Page 13 - Russia OUTLOOK 2023

into opening real talks to address Russia’s security concerns. Those went
nowhere.

In the two-hour December 7 virtual summit between Putin and US President
Joe Biden, the Russian leader laid out a set of demands for Nato to commit to
“legally binding” guarantees of no further expansion of Nato to the east. Those
demands were followed up by an eight-point list of demands issued by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 15, 2021 that was topped by the
no-Nato demand for Ukraine.

Two months of diplomacy followed after the New Year’s break, first with the US
and then led by French President Emmanuel Macron, came to nothing. At the
end of February Russia marched into Ukraine.

Putin’s popularity

Since the war started Putin has enjoyed another spike in nationalistic pride and
seen his personal popularity rise again from the 60s back into the low 80s.

The Kremlin propaganda has been very effective and has successfully
persuaded the majority of Russians that their country is under attack by Nato
and that Kyiv is run by a corrupt Nazi regime that is in the pay of the US.

Recent polls at the end of 2022 have shown a slight cooling of sentiment,
but even Ukraine’s highly successful Kharkiv offensive and the Russian retreat
from Kherson have not managed to dent his ratings much. Most Russians still
consider Russia to be going in the “right direction” and assume that Russia will
win the war.

In September a certain Ukraine fatigue became visible and there were
suggestions on all sides, except the Ukrainian one, that a return to the peace
talks that were held in March and April might be a good idea.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the majority
of Ukrainians, have passed the point of no return and refuse to
contemplate talks until Russia has been expelled from the country and Ukraine
returned to its 2021 borders, or even its 2013 borders.

In 2023 it remains to be seen how this plays out. Some analysts argue that
as both sides increasingly come to believe the war is unwinnable, they are
becoming more open to a diplomatic solution. The Kremlin has been signalling
that it is happy to start talks, but at the same time is suggesting strongly that
any talks must end with it still holding the Donbas, the land bridge from Rostov
to Crimea and Crimea itself. That is a non-starter for Zelenskiy.

However, as Nato has only been supplying Ukraine largely with defensive
weapons and holding back on the offensive tanks, planes and long-range
missiles, it seems unlikely that Ukraine’s army can make much more territorial
progress. For its part Russia has retreated and dug in as winter closes in and
its forces will be very hard to dislodge.

Europe in particular is coming under increasing pressure to end the war
as the polycrisis, and the cost-of-living and energy crises in particular, are

13 Russia OUTLOOK 2022 www.intellinews.com