Ahead of the U.S. election, Ukrainians feel cornered by forces beyond their control

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Michael Bociurkiw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

With results from crucial elections in Georgia and Moldova this month that were surely applauded by the Kremlin, Ukrainians cannot be blamed for feeling trapped in an increasingly dangerous neighbourhood. Nor can they be faulted for voicing regret about hitching their futures to Western partners run by leaders who appear to have grossly underestimated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to global peace and stability.

Whether it’s through globalizing the war in Ukraine via the embedding of North Korean troops, attempted assassinations of opponents and sabotage campaigns on foreign soil, or alleged meddling in foreign elections, Mr. Putin has shown himself to be colour-blind to red lines set by the west. A jaw-dropping lack of political resolve in those democracies has motivated Mr. Putin to look farther westward to prod for soft tissue – and he is finding plenty of it.

Here in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, despite a recent spate of unseasonable warmth and sunshine, there are few smiles on the faces of Ukrainians. And for good reason.

As they approach the 1,000-day mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion and yet another crucial election – this one on Nov. 5 in the United States – Ukrainians fear that the war will be settled not on their own terms but by Donald Trump, a man who admires Mr. Putin among other distasteful leaders, both past and present. A worst-case scenario involves a deal outlined by Mr. Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, that comes straight from Russian talking points: Moscow retaining territories it has already seized, the establishment of a demilitarized zone, and Ukraine giving up its NATO bid.

As both sides count up their war dead on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia, the Kremlin’s forces – bolstered by military assistance by Iran, increasingly by North Korea, and covertly by China – are making steady gains in the Donetsk region. Having long since seized control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, they appear poised to take control of a coking-coal mine in Pokrovsk, which could result in the halving of Ukraine’s output of steel, its second-most important export.

To the west, in capitals stretching from Paris and London to Washington, elected leaders who still inexplicably succumb to Mr. Putin’s bluffs are fearful about allowing Ukraine to use its missiles to strike deeper within Russia. For months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has begged for enhanced missile capability so that his forces can eliminate the launch pads Moscow uses to direct drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities, power plants, hospitals, churches and museums. As residents of Dnipro and Kyiv were reminded in the past few days, air-defence systems simply do not provide enough cover to protect them from waves of incoming Russian drones and missiles.

Russia’s growing rap sheet certainly isn’t limited to the area known as the former Soviet Union. Fresh Western intelligence shows that Moscow has been providing targeting information to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels for strikes on commercial ships in the Red Sea. Given its blockade and missile-strike campaign on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, that means the Kremlin is menacing trade and vital food shipments in two key international arteries. Thanks to satellite data, we are also learning that Russia has ramped up its ability to research and handle extremely dangerous pathogens, causing concern around whether they could be used as part of what Estonia’s then-prime minister Kaja Kallas called Moscow’s “shadow war” against Europe.

To be sure, Russia has taken an incredible beating at the hands of Ukrainian forces. The combined number of deaths and injuries on the Russian side was estimated at around 300,000 a year ago; about one-third of its vaunted Black Sea fleet has been destroyed; the volume of Russian oil refining has been reduced to 17 per cent owing to Ukrainian drone strikes. Still, the Kremlin retains dangerous combat forces, such as long-range aviation units, rocket forces and undersea assets, that have been “barely touched” by the Ukraine war, the top U.S. general in Europe, Christopher Cavoli, said. Moscow is also building a shadow fleet of commercial vessels with Russian-oil exports that, despite sanctions, continue to fund its war machine.

Ukraine is just one front in a multipronged Russian assault against the west, but it is the most important one. If Mr. Putin loses here, it will weaken him substantially. But the slow-drip approach to military aid for Ukraine and the weak sanctions against Russia have proven ineffective. Give Ukraine what it needs now to finish the job – starting with long-range strike capability inside Russia.