Ukraine’s surprise attack on a fleet of Russian planes illustrates the changing nature of modern warfare. But could the attack also change Ukraine’s fortunes in the war?
Ukraine’s surprise attack on a fleet of Russian planes over the weekend illustrates the changing nature of modern warfare. But could the attack also change Ukraine’s fortunes in the war?
The two sides are still locked in battle more than three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its European neighbor. Russian casualties — nearing 1 million — and losses on the battlefield have started to become the focus of media coverage, with many observers questioning how much longer Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to press the conflict.
Mai’a Cross, dean’s professor of political science, international affairs and diplomacy at Northeastern University, is an expert in European affairs and an observer of the war. We spoke to her about Ukraine’s long game, and whether its successful attack in Russia has changed the larger calculus.
Her comments have been condensed for brevity and clarity.
So, a win for Ukraine is not going to be this clear-cut thing, where you have soldiers laying down their weapons and essentially giving up on the battlefield. It will be something more ambiguous, but it will always necessarily involve diplomacy. What we would look for — those of us observing this conflict — is more a diplomatic settlement that includes a ceasefire, that would require that Ukraine continue to have the right to sovereignty and self-determination, which it was fighting for all along. That is non-negotiable, otherwise, the war was for nothing.
One of the primary aims of Ukraine that in a way prompted this war was that it was seeking membership [in the European Union], and eventually NATO membership, to move toward the West. It has every right to do that as part of its own self-determination and sovereignty. Vladimir Putin obviously didn’t like the idea of Ukraine looking to the West, and wanted to make that impossible. So again, any potential diplomatic outcome has to leave open Ukraine’s right to join the EU and NATO — even if NATO is further down the road.
Obviously, Ukrainians want to end this war: they never wanted to be in it to begin with, and they want to be done with it while maintaining their rights as a sovereign nation. We have to look to Russia in terms of what leverage and pressure will force Putin to come to the negotiating table, to engage in diplomacy, and to be serious about it. What we saw with the most recent effort where Russia and Ukraine met directly is that they are not serious about it at all.
Yes, some of the pressure and leverage we’re talking about here can come from battlefield developments, like we saw on June 1 with Ukraine’s surprise attack within Russia on all of these bombers. It’s astounding to think about billions of dollars of Russian military equipment being destroyed by thousands of dollars of drones. But this happened, and not only does this materially weaken Russia, but it shows that Ukraine still has more strategies that may be unanticipated, and that may change the calculus.
I think this is why the changing nature of this war — the fact that it is so focused on drones — is causing militaries more broadly to think about whether we’re at an inflection point when it comes to how war is waged today. We’re seeing very low-cost weapons, such as these drones, being developed and deployed in the midst of battle. This means we can’t look strictly at so-called ‘realist’ measures of power, which would be to count the money and the weapons, and then figure out whoever is the most powerful quantitatively, by just adding that stuff up. That’s clearly not the case. It’s not just about being the most powerful party, but about the pressure and diplomacy. Ukraine has a tremendous amount of soft power here just based on international support alone, even if you have a few countries also supporting Russia.
Until June 1, Putin was claiming that he was kind of ahead in the war, and that he had no real motivation to agree to a ceasefire. This actually questions more seriously whether he is actually ahead, and again points to this disjuncture between counting resources, manpower and money and success on the battlefield.
It’s very clear that Ukraine needs continued funding, and whether the U.S. continues or not, Europe can step into that gap and really help out. There has also been talk in Europe about providing actual forces — and certainly plans moving European forces more to the East, either to help Ukraine eventually or to provide a buffer if Russia actually moved to invade a NATO or EU country. There you do see consistency; the support is strong. And there is actually the wherewithal to meet Ukraine’s needs on a funding level. If the war is truly going to be about drones, then there is actually hope for Europe to continue to support Ukraine regardless of what President Donald Trump does.
There’s always the question of whether Russia will fall back on nuclear weapons. With Putin’s desperation, anything is possible; but there is a pretty strong taboo worldwide against using them, and even if he used them symbolically, the backlash globally would be so strong. We now have an 80-year track record of non-use of nuclear weapons, so he would be really asking for a worldwide backlash if he broke that taboo.