It is very difficult to say with certainty how long the Ukrainian war could last. NATO Secretary-General, US President Joe Biden, and European heads of state have already realized that a Ukrainian victory was unlikely. Ukraine will struggle to reclaim all invaded territories, including Crimea and Donbas. In this context, to say that one is part of a long-term war is to highlight the difficulty of Ukrainians in pushing back Russians. On the other hand, the Russians did not advance as fast as they would have liked. The losses are terrible for both countries. We are finally faced with a conflict that gets bogged down on both sides.
What also leads one to think that the conflict could last for years is that no one really knows the Ukrainian strategy. Americans and Europeans who send weapons do not have access to all the data regarding their use. On the other hand, the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are quite contradictory. One day, he announces that Ukraine will never lay down its arms until the total reconquest of territories. The next day, he decides to leave the southern territories due to recovery operations that would represent too many human casualties. In the end, it is not known what his winning goals are. Therefore, it is difficult to know exactly where this may end.
Speaking about sanctions, they are there to last for decades, even if a ceasefire were to be achieved. The Russians are well aware of this. In addition to the Russian economy, Ukraine’s economy is on its knees since Russia has blocked its grain exports. Vladimir Putin’s current strategy is to stifle Ukraine economically. But his primary strategy was to “avoid” a war, as we see it today, by seizing power and setting up a pro-Russian government. Putin thought it would have happened without too many bumps. It is clear that Russia has been misinformed about the Ukrainian resistance and the strength of Ukrainian nationalism.
From a purely military point of view, both camps are known to be understaffed. So it’s very hard to know if we’re going to have armed conflicts like today over time. Perhaps they will be of lower intensity, as has been the case since 2014, after the Minsk agreements. We are no doubt heading for a war with pauses, retakes, and ceasefires. In addition, sabotage operations, organized by the Ukrainian civilian population in the Russian-occupied territories, are expected to increase, leading to greater insecurity.
The nuclear threat still hangs over this conflict, for example. We are not immune to a nuclear attack, or even the use of chemical weapons in the years to come. Nor should we rule out the threats that could weigh on the Baltic countries. Tensions are particularly high between Lithuania, the oblast of Kaliningrad, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and Russia. Conflicts from the Cold War will resurface with the Baltic countries but also with Poland and other countries of the former Soviet bloc. So we are heading towards a "new generation" cold war on the political and economic level, with these sanctions which will continue to weigh on Russia.
But since 2014, Russia has turned to Asia and maintains increasingly close relations with China, which continues to receive Russian gas, despite the war. Russia is also increasingly present and influential on the African continent and in the Middle East where it maintains good economic relations. Russia will always be able to count on these countries, probably by further strengthening trade with them to counter Europe's economic restrictions. Russia is certain that this unipolar world which emerged from the Cold War is nothing more than American hegemony and that we must gradually get used to this multipolar world, made up of new regional powers that it has to feed.
The Ukrainian army has modernized itself a lot since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in NATO techniques and everyone can see the result today. This time, NATO is also playing a training role with the soldiers, but it is also providing them with highly developed weapons. Little by little, Ukraine will move towards a much more competent army, much more modernized and with new technologies from Western countries, with a few exceptions. Indeed, the United States will not want to deliver weapons with very advanced technologies because they consider that this could threaten their national security. They do everything so that they do not end up in the hands of the Russians and, potentially, a few years later, between those of the Islamic State after going through the black market.
Western countries are well aware that war favors this kind of arms traffic, especially since before the war, Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries. And the war did not solve this problem. For now, Western countries cannot control this problem but maybe they will pay for it later.
Ukraine will not be able to join the European Union if the country is still at war. It is also a Russian strategy to maintain long-term conflicts that will prevent it from integrating into the EU. The final goal is to prevent Ukraine from living as a sovereign and independent country on its own territory. It is a war of attrition that Russia is waging, although the effects of European sanctions are already weighing on its economy. Unemployment figures have increased significantly in Russia, although the exact percentage has not been communicated.
Referring to the refugees' problem, there are more than five million Ukrainian refugees in Europe and especially in Poland. Faced with this influx, Russia has put in place a strategy to welcome Ukrainians, offering them a job, job security, free housing, etc. The goal is to repopulate the regions of eastern Russia, which have been hit by a labor shortage for several years. There are targeted especially young Ukrainians, particularly educated. There are currently just over 1.2 million Ukrainians who have left for Russia, according to Russian figures, and we have never seen such a mixing of populations since the Second World War.
It is unclear at this time whether these refugees will want to return home in the years to come. Some may settle in other countries. In Poland, for example, citizenship is rather easy to obtain, as long as an Ukrainian can prove that a relative already lives in the country or that a member of his family has already worked there. Some small countries like Moldova will no doubt have to restructure and adapt to the permanent arrival of Ukrainian refugees.
Here too, this is a question that arises in the long term and the Russians are counting on this duration so that the refugees become an economic and social burden for the European societies.