The Long War #46
A controversial movie, Russia's deadly gliding bombs, a nursing home in the war and more
KYIV—Hi everyone, doing things a bit differently this week: you’ll find first the usual selection of interesting articles I’ve recently come across and, this time at the end rather than at the forefront, a long and not fully structured collection of thoughts on events of the past few weeks. If you want to read more from me and, by happy coincidence, are subscribed to the Boston Globe, you can read here my take on Trump’s election. And, as always, your support is greatly appreciated, whether by switching to a paid subscription, sharing this newsletter on social media or with someone else, or making a one-time donation. Thank you!
Something to read
Zaxid (in Ukrainian) | The movie “Bucha” came out—why is it causing so much controversy? | November 8
This piece from the Lviv-based regional outlet Zaxid is a pretty scathing review of “Bucha”, a Ukrainian movie about the 2022 massacre perpetrated by Russian forces in the eponymous town. “Bucha” is, it seems, simply not a very good movie, one that “feels like a random set of scenes, as the director painstakingly reproduces stories known from news reports” with “cardboard characters” and messy attempts “at creating a ‘nice picture’”. But more interesting to me are the questions it raises about the hurry to create art about a war even as that same war is going on, something that feels both extremely understandable and very perilous.
It reminded me of a conversation I had with a Ukrainian poet in late 2022, who shook his head when I asked him if he thought there had already been powerful works of literature about the invasion—“‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ wasn’t published in 1916” he simply said. The other issue highlighted by the author of this piece is the defense used by the movie’s team when faced with criticism: the rush to shoot and release a movie about this event was explained by the need to counter Russian propaganda (“While you and I quarrel and blame each other, the Russians make movies and show them to the world” said Vyacheslav Dovzhenko, one of the movie’s leading actor) while critics were blamed for lacking patriotism. Given how sensitive and difficult the topic, it isn’t surprising that this rhetoric triggered controversy.
DeepState (in Ukrainian) | Gliding bombs are the hammer of the Russian Federation—do Ukrainian forces need them too? | November 10
A really interesting look at what makes gliding bombs so effective in the current war. The author writes that Russia now increasingly relies on infiltration tactics by small units (reminiscent of stormtrooper tactics developed by the German military during World War 1), with gliding bombs representing a convenient form of fire support in preparation of these assaults. Thanks to these bombs, Russian forces don’t have to rely so much on artillery, which has suffered significant losses in recent months; The Russian air force retains a significant fleet of bombers, so it has the capacity to launch these munitions in large numbers and from airfields located at a safe distance from the frontline; and while gliding bombs can’t hit moving targets, Ukrainian forces now fight in a largely defensive and static manner, often from poorly-prepared fortifications that cannot withstand a strike from one or several gliding bombs. Gliding bombs are, essentially, near-ideal against this type of warfare.
The same factors explain why those bombs likely wouldn’t be nearly as effective in the hands of Ukrainian forces:
The size of the Ukrainian air force cannot in any way compete with the Russian air force, the aviation infrastructure is much more limited, airfields are often hit by enemy ballistic missiles and front-line bases are even attacked by Lancet kamikaze UAVs. On the other hand, the Russian Air Defense Forces is a real force capable of performing a wide range of tasks: along with fighter aircrafts, Russian air defence is able to "press" Ukrainian aircrafts to the ground. In such conditions, effective and relatively safe use of gliding bombs is practically impossible. It is also worth mentioning the Russian fortifications, the quality of which in many places significantly exceeds the Ukrainian ones.
Babel (in Ukrainian) | In a nursing home hit by Russia, evacuations, memories, pictures and a bit of romance | October 21
The gut-wrenching visit of a nursing home in the Sumy region hit by a Russian air strike in September, killing one 78-year-old woman and injuring 12 people. Nursing homes aren’t common in Ukraine: in 2023, the country had just 238 of them, nearly ten times less than Canada (which has a similar population). These are often underfunded, gloomy places where only those with no one left to take care of them end up.
The boarding house opened in 1989. The average age of its residents was over eighty, though a few of them were what they’d call young—60 to 70 years old. All were in poor health, suffered from disabilities. More than two-thirds were bedridden or couldn’t walk. The vast majority had no relatives, except for distant nephews and cousins, or great-grandchildren. There were old women from the occupied territories — Chasiv Yar, Bakhmut, Luhansk — in the nursing home. Others came from villages in the Sumy region, where people's houses were bombed.
[...]
No one will return to the nursing home in the coming years. At best, it will be transferred to another city, far from the Russian border. The minimum distance should be 50 kilometers (the nursing home was about 30 kilometers from the border). Since then, the Sumy military administration has been looking for a place to resettle people. However, there are few geriatric institutions in Ukraine. They could find nursing homes in other regions offering 20-30 places, but they needed 200. 45 people managed to be taken to the Khmelnytskyi region, and to Kyiv. Others were placed in institutions in the Sumy region, crowding out people.
Ekonomichna Pravda (in Ukrainian) | The heart of Ukrainian metallurgy. What consequences will the loss of Pokrovsk have for the economy? | Oct 25
This piece explains quite clearly why the Akhmetov-owned Pokrovsk coal mine might be a crucial target for Russia: with more than 40 years of reserve of high-quality coal used to make steel (the only mine in Ukraine where you can get this coke), the mine could allow Russia to restart a metallurgical industry in the occupied territories. It is located 10 kilometers west of Pokrovsk, which currently puts it about 20 kilometers from the frontline. In 2023, around 90% of the coal used to make steel in Ukraine came from the Pokrovsk mine, meaning that its loss would further cripple an already devastated Ukrainian metallurgical industry, with steel plants likely unable to important enough coke to compensate for the loss.
