Winter brings a tipping point for Ukraine, with victory on one side and global peril on the other
PHOTOGRAPHS BY FABIAN RITTER
ESSAY
DURING MY YEARS IN THE MARINE CORPS, I PAR-ticipated in military operations as diverse as night ambushes, amphibious raids, and helicopter assaults. All required intricate planning. Gathered around maps and satellite imagery, my colleagues and I had to consider all three of the dimensions in which war is typically waged: land, sea, and air. Once our plans were laid, there was always one last step before our mission: we would synchronize our watches. This ritual acknowledged the final dimension in which war is waged: time. Too often our analysis of a conflict neglects time as a space through which armies maneuver. But in Ukraine, as winter sets in and the war enters its second year, time will prove decisive.
Time is not on Ukraine’s side. A strategy of maximum pressure may provide the only path to victory, requiring Ukraine and its allies to remain relentlessly on the offensive this winter. Begin with the reality that while NATO support increases pressure on Moscow, it also places a weapon in Putin’s hand by lending credence to his claims that the West is at war with Russia. It increases the likelihood that Russia will expand the scope of the war, to include the use of nuclear weapons, a threat Putin habitually makes. A strategy of maximum pressure carries heightened risks, but the alternative is almost certain defeat.
If the efficacy of the Ukrainians’ September offensive is an indicator of their capability, there is reason to believe that subsequent offensives could lead to equally significant territorial gains. But success poses its own challenges. President Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained throughout the war that it will end in negotiations. Victory on the battlefield creates the route to the negotiating table; it is telling, however, that even though both sides said in late December that they were ready to talk, they did so only with conditions they must have known the other would not meet.
Ukraine is fighting a war for national survival, while Russia is fighting a war of choice. This dynamic could shift the longer the war goes on. As backing down becomes less of a possibility for Russia, the stakes of the conflict increase for its leadership. This creates a dangerous tension in which neither Russia nor Ukraine can countenance any result but total victory. This could escalate the conflict for both sides, spiraling toward the total war that many fear.
In the early days of the
