The extent to which each scenario might come to fruition will depend on three factors:
- The capacity and willingness of Ukraine’s Western allies to sustain financial and military support for the country and provide long-term security guarantees.
- Ukraine’s ability to maintain popular support for the continuing war while mobilizing and deploying forces in sufficient quantities.
- In the case of Russia, the continued absence of opposition to the war on the part of elites and society at large.
Despite the obvious asymmetries of army size, economic power and mobilization potential that have made Ukraine the underdog in this war, the country still retains one vital advantage over its adversary. Ukrainians are motivated by what they are fighting for. They have mobilized as a society to defend their independence. By contrast, Russian soldiers are fighting more for money and less for their country. While the Kremlin views the war as existential for Russia, there is no evidence that this view is widely supported in Russian society even if a majority believes that the ‘special military operation’ is justified.
Although Russia has much larger resources to sustain a long war, Moscow’s cautious approach to mobilization, evidenced by its recruitment of soldiers for the war mainly from the provinces rather than the big cities and its clear reluctance to mobilize further, points to the Kremlin’s realization that there are limits to the willingness of Russians to rally around the flag.
The incursion of Ukrainian forces into Kursk region in August 2024 did not trigger a wave of patriotism and there were no floods of volunteers wanting to expel the invader. It is notable too that among the supporters of the war, there are different camps, including so-called ‘turbo patriots’. Some of the latter have consistently criticized the Russian leadership’s strategy and tactics for prosecuting the war.
Society’s ability to fill in gaps left by government structures can also be a critical factor in driving the reforms needed to raise the quality of Ukraine’s overall resilience and make it sustainable over the long-term.
Unlike Russia, Ukraine’s resilience is built on society’s capacity for self-organization that is derived from the strong horizontal links in its social structure. This quality has been a significant force multiplier and has the potential to remain so although Ukraine faces obvious challenges to mobilize and train enough soldiers to keep the army fighting effectively. Society’s ability to fill in gaps left by government structures can also be a critical factor in driving the reforms needed to raise the quality of Ukraine’s overall resilience and make it sustainable over the long-term.
The Ukrainian partisan operations underway in territories occupied by Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion are a reminder that armed resistance to Soviet rule in western parts of the country – incorporated into the USSR at the end of the Second World War – continued into the mid-1950s. Even if Ukraine were to be formally defeated, this could still be a very long war.