Zhyttya (in Ukrainian) | Why is bilingualism dangerous, and gentle Ukrainization no longer relevant? An interview with the language Ombudsman | October 24
A depressing interview with the chief Ukrainian official tasked with enacting the country's language law. Taras Kremin calls for a broad fight against bilingualism in Ukraine, beyond what the current legislation envisions, based in part on the pseudoscientific concept of "language schizophrenia". It’s not a statement that seems to foreshadow any legislative changes (it wasn’t the result of a specific discussion, nor did it trigger any official initiatives or comments, as far as I can tell), but it’s not one you can dismiss out of hand either. Talking mostly based on things I’ve seen or heard myself, it seems pretty clear that there an increasing pressure on Russian speakers in Ukraine—but one that comes from society and peers rather than the state (a recent “language conflict” in a Kyiv bookstore is a good example of that). Still: looking at reactions to the interview on Facebook, there are quite a few Ukrainian speakers who vehemently disagree with Kremin's views.
ICYMI
Stories from legacy Western media published these past few days
Reuters / Ukraine battles to shape 'starting positions' for any war talks after Trump return
The Economist / Kremlin-occupied Ukraine is now a totalitarian hell
The Wall Street Journal / Ukraine Is Scavenging for Power-Plant Parts as Mass Blackouts Loom
The Washington Post / Waiting for the North Koreans on the battlefields of the Ukraine war
Politico / Kyiv strains to see Trump’s true plan for Ukraine
The New York Times / How Ukraine’s Widows Are Shouldering Their Grief
The Independent / The road to Ukraine’s Kurakhove is known as ‘the road of death’ – residents refuse to leave
KYIV—When I started this newsletter two years ago, I decided to call it ‘The Long War’ for two reasons. First, and most obviously, I believed this war would last a long time. But I also thought that, even if I ended up being wrong, even if the war was to end a few weeks after I had launched this newsletter, it would have already been such a disaster for Ukraine that its consequences would shape the country for years and decades after. It was a war that couldn’t be anything but long.
This war has now been going on for two years and eight months, almost a thousand days, and that’s of course without counting the period from 2014 to 2022. I don’t know if that counts as long—being French means I’ll automatically think back to World War 1 as the ‘standard’ length of a war. Two years and eight months into World War 1 was April 1917. The Russian revolution was well underway, and the U.S. had that month declared war on Germany—the first U.S. troops would land in France two months later (though they wouldn’t see combat for another full year).
Back in September, I again wondered how long this war could possibly last. It is foolish to try and predict the ebb and flow of such a massive military conflict, but so it is to ignore the deeper trends, all of which seemed to go against Ukraine. This was even before North Korean troops entered the fight (I am, by the way, baffled to see so many pundits interpret this as a sign of Kremlin desperation—that fact is that Russia has now been able to fight for two years, including an almost entire year of constant offensive during which its military suffered horrendous losses, without having to resort to a new wave of mobilization. That’s not desperation.)
Ukrainian forces were being pressed along the entire frontline, not collapsing but not showing any signs of stabilization either. After a couple of months during which mobilization picked up, I heard from several sources that the tempo had already slowed down, Zelensky seemingly still reluctant to risk the social unrest that could come with an even more intense mobilization. Among frontline troops, the feeling that too many civilians have stopped paying attention to the war had become increasingly common: a Ukrainian soldier positioned near Siversk who had always told me how opposed he was to any kind of forced conscription (“I don’t want to fight alongside someone who doesn’t want to be there”, he used to say) recently texted me that “there’s this thought going around among soldiers that things would maybe get better if Kyiv was surrounded again”, a sort of bitter nostalgia for the urgency of the invasion’s opening phase. Then there was the prospect of Russia finally and fully destroying Ukraine's energy system, or the multitude of signals showing the West's commitment wavering. The only thing going for Ukraine was the scale of Russian losses, both in people and in armored vehicles, which made it likely that fighting would slow down in 2025.
But now, Donald Trump has been elected. On paper, nothing has changed. Ukraine’s military predicament is still as dire, the question of where the country will stand by winter’s end still as tense. And yet, while nobody can say what Trump's election will mean for Ukraine, there is in the country an unmistakable and widely shared feeling that a new chapter has opened, that the current trajectory of the war is going to be interrupted, for better or for worse. Nearly three years into the war, there are going to be public and open attempts at negotiation, and that in itself is already a huge break from the current situation.
It is likely to trigger renewed discussion and debate inside the country, especially if those talks make any sort of progress. There may be questions, people pointing out that, if negotiations can happen now, maybe they could have happened before—Ukraine is celebrating today the second anniversary of the liberation of Kherson, and this reminded me of an April 2024 interview in which Taras Chmut, the head of “Come Back Alive” (Ukraine’s biggest fundraising organization for the military) said that “maybe negotiations should have come earlier—after Kharkiv and Kherson, we had a strong position”. The fact of the matter is that now is probably the second worst time since the beginning of the invasion for Ukraine to start negotiations (the first worst time being in March 2022, when Russian forces still had a bridgehead of the right bank of the Dnieper and controlled a big part of the Kharkiv region).
But I honestly can’t see how these negotiations could, in the short term, lead even to a simple ceasefire—the idea of NATO troops guarding a demilitarized zone seems like an obvious non-starter for Moscow, as are strong security guarantees for Ukraine. The Kremlin will want a small Ukrainian military and no Western support, which is unacceptable for Kyiv (and even if it was acceptable, how would Moscow enforce it?) unless it has no choice—unless it has capitulated (for more on this, Sergey Radchenko has already what is currently the best, most succinct explanation of why these negotiations will be so challenging). In any case, it is still too early to discuss talks that may not happen at all, may flounder immediately, may officially start but go at a snail’s pace as the Kremlin tries to buy time. The war is, probably, going to continue.