In Ukraine’s Pokrovsk narratives have collided with brutal realities.

Up to 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers – each of them someone’s son, husband, father, brother, friend – are in danger of encirclement in the key town of Pokrovsk by a powerful Russian war machine that has ground ever-so-slowly forward over the past 18 months. The Kyiv Independent reported on November 6: “Ukraine’s defense of Pokrovsk on a knife-edge as high command resists calls to withdraw.”

This is a moment when the illusions Westerners have been fed by their media and politicians collide in the harshest of ways with battlefield realities.  The fall of Pokrovsk could represent a moment of decision for the West: escalate or move to a more realistic negotiating position.  To help understand this moment, I interviewed Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasian Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, as well as listening to Lord Robert Skidelsky’s address to the British House of Lords on this hinge moment in the war. 

A hinge moment in the war 

Pokrovsk, once home to 70,000 people, is at the junction of important rail and road networks that are vital to both sides in their struggle. The M30 highway passing through Pokrovsk has been a key route to bring supplies into the Donetsk region from Dnipro and elsewhere and weaves its way across the Donbas. The loss of the city and the road would create major logistical threats to Kiev’s forces. 

The fall of Pokrovsk could lead to a further drop in support amongst ordinary Ukrainians, a majority of whom, according to Gallup, now want the war over.  The West, however, is unprepared to face this looming reality and US Ambassador (ret) Chas Freeman’s warning that the West is prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian could play out. 

Realism versus narratives 

Anatol Lieven’s recent article in The Nation spoke of “Verdun in the Donbas” – the slow and bloody slog of World War I being replicated in the east of Ukraine. But he also made clear to me that “Any thought of the Ukrainians recovering the territory that they've lost is nonsense, and has been for years.  The fact that the Europeans stuck with this line for so long, as did the Biden administration, is disgraceful because it delayed the beginning of meaningful talks.”

Realism's revenge on ideology

Despite the courage and enormous sacrifice of the soldiers of the Ukrainian army, despite the billions of dollars the West has poured into arming its proxy, an overextended Ukrainian army is showing signs of buckling.   

Anatol Lieven is unsure what the ultimate implications of the Russians taking Pokrovsk will be. It is possible that the Ukrainians will continue to fall back slowly, fighting hard for every town and village and inflicting heavy casualties on the Russians. He warns, however, that if the Ukrainian lines start to seriously crack it will create a dangerous moment for all of us. 

“The Europeans, faced with what would be a huge humiliation and the collapse of their entire policy, might actually escalate radically,” he said.  

“It would be appallingly dangerous if European countries escalated against Russia. Talk of Russia wanting to invade NATO is nonsense but the truly terrifying thing is if you did get this kind of tit-for-tat process going on – say if Lithuania blockaded access to Kaliningrad (the Russian exclave) or if the Balts and the Swedes started seizing Russian cargoes on the high seas, as is constantly being discussed, the Russians would say, ‘That’s an act of war’.”

We discussed the war fever that has infected the European elites who seem to have become untethered from reality – ignoring, for example, that in a war of missiles (and contrary to propaganda), the Russians have escalation dominance, in other words, a massive advantage. 

Lieven has recently returned from Russia where he met people of all political shades and came away with an appreciation for how Putin represents a middle ground that would not hold if the West did radically escalate. The West, Lieven says, should fear the hardliners to the right of Putin who have become increasingly trenchant in what they see as his failure to maintain deterrence.  Putin, despite the West crossing various red lines, has been determined to keep the conflict from spilling out of Ukraine. His strategy has been to stay focussed on winning what he terms the Special Military Operation. 

“The last thing that any sensible Russian wants is to start a war with NATO, but you have these voices now in Europe calling for NATO to shoot down Russian planes,”  Lieven says. “Everybody I spoke to in Russia said, ‘Look, if that happens, Putin will have no choice. He will be under so much pressure from his own hardliners, he would have to give the order to shoot down NATO planes in response.” And with that comes the risk of escalation beyond control.

Lieven is one of those who feels the perceived benefits of pushing Russia further are outweighed by the risk of escalation by either party to the nuclear level. 

What next on the battlefield?

After their many stumbles and failures early in the war, the Russians are now masters of encirclement using all the tools of modern warfare. 

With the fate of Pokrovsk all but sealed the Russians will commit more resources to Kupiansk, 200km to the north where thousands more Ukrainian troops are close to operational encirclement (where the Russians haven’t yet physically linked up formations but have drone control over the gap). 

The Russian objective is to take a string of fortified towns including Kupiansk, Sloviansk, Lyman, Sieversk and Kramatorsk. Each will be a bruising struggle for both sides unless, as in Verdun in World War 1, one side loses the will or the means to fight on.  

Finding a negotiated settlement

Anatol Lieven favours negotiating an end based on accepting a territorial split along the current line of contact, an acceptance of Ukrainian neutrality and guarantees of the rights of the Russian minority being respected in Ukraine. 

“I feel a duty to put forward ideas for trying to resolve this peacefully otherwise it probably will be resolved on the battlefield – and thousands upon thousands of people will die in the course of this resolution,” Lieven says.

Skidelsky: negotiate for the sake of humanity.

I’ll give the last word to Lord Robert Skidelsky who spoke last week in the House of Lords on this topic. 

“I am really worried by the insouciance of those noble Lords speaking today who talk about unleashing long-range missile attacks on the most heavily armed nuclear power in the world.

“The latest plan is the so-called European Peace Facility, whose aim is to strengthen Ukraine’s war facility, a classic case of Orwellian “doublespeak”. The idea is that Europe should ramp up arms deliveries to Ukraine and put more pressure on Russia with new sanctions on oil exports, with loans coming from confiscated Russian assets. But no one thinking straight can believe that such measures, even if agreed and applied, will affect the course of the war in time to avert further territorial losses by Ukraine. In fact, a negotiated peace is the only way now of averting a Russian victory. That is my core position.

“I beg Ministers to discover the courage to negotiate, for reasons of both realism and humanity.”

Eugene Doyle