Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help Kyiv by “dropping five more queens on the board”, according to an influential historian of eastern Europe.
Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor, argued that continuing high levels of military aid could allow Ukraine to prevail, in response to a recent interview given by Kyiv’s top military commander, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, suggesting that the war was deadlocked.
“I hate the stalemate analogy because war is not a game of chess,” Snyder said in an interview with the Guardian. “In chess, there are only so many pieces on the board, and the reason why you get into stalemate is that your pieces get into a certain arrangement.”
However, war did not mirror the boardgame, the historian argued, because the amount of resources or weaponry available to each side is not limited. “The reason why I hate the stalemate analogy is that it suggests we can’t just drop five more queens on the Ukrainians board, and we can do it any time.”
At the beginning of November, Zaluzhnyi acknowledged in an interview with the Economist that Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive was stalling. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he said, prompting a debate about whether the statement was correct.
Snyder was speaking as he began a second year of fundraising for a nationwide drone-detection system aimed at helping Kyiv stop Russia from destroying the electricity grid and other vital utilities during Ukraine’s hard winter. An aggressive bombing campaign led to a succession of energy blackouts last winter.
Snyder said: “I think there are a lot of people on the Russian leadership and the Russian elite who just enjoy the cruelty. They just like the idea of depriving Ukrainians of water and food and energy and warmth during the winter,” and the goal of the drone-detection system was to help prevent that.
Talk of stalemate on the battlefield was defeatist – a “self-fulfilling passivity prophecy”, the historian said. US politicians and western leaders had to be prepared to support Ukraine with long-term military aid, amid wrangling in the US Congress over whether to approve a $61bn (£49bn) aid package proposed by President Joe Biden.
Political arguments against providing more support for Ukraine advanced by some Republicans were “bad faith arguments”, Snyder argued. Those calling for an audit of US spending on Ukraine were not taking into account the fact “we have never audited our own department of defence”.
Snyder said: “The other argument that people make is that we’re fatigued, which is ridiculous. We’re not fatigued, we’re easily distracted.” He argued that those advancing such a position perhaps “want Putin to win” but are “maybe afraid to say so”.
Although there are majorities in both houses of Congress to continue supporting Ukraine, further military aid is opposed by significant numbers of Republicans in the house. Earlier this week, Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, warned it was getting “harder and harder” to fully fund Ukraine “each week that passes”.
Failure to maintain support for Ukraine would amount to a long-term foreign policy disaster greater than the invasion of Iraq, Snyder argued. “It’s stunning how much the Americans would have to lose in terms of credibility, democracy, deterring China, deterring Russia and basically everything,” the historian said.
Although the historian acknowledged that Kyiv’s land advance had run out of momentum, largely because of the difficulty of clearing Russia’s deep defensive belt of mines, he argued that Ukraine had shown significantly greater ingenuity in repelling the initial invasion retaking some of the territory.
Snyder said: “The big, unpredictable thing is that Ukrainians have shown they can do much more than we expected. And I think that’s the point where we have to keep pushing. If they can generally do more than we expect, then we should be trying to find ways to help them,” he said.
Snyder began his career as a historian of eastern Europe, but is more recently known for writing books such as On Tyranny, warning against creeping authoritarianism in the US in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election as US president. Since the start of the war he has advocated strongly in support of Ukraine.
Historians don’t “stand aside from all kinds of other moral activities in the world”, the historian said, while truth involved making authentic connections and providing help where necessary. “Although humanitarian aid matters a lot, you can’t actually stop a cruise missile with a sweater,” he said.
