I can’t stop asking the annoying questions about our intervention in Ukraine. But little more than two months ago, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky framed the battle of Bakhmut in dire terms in an interview with the AP. “If [Putin] will feel some blood — smell that we are weak — he will push, push, push,” Zelensky said. “We can’t lose the steps because the war is a pie — pieces of victories. Small victories, small steps.”
More intriguingly, he outlined the political consequences of losing in Bakhmut, implying that it would bring pressure in Ukraine and internationally to come to terms with Putin. “Our society will feel tired. Our society will push me to have compromise with them,” Zelensky said.
Now, it would not be the first time that a wartime leader drew a line in the sand only to see it dashed and then drew a successful line elsewhere. But it’s been very difficult to get reliable information about Ukrainian life in wartime, and more so about its domestic politics. So, I’m curious. Was Zelensky right and is support for his government’s leadership of the war effort waning in Ukraine after Bakhmut? It is very hard to know, in part because opposition media have been closed down in Ukraine, and opposition parties — including all successors to the Party of the Regions — get banned in Ukraine.
One potential sign of trouble is the reports that Ukraine has had difficulty recruiting and mobilizing soldiers for its long-discussed offensive. From the Wall Street Journal last week:
After a year of war, Ukraine is facing increasing challenges in raising the troops it needs to resist Russian forces and eject them from its territory.
When Russia invaded in February last year, thousands of volunteers lined up outside military recruitment centers. With many of them now dead or injured, Ukrainian authorities are scrambling to recruit replacements, often drafting those who have neither the desire nor the training to serve. The result is a growing number of fighting-age men who are attempting to evade service.
Now, I have no doubt about the tenacity of Ukrainian nationalists in resisting domination by Russia. But from the beginning, there have been serious doubts about their willingness to follow the elected government. If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, however, it seems that Ukraine is being pressured by the West to make a successful offensive as soon as possible, in order to bolster the cause among the democratic peoples of the West. Yet success is just as crucial for Zelensky himself domestically.