Underlining Vladimir Putin's hope of outlasting Western support for Ukraine, the Russian president's spokesman claimed on Monday that Western war "fatigue" is growing. Dmitry Peskov added, "This fatigue will lead to fragmentation of the political establishment."
This rhetoric offers insight into Putin's thinking. Putin's military might have been smashed by Ukrainian forces. He might also have been unable to bomb the Ukrainian people into submission. But the Russian leader believes that if he can hold Ukrainian counteroffensives at bay, he'll eventually be able to drain Western support both for Ukraine and for sanctions against Russia. In turn, Putin believes, he'll earn the financial and political space to reconstitute his military for renewed offensive action and/or force Kyiv into a concessionary peace.
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It's clear that the Kremlin now views this outcome as its best hope for winning the war in Ukraine. Further evincing that optimism, the Russian government gazette ran an analysis piece on Sunday assessing that the trend in Congress is in Moscow's favor.
Still, Putin's "outlast" gambit is ultimately only an extension of his broader engagement with the West. Whether in terms of warning Germany over hosting U.S. nuclear weapons or funding anti-fracking groups in the West or fueling anti-American and anti-NATO sentiments on the European political left or testing NATO unity, Putin revels in trying to broaden Western division. That division, after all, is the best way for Russia to overcome the otherwise insurmountable odds that Western unity presents. Putin's passion for this strategy flows from his Soviet KGB service during the Cold War.
True, his exceptional wartime leadership aside, Volodymyr Zelensky has recently played into Putin's hands here by alienating allies and failing to address domestic corruption adequately. Nevertheless, Russia's strategy rests on a lot of dangerous assumptions.
For one, significant majorities in Congress continue to support Ukraine. They do so because they recognize that the survival of a sovereign European democracy is of great importance in and of itself, but also for the preservation of the post-1945 democratic order in Europe. While the linking of support for Ukraine to effective deterrence of China is exaggerated, Ukraine's fate matters. Ukraine's fall to Russian imperialism would encourage Western disunity and appeasement-minded attitudes in Europe. That would undermine the democratic rule of law and resisting the Sino-Russian effort to dominate international affairs.
Moreover, it's hard to see any new Congress in January 2025 enacting the cuts to support for Ukraine that Russia needs. While Moscow has shown an impressive ability to sidestep and otherwise endure Western sanctions, the long-term impact of those sanctions on Russia's energy and industrial sectors is significant. New Ukrainian battlefield successes (Ukraine has a lot of Western armored vehicles and tanks in reserve and F-16 fighter jets on their way) or efforts by Zelensky to address corruption more forcefully would also consolidate Western support. Nor would be a major concern to see increased U.S. caution over providing Ukraine with some weapons that are needed to defend Taiwan. European nations could replace those provisions with alternate weapons systems.
The idea, then, that Putin can bide his time for many years is a bold one. On the contrary, as Russia's war effort continues to flail, the body bags continue to pile up and the economy continues to stagnate, Putin faces the escalating risk of another coup attempt. And while a substantial reduction in Western aid to Ukraine would obviously pose a grave challenge to Kyiv, it might not be an existential one. Ukrainian forces retain high morale and, at least at the infantry level, significant combat power. At the same time, Russian forces have shown only a weak ability to conduct and sustain combined arms offensives. In that sense, a major reduction in Western support to Ukraine would more likely lead to battlefield stagnation than to Russian victory.
Top line: Russia senses an obvious opportunity amid U.S. aid frictions. But it's fanciful to believe that these frictions offer some near- to medium-term lifeline for Moscow's broken war effort.