The Ukraine war provides lessons from 2022 — and prospects for 2023

Besides relearning the obvious — that war is hell — we’ve also learned a few less-than-obvious things about Russia, Ukraine and the West in 2022.

1) Russia is a revanchist, imperialist, genocidal and fascist state that bears strong resemblance to Nazi Germany. The Russo-Ukrainian War has dispelled our illusions about Russia’s heading toward some form of internal normality and external equilibrium. Ronald Reagan famously called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” 

The Russian Federation is an evil would-be empire, which may be even worse. Would-be empires expand and start wars, while established empires are generally satisfied with the status quo. Although Russia cannot win its war against Ukraine, that war will end, finally and completely, only if Russia ceases being revanchist, imperialist, genocidal and fascist. Negotiations will accomplish nothing; only defeat can succeed in bringing about a sea change in Russia and its relations with its neighbors and the world.

2) Russian President Vladimir Putin may or may not be unhinged, but he is definitely a second-rate player at world chess, and not the grand master he was touted as being. In his 20-plus years in power, Putin has managed to construct an unviable, brittle regime; eviscerate the market economy and its professional classes; transform Russia into a deeply corrupt and inefficient petro-state; alienate Russia’s friends and allies; sully Russia’s name by associating it with war crimes; and involve it in a ruinous war that will be regarded as one of history’s greatest strategic mistakes. 

But Putin’s biggest mistake may be to have made himself the embodiment and linchpin of the Russian political system. As he ages, Russians will be hard-pressed to think of him as the image of their nation. And when he leaves, as he surely will, the system will be hard-pressed to survive without him.

3) The Russian army, like the Russian state, society, economy and culture, is a mess. The money that was supposed to go into its modernization evidently was purloined by Putin’s pals. Its tactics, strategy and command and control are out of date, and its armaments and heavy equipment are far worse than anyone could have imagined. Russian society is in a deep crisis, as millions of middle-class professionals have fled the Putin regime to seek their fortunes abroad, while a declining economy is curtailing prospects for those unable or unwilling to leave. 

Russian culture has been exposed as colonialist and supremacist, and its practitioners have compromised themselves by failing to take an ethical stance against Putin, his regime and the war in Ukraine. All these contradictions amount to deep trouble for the Russian Federation as a state. Are Russia’s days numbered? A number of Russian, Ukrainian and Western analysts believe this may be so. Russia’s collapse and break-up into a multitude of smaller states has become thinkable — and increasingly possible.

4) Ukrainians and their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, have shocked the world with their resilience, courage and commitment to democracy and freedom, as well as their ability to withstand and then push back the Russian assault. A corrupt and profoundly fragmented country that instills its Western supporters with fatigue — the regnant image of Ukraine before the war — could not have survived Putin’s invasion, genocide and war. Clearly, Ukrainians, despite their tendency to kvetch, are committed to their country, regardless of where they live or which language they speak. 

Ironically, the Ukrainian state, army, society, culture and national identity will emerge much stronger after the war ends. Although Ukraine’s economy may take decades to rebuild, Ukraine is likely to become a major player in European, and possibly even Eurasian, geopolitics.

5) Putin started the war because of his obsession with what he preposterously claimed was “a Ukrainian threat” to Russia. The claim was preposterous because Ukraine was — and still is — in no position to threaten Russia’s security or existence, while the obverse — that Russia threatens Ukraine — is clearly true. The West made some missteps, with respect to integrating Russia after the Cold War and enlarging NATO. But it’s high time to discard the canard that NATO enlargement and Ukraine’s potential membership in the alliance triggered the war. 

Sweden and Finland are joining NATO and thereby enlarging it, as of this year, and Russia has raised no objections. Everyone in Russia, Ukraine, Europe and North America knew in the weeks before the war that Ukraine stood no chance of joining NATO for at least two decades. Putin and his propaganda machine drew on Imperial Russian and Soviet ideology to demonize Ukrainians for not wanting to be Russians and to subordinate their country to Moscow’s whims.

6) Western policymakers and analysts grossly misjudged Russia, Putin, Ukraine and Zelensky. Although Western military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine proved indispensable to its ability to drive back the Russians, at the start of the war the West believed Russia was stronger, Putin more competent, Ukraine weaker, and Zelensky incompetent. The West’s ability to calculate the outcome of a possible Russian collapse therefore must be regarded with a grain of salt. A good portion of Eurasia may become embroiled in sustained bloodshed, as happened after the collapse of Imperial Russia. But equally possible is the Russian Federation’s peaceful end along the lines of the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

7) In any case, a Ukrainian defeat would spell the triumph of revanchism, imperialism, genocide and war, and thus disaster for stability, security, democracy and liberalism — in general and for Eurasia in particular. In contrast, a Ukrainian victory would deal a body blow to everything Putin and his comrades and supporters stand for.

If 2022 is a guide to what’s to come in 2023, we should expect Ukraine’s battlefield victories to continue and for Russia’s domestic and international travails to increase. Since the Ukrainians have no choice but to fight for their nation’s survival, and the Russians do not, 2023 easily could become a repeat of 1917 — when a losing war, a collapsing economy, popular discontent, the ruler’s incompetence, and elite illegitimacy resulted in the end of Russia. Will Putin see his life’s work come crashing down?

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”