres which are contaminated by landmines,” which “is an area of land larger than England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.”5
As experience has shown, such a large number of mines can take decades to clear.6 They will be a danger to human life and a significant hindrance to economic recovery.
Have Russians 'surrendered to the fate' of Putinism? Conflict Zone. DW News 05/11/2023. (Accessed: 2023-15-05). Khrushcheva discusses some of the same themes in: How Russians fight. Social Europe 04/28/2023. <https://www.socialeurope.eu/how-russians-fight> (Accessed: 2023-15-05).
Abramson, Jeff (2023): Ukraine Landmine Use Under Scrutiny. Arms Control Association, March 2023. <https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-03/news/ukraine-landmine-use-under-scrutiny> (Accessed: 2023-15-05).
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. United Nations Treaty Collection 05/15/2023.<https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=XXVI-5&chapter=26&clang=_en> (Accessed: 2023-15-05).
State Emergency Service: Nearly 30% of Ukrainian territory is mined. Kyiv Independent 11/18/222. <https://kyivindependent.com/state-emergency-service-nearly-30-of-ukrainian-territory-is-mined/> (Accessed: 2023-15-05). No definition of what constitutes a mined area is given in the article.
Whitehouse, James (2023): Ukraine war: The deadly landmines killing hundreds. BBC News 04/11/2023. <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65204053> (Accessed: 2023-15-05). No definition of what constitutes a mined area is given in the article.
Sommavilla, Fabian (2023): Fachleute sehen Österreichs Neutralität nicht als Hindernis für humanitäre Entminung in der Ukraine. Der Standard 11.Mai.-2023. <https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000146299719/oesterreichs-neutralitaet-verhindert-fachleuten-zufolge-keine-humanitaere-entminung-in-der> (Accessed: 2023-15-05).