KYIV—Hi everyone and thank you for reading the 25th issue of ‘The Long War’, written in hot, sunny Kyiv after a summer away from Ukraine. I’m anticipating a few couple of weeks on my end, which is why I have prepared two special issues of this newsletter that I’ll publish in lieu of the usual programming in case things get too hectic. Stay tuned for that!
At this time last year, initially confused rumors mentioning fighting in the northeastern part of the frontline had turned into ecstatic reports about Ukrainian forces shattering the Russian lines in the Kharkiv region. At the YES conference, a yearly meet-up of influential Ukrainian and Western politicians and activists organized by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, people feverishly checked their smartphones as footage emerged of Ukrainian troops advancing 20, 30, 40 kilometers beyond the previous frontline, speculating excitedly just how far they’d go. Nothing of the sort this time: “last year, people still believed in a quick victory” the representative of a major IT company with offices in Ukraine told me during the conference. “Now, it’s like everyone has accepted things are going to last”.
It’s not that nothing is happening. The month of August and its flurry of stories about the failures of the Ukrainian counter-offensive have passed, and there’s now some muted optimism, backed by the limited but steady progress of the Ukrainian forces in the Robotnye salient. I won’t make any predictions about the coming weeks, which analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee (easily this war’s best explainers) said “are likely to prove decisive”. But even if Ukrainian forces can register more successes before winter slows down the fighting, essentially no one now expects the war to end in the near future.
It’s a new state of mind, both among the elite and society at large, which is sure to have profound consequences (see Volodymyr Zelensky in this interview with The Economist mentioning a possible “new social contract” with society if the war draws out). The most obvious effect in the past days has been the discussion about the possibility of organizing elections in wartime (more on that further down the newsletter), something an opposition MP described to me as “ridiculous” just a few months ago. It’s still almost universally considered impossible in the short term, but the simple fact that the discussion is happening hints at shifting expectations.
Something to read (in English)
China Media Project | Telling Ukraine’s Story of the Russian Invasion | August 21
David Bandurski: In terms of Chinese coverage and discussion of the war, what do you and your colleagues observe today? Is there any change? And what would you say to the Chinese, and the Chinese media?
Vita Golod: I’d like to mention one important date. On April 11, 2022, the People’s Daily newspaper published the first big article about, as they call it, the “Ukrainian crisis,” in which it said that Ukraine was a pawn in the geopolitical game of the United States. Since then, China’s main narrative has remained unchanged. Two days after the People’s Daily article, we published a response in three languages on our website — signed by the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists — and this was circulated through our international network. We publicly addressed intellectuals and policymakers in the Chinese-language world to make clear that the “Ukrainian crisis,” as they called it, arose as a result of Russia’s direct armed aggression against Ukraine. Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom and independence. Of course, we didn’t expect any reaction from officials in Beijing. It was our position, to call for fairness and justice.
Something to read (in Ukrainian or Russian)
Liga | ‘The longer the ratings go, the worse it’ll be’ Will the Bankova hold elections in wartime | August 8
This particular piece is already a month old, but it still is one of the better looks at an issue that is steadily gaining steam in the public debate here in Ukraine—to the point that Volodymyr Zelensky made a lengthy comment about it on September 8, claiming to be open to the idea all the while laying down the litany of challenges that organizing elections while Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities would entail.
The Liga story makes a claim that looks counter-intuitive at first: the current Ukrainian authorities, who enjoy unprecedented popularity as well as the support of the only parliamentary majority in the history of modern Ukraine, would reportedly like to hold elections in the near future. According to the sources quoted in the piece (and many people I’ve talked to in Kyiv), the logic is that it’d be better for Zelensky to hold elections now, while he and his government are still very popular, rather than to wait for that popularity to sour—pretty much an inevitable process if the war grinds on. In that situation, the opposition of course has no interest in risking electoral defeat by supporting elections in the short term. The article actually quotes two opposition MPs saying that even lifting martial law (after the end of the war) wouldn’t allow the immediate organization of elections.
That view of the debate, based on competing political strategies, is a cynical but probably accurate one. I do think the question of the “how” looms extremely large as well. It’s not just about organizing elections, but about organizing legitimate elections, a task that certainly won’t be able to be accomplished without heavy support from the West (if only because millions of Ukrainian refugees now live in those countries). The legal argument (that martial law can’t be lifted while there’s war, and martial law doesn’t allow for elections) is one that some people may put too much faith in—laws can be changed, and Ukraine already has experience with limited or conditional martial law. But it is true that it is very hard to see how can those elections happen without, at the very least, fighting winding down on the frontline.
Ukrainska Pravda | Zelensky’s fourth Defense Minister. Why did the president remove Reznikov to appoint Umerov | September 6
This extensive piece from Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda looks back at eight months of rumors and backdoor negotiations, from the first rumors about Volodymyr Zelensky’s desire to dismiss his Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov to the appointment of Reznikov's successor, Rustem Umerov, earlier this month. The story kicks off with a meeting held in early February by Zelensky with a group of Ukrainian journalists, in which the Ukrainian president asked them to tone down their coverage of corruption in the military (I wrote a piece for Foreign Policy that month about the issue). The corruption scandal never directly involved Reznikov, but the controversy, combined by Reznikov’s clumsy handling of it, sealed his fate.
But Zelensky’s team then struggled for months to find a replacement: my favorite part of the job hunt described in the piece is probably when Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov reportedly agreed to become Defense Minister, on the condition he would be able to keep at team loyal to him in the leadership of the Infrastructure Ministry—a move that would essentially give one man control of two Ministries with massive budgets. Zelensky refused. Umerov emerged in August as a perfect compromise, a skilled managed (he was then heading the State Property Fund, dealing among other things with privatization), respected by civil society as a successful businessman who later became an MP in the opposition party Holos, as well as the West.
Umerov is an interesting case. I interviewed him once, back in 2020, for a story I was writing about Turkey’s strategy in Ukraine. As an influential representative of the Crimean Tatar community, Umerov was a pretty obvious source for such a story. He had met Tayyip Erdoğan just a few weeks before when the Turkish president came to Kyiv and, already back then, told me that he saw Turkey as a potential key go-between between Kyiv and Moscow. And indeed, according to the Ukrainska Pravda piece, his excellent contacts in Turkey but also in Saudi Arabia make him “very useful” for the president’s team. I’ve seen other Ukrainian media go even further and argue that the appointment was basically a way to give him a high-ranking position to bolster his position for eventual negotiations with Russia—that may be an exaggeration, and there’s little doubt that Umerov’s skills as a manager (which is basically what a Defense Minister is now, with military matters left to the General Staff) played a major role in his appointment.
ICYMI
Stories from legacy Western media published over the week-end (and today)
The New York Times / From Kupiansk to Kherson, Diverse Battlefields Make Up the War in Ukraine
Wall Street Journal / The Three Roadblocks Keeping Ukraine Mired in War
Bloomberg / Ukraine Vows to Press On as US Warns Fighting Time Running Out
The New York Times / In Ukraine, a U.S. Arms Dealer Is Making a Fortune and Testing Limits
The Washington Post / Deepening rift among Republicans threatens future of Ukraine aid
Reuters / Ukraine's Zelenskiy under pressure to veto asset declaration law with loophole