Historical lessons and why there'll be no winner in Russia-Ukraine war

A Ukrainian serviceman walks past a burnt-out car in the village of Krasylivka outside Kyiv, Ukraine March 26, 2022. [Reuters]

Two months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine in order to force Ukrainians to conform to Russian security concerns. It dislocated world economies, disorganised global geopolitics, and advanced realignments. No one, however, is winning. In war, winning for the attacker means the attacked's unconditional surrender failure to which the attacker is the loser.

Winning for those under attack means survival and making it impossible for the attacker to win; a stalemate is victory. The two conceptions of winning and losing are at play in Ukraine. Russia continues battering Ukraine but it has not achieved its objectives. The West supplies weapons and money to make Ukraine ‘survive’ and thereby appear to be ‘winning’ by not losing.

The West refuses to intervene physically and thus looks weak despite talking tough, supplying Ukraine with weapons and money, imposing sanctions on Russia, and calling Putin names. It lost honour because it never honoured implied NATO commitment to defend Ukraine.