Next year could be the turning point in the Ukraine conflict

The casualties may be relatively light, but the misery inflicted by Russia’s latest rocket strikes on Ukraine is extensive. Around half of the country’s electricity supply has been knocked out, and Kharkiv, the second city, has no power supply at all.

It is a targeted, strategic action aimed at taking out power stations, hydroelectric plants and substations all destroyed. For obvious reasons, only the nuclear installations appear to have been spared (though they are always susceptible to a rogue Russian unit lobbing a shell at a reactor).

This new wave of attacks follows precisely the pattern set in recent months. As winter sets in, Russia’s troops – indifferent fighters in this unpopular war – are dug in for defence, their trenches a throwback to the attrition and discomforts of the Western front in the First World War.

The Ukrainian forces, greatly augmented by Western armaments, find it more difficult to make more progress in the snow and ice. Cynically and cruelly, the Russians have concluded that if they cannot win a war by defeating Ukraine’s military, they will instead try to win it by crushing Ukraine’s civilian population.

If the experience of this war since February demonstrates anything, it is that no one, least of all the Russians, should underestimate the tenacity of the people of Ukraine, whether in uniform or not. Historically, mass bombings of civilian areas have rarely produced the desired outcome from the point of view of the aggressor.

So it will prove in Ukraine, where morale remains strong and resistance determined. Indeed, the very savagery displayed by Vladimir Putin’s forces, and the fear they have provoked, has made Ukrainians even more determined to resist and to throw the Russians out of their country. The rocket attacks are a sign of Russian weakness, not that they are about to prevail.

The Ukrainians claim great success in shooting down the Russian missiles – they say they downed 60 of the 70 rockets in the current onslaught. Even so, the West obviously needs to send more of the very best air defence systems it can, to reduce to a minimum the success of these murderous attacks on civilians – obvious war crimes.

There are financial and political pressures on many Western governments to wind down support for President Zelensky and his people; but with the Russian war effort in disarray and the Ukrainians unleashing their own blitzkrieg campaign, this is no time to undermine Ukraine.

If there is to be a “negotiated settlement” between Kyiv and Moscow, then that is a matter for President Zelensky. The West is right to give him a blank cheque to defend his land, because the cost of a new Russian domination of Eastern Europe would inevitably be far greater.

Looking forward to 2023, there is reason to believe that events could well swing Ukraine’s way. Perhaps fuelled by Western misinformation, or perhaps the result of excellent intelligence, there are persistent rumours about President Putin’s health. His generals and the less cronyistic members of his entourage must be concerned that the “special military operation” has gone as badly as it has.

As the first anniversary of what is turning into a protracted slugfest approaches in February, some in the Kremlin and across the Russian population as a whole must feel that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has outlived his usefulness to Mother Russia.

If he retires through ill health, is ousted, or flees to some safe haven abroad (Venezuela and Argentina have been posited), his departure should mean a swift conclusion to the war, and perhaps even the energy and food crisis. Stranger, more unexpected revolutions have happened in Russia.