Russia’s inability to break the impasse in Ukraine is becoming so apparent that important voices in the Russian establishment have begun to publicly call for an end to the conflict.
The big question is whether President Vladimir Putin will accept this reality and abandon his ambition to end Ukraine’s independence.
So far, there is no sign that, in the fifth year of Europe’s bloodiest conflict in generations, he is prepared to step down from the original objectives of his “special military operation.” But this could change if the turn of the war turns in Kiev’s favor.
The calls do not come only from the business elite and more liberal parts of the Russian establishment. Some of Russia’s most prominent hawks have also become more open in expressing the belief that Moscow does not have the capacity to achieve a complete victory against Ukraine.
One of them is Oleg Tsaryov, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who fled Russia in 2014 and who was one of Putin’s top candidates to lead the pro-Russian puppet regime that the Kremlin planned to install in occupied Kiev as early as 2022. He was seriously injured in an assassination attempt by Ukrainian intelligence the following year.
In a Telegram post last month, Zharov warned that Russian propaganda had created a dangerous illusion about an inevitable victory against Ukraine.
He wrote, “Professionals in creating alternative realities have convinced not only the population, but also themselves, that the illusion they have fabricated is, in fact, reality.” “Sooner or later, these worlds of illusion and reality are bound to collide. And now it is happening in a most painful form.”
Another hard-liner, historian and former Kremlin official Alexei Chaadaev, who runs the Ushkuynik drone-warfare research center, said adopting the current course of war is “not just a path to ‘non-victory’, but a path to full-scale defeat.” He has called for a pause so that Russia can reorganize itself for the next round.
Vasily Kashin, director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, published a widely discussed article last month in Russia’s leading foreign-policy magazine. He argued that Ukraine would essentially remain an anti-Russian, pro-West country, especially after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were killed or maimed in the war. He said the goal of establishing a friendly regime in Kiev – one of Putin’s original war objectives – is no longer realistic.
Pointing to the example of the US and Israel’s war against Iran, Kashin said even a major escalation such as the assassination of President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s military and civilian leadership would likely bring to power a “more active, ambitious and radical” generation of Ukrainian leaders.
Nuclear detonations have historically resulted in a pause in conflict on existing front lines, a pause that Moscow can now achieve without the threats of a full-blown nuclear crisis. It is also not in Russia’s interests to “pursue imaginary objectives” on the front lines of Maly Tokmachka, a city in southern Ukraine that has become synonymous with Russia’s inability to move forward, it is also not in Russia’s interests, he wrote.
Of course, Kashin’s views are not universally shared. In the same foreign-policy magazine, the radical Russian academic Sergei Karaganov has repeatedly threatened nuclear war against the West if Ukraine does not surrender. Russia analysts say a more pragmatic approach that recognizes the limits of Russian military power is supported in parts of the Kremlin, including Putin’s influential deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko, the SVR external intelligence service and economic blocks that want a return to some kind of normalcy.
possibly headed for growth to the baltic states And other areas are supported by the increasingly powerful Second Directorate of the FSB Domestic Security Service. It is also supported by a motley crew of war propagandists, analysts and military volunteers who want a historic break with the West that would help Russia transform into a conservative blend of Iranian theocracy and North Korean authoritarianism.
“It seems that in the fifth year of the war, some people are beginning to realize that continuing the war for another year or two will not lead to any serious improvement in Russia’s negotiating position. It is becoming clear to them that it is time to end it,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “With all the loyalty warnings, elite discussion on the matter is beginning to normalize. But does Putin realize he is at an impasse, and that the war is now of little consequence? That we don’t know. Nothing shows he has changed his mind.”
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said the nature of the heavily militarized Russian state makes it unlikely that Putin will listen to the voice of reason. He said, “War is the modus operandi of this regime; it’s like riding a bicycle—if they stop, they fall.”
Russian officials say they are willing to consider ending the war as long as the US forces Ukraine to adhere to the “Anchorage Understanding”, a reference to the agreement reportedly reached between Putin and President Trump in Alaska in August, which would have involved Ukraine surrendering a heavily defended belt of cities in northern Donetsk. Kiev has refused to give it up and Russian forces have made only minimal progress in the area since the summit.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top foreign affairs and security policy official, said, “The peace talks are stalled and have yielded virtually no results because the Russians are waiting for the Americans to meet their maximalist demands at the negotiating table, which they have not achieved militarily.” “Of course, this is something Ukraine cannot accept. Even if President Zelensky does, the nation does not.”
Putin has in recent days chosen step up missile attacks On Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. The heavy bombardment on Monday night killed 22 people and injured more than 100 civilians, in one of the bloodiest attacks in the entire war. Meeting with security officials hours earlier, Putin said Ukraine would have to endure “the new quality of the entire conflict.”
The increase in attacks on Kiev apparently came in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike that Russia said killed female students in a teacher’s college dormitory in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Starobilsk. Ukrainian officials said they targeted a base of Russian drone teams there. The United Nations and other independent agencies have not been given unfettered access to the area to verify the claims.
In Russian-held parts of Ukraine, medium-range strike drones have crippled Russian logistics in recent days, a major new development in the war. Often using artificial intelligence, they have targeted fuel trucks and military convoys on roads that link Russia with the Crimea peninsula and front-line bases. Fuel rationing has been imposed in Luhansk and Donetsk and supplies have already been exhausted in Crimea.
Russian military commentators are warning of an imminent Ukrainian attack. In recent weeks, Ukraine has had major success in its long-range attacks across the European part of Russia, including Wednesday’s attack on an oil terminal in St. Petersburg, when Putin’s hometown hosted the opening of an annual economic conference.
Nils Schmid, Germany’s deputy defense minister, said Kiev’s drone campaign “demonstrates the potential for destruction that Ukrainian forces can bring to Russia, but it may take time to spread through society and drive political decisions in Moscow because of their authoritarian grip on the population and the regime that is unified in terms of escalating the war.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s hard-liners and security establishment are ensuring that new calls for pragmatism do not spread too widely. The pro-Kremlin newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets last month removed a much-discussed article that, without making specific reference to Ukraine, described how defeats in previous wars – such as the Crimean campaign of 1853-1856 and the 1904-1905 war against Japan – brought greater freedom and prosperity for ordinary Russians.
On Monday, the Telegram account of retired General Andrey Gurulyov, a prominent member of the Russian parliament, posted a bitter article about the impasse in Ukraine and the unjustified optimism of Russian commanders wearing “rose-colored glasses.”
A few hours later, Gurulyov went on the new Russian social messenger Max and said that his Telegram account had been hacked. It was met with widespread disbelief by other Russian commentators, who suggested that the retired general was forced to censor inconvenient truths.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov yaroslov.trofimov@wsj.com
