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After the adrenaline of 2022, and hopes of 2023, the mood in Ukraine has decidedly soured. With scarce ammunition, the news from the front is bleak and about to get worse. In Kharkiv, the mood is still defiant, but attacks on Ukraine’s second city
have intensified.
Although Russia lacks the capacity to take Kharkiv, its strategy appears to be to turn it into an unlivable “grey zone”.
Over the weekend President Volodymr Zelesnky said “tough days” lie ahead in the Donetsk region. This could be a warning that Ukraine may in the weeks ahead be forced to abandon current positions near Chasyv Yar, a small town 20km away from Kramatorsk, a sizable city. In the West and on Russian-leaning social media channels, there is already talk about Ukraine soon needing to begin negotiations with Russia, in which land would somehow be swapped for peace on any terms.
But Oleksandr Lytvynenko, a former foreign-intelligence chief newly promoted to head Ukraine’s national security brief, has a problem with that. When I met with him for
an interview in Kyiv
last week, his frustration was showing. He had a simple message: who on earth do you negotiate with? Russia’s president is not about to step back from its maximalist objectives of removing Ukrainian statehood, Mr Lytvynenko told me. “Putin has lied, is lying and will lie.”
There are few easy jobs in the Ukrainian state right now. Mr Lytvynenko’s role requires him to deliver the almost impossible. At home, Russian influence campaigns appear to be working, capitalising on fear and unrest. Abroad, Ukraine’s survival has become the subject of domestic football. Resources are low, expectations are high, and there are many ready to pounce on mistakes.
Mr Lytvynenko, an avid reader of military biographies, told me he has only just begun to understand what his history books are about. “The stakes and price of mistakes. The price of decisions you do or don’t take. When tens, hundreds of thousands of lives depend on it.” He said that his dream is to help deliver security and prosperity to his friends, family and compatriots. As America’s Congress wonders whether it will, at long last, sign off on a much-needed new package of military assistance to Ukraine, it should surely conclude that Mr Lytvyenenko and others like him deserve the opportunity to deliver on that dream.
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