Grand Strategy | Ukraine’s fighting against time and the clock is ticking
Ukraine is fighting on many fronts: A war with Russia, fighting for global attention, for help from the US and Europe, and to keep up the morale of its people.
Kyiv in summer feels like any eastern European city – warm, lively, beautifully paved streets full of shoppers, couples in love, street musicians, and open-air cafes. Young women would walk up to you to tie a bright yellow and blue band on your wrist whispering “We are college students”, as they ask for a small donation.
Kyiv appeared cheerful, but only on the surface. Not used to seeing too many Indians, it held back its sorrow and the trauma of war from a stranger—until I stepped into Margarita’s tailoring shop.
This was my third visit to Kyiv since the war began in early 2022. The bus and train journey from Warsaw to Kyiv takes about 12 to 13 hours. If you’re unlucky enough to miss a train seat, as I was on my first trip in mid-2022, the bus ride stretches to 15 hours.
In two years, the city had changed, though not for the better. As the train pulled into Kyiv, more crosses and headstones seemed to fill the cemeteries along the tracks, with flowers left by grieving relatives. Dead from the war, it was clear; headstones don’t come up that fast. There were more helpless-looking people on the streets with an occasional one coming up to you for money. The lively, cobblestone streets seemed emptier of military-aged men, replaced by lonely elders and women. Beneath the cheerful façade, the toll of the war on the city was unmistakable. The much-anticipated European summer was failing to bring any real joy to the city.
Margarita runs a small tailoring shop in a basement on Mykhailivska Street, just a short walk down the hill from the Kyiv Intercontinental, where I was staying. Her wrinkled face lit up when I entered to check out the suits she had advertised outside. She was delighted at the prospect of selling her suits, but she seemed happier to have found someone to share her sadness about the war. As I finalized a rather inexpensive suit to take back, she called out for the “master” to come and do the fitting. An even older woman with far more pronounced wrinkles came out of the “machine room” inside. Olena, a half-Russian with relatives in Russia, conveyed her deep unhappiness about the war, using hand gestures and pained facial expressions. The two women spoke incessantly in Ukrainian as if I understood every word. I enthusiastically nodded along, as if I did.
“Latest fashion”, Olena exclaimed as I was checking out one of the suits on display. The thought of two elderly ladies making ‘latest fashion’ suits for men made me laugh. They joined in, not knowing why I was laughing.
Margarita and Olena said Indians are nice people, but they had not heard of PM Modi’s recent visit to Kyiv. They had little interest in geopolitics, even though geopolitics was sealing their fates, whether they had interest or not.
Earlier that morning, President Zelensky had spoken to us and insisted that Ukraine would prevail, notably wearing a black Tee instead of his olive green. The “josh” (enthusiasm) was certainly high among the officials and politicians, but it seemed to have diminished among the general public, as is to be expected after two and a half years of war with a mightier power that has cost them dearly.
Since the first time I went to Kyiv, fewer people seem to go into the bunker when the air raid sirens go off. During my first visit, I had made an embarrassing dash to the bunker in the basement of the hotel at the piercing sound of the air raid siren only to find the place empty. When I returned upstairs, I saw the locals chatting in the lobby, unfazed.
Today, compared to two years ago, there are comparatively fewer voices calling for a decisive battlefield victory against Russia. Time, Ukrainians know it, is not on their side. The rightwing parties in Europe are starting to challenge war commitments to Ukraine, war fatigue is setting in across the continent even though a war being fought next door is undoubtedly worrisome for Europeans, and across the Atlantic, the American presidential election hangs like the sword of Damocles over Ukraine’s future. Eventually, Ukrainians also know, that the pressure of other issues will begin to build up. Gaza is already a ‘distraction’ from Ukraine – what if something else happens elsewhere? If there is, for instance, a Taiwan contingency tomorrow, Ukraine is likely to be a distraction for the US, not the other way around. Geopolitics doesn’t stand still.
Ukraine is fighting on many fronts: A full-on war with Russia, fighting for global attention, for material help from the US and Europe, and to keep up the morale of its people. But above all, it’s fighting against time—and time is something they have very little of.
“In the long run, we are all dead. But before that, the Russians could get us. That’s why we must have quick victories”, a young Ukrainian journalist told me what he thought was the rationale behind Ukraine’s controversial decision to move into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. Ukraine must make sure it has enough gains on the battlefield to do well on the negotiating table, he reasoned.
“Please tell Russia to end the war, Olena wants to meet her relatives in Russia. She is getting old”, Margarita requested while offering me a 10% ‘friends only’ discount, knowing fully well I could do nothing about it. Wars may be political, but the costs are human. And personal.
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