Will Ukraine Survive the Winter?

Washington's position on Ukraine remains unclear as casualties rise and the energy crisis deepens.

As winter approaches, Russia has lifted its diesel export ban and is preparing to sell hundreds of thousands of tons to the United States and other countries. The move is part of a deal negotiated between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that resulted in the Treasury Department exempting it from sanctions on Russian fuel.

This contract was concluded in the midst of the growing global crisis over the supply and price of energy. Most importantly for Trump, he made the announcement just weeks before the US midterm elections, in which his Republican Party is in danger of losing its majority in both houses of Congress.

The main importance of this deal is political. Trump desperately needs American voters to see him as someone who cares about them. The fact that Trump turned to Putin, and that Putin was in a position to oblige him, is indicative of Russia's important role in the global energy market. But it also revealed the White House's willingness to sideline a client in times of weakness — in this case, Ukraine — to serve domestic interests.

It is not yet clear whether the agreement marks a turning point in the US's approach to the war in Ukraine. The fate of the Anchorage understanding last year suggests that it should be approached with caution. Trump's sudden reference to an "energy cease-fire" after the agreement was unacceptable to Russia appeared to balance a move toward Moscow with another move that would reassure Kiev and the Europeans.

Either way, America's ambivalent stance is not helping Ukraine and its European allies as they grapple with an energy crisis and ongoing casualties.

The conflict, from the very beginning, has been about much more than what happens on the battlefield. When the West, led by the United States, announced the "strategic defeat of Russia" as its main goal in the spring of 2022, it hoped that Western sanctions, as the then US President Joe Biden famously said, would "turn the ruble into rubble" and disintegrate the Russian economy, all of which would lead to Russia's military collapse. This, as we know, did not work.

Now Ukraine and its European allies face another harsh winter that will test their resilience to continue fighting a war of attrition.

Their strategy—to escalate through a heavy air campaign against targets deep in Russian soil—didn't work either. The expectation was that ordinary Russian citizens, once directly affected by the war, would rise up and force the Kremlin to agree to a ceasefire that would give Ukraine a much-needed respite. But the result was exactly the opposite: more support for Kremlin policies, not less.

In retaliation for the campaign, which Putin admitted cost 1 percent of Russia's gross domestic product, the Russian military launched its own campaign. It has loosened some of its self-imposed restrictions and begun attacking targets it had so far avoided, such as ships carrying goods to and from Ukraine, bridges over the Dnieper River and data centers.

Some observers have wondered if, for Russia, this is a way of "escalation to de-escalation" — six to nine months of intense air combat combined with developments on the ground that could end the conflict.

In fact, Ukraine's economy has been severely damaged. Its Black Sea ports can no longer export its wheat. The country's steel industry has stopped its production. Rail supplies are hampered by lack of workable engines.

Meanwhile, Kiev is under not only daily, but almost round-the-clock drone and missile attacks. The outlook of the Ukrainian capital for the coming winter is dire. Local officials have asked residents to leave because winter preparations, such as heating devices and storing water and food, may not be enough to get through the cold months.

However, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is as defiant as ever. There is no turning back for him. If he agrees to withdraw Ukrainian forces from the remaining part of Donetsk, as Putin has demanded, he should fear for his life. If a new presidential election is held in Ukraine, he will clearly lose. As soon as he loses, his supporters will dump him: just as they did with people like former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, now serving time in a Tbilisi prison.

Ukrainian politicians have recently become more restless, but they do not break with Zelensky on the issue of war and peace. It is the nationalists inside and the aid workers in western Egypt that the struggle will continue.

Especially for Europe, this war is not about Ukraine. It is about Russia. The current opportunity to use the second largest republic of the former Soviet Union to weaken Russia, Europe's historic enemy, is too good to pass up. Europe, which pays half of Kiev's budget, seems to think it can continue to fight "to the last Ukrainian", hoping to kill more Russians and thereby cripple their country.

This is not to neutralize the potential looming Russian threat, which is a red herring. Russia is exactly the enemy that the EU needs to protect itself. Military Keynesianism is the way to reboot the economy, and it is far too convenient to label political rivals as "Putin's agents."

In addition, several EU and NATO members secretly seek historical aggression: Germany for defeating Hitler in 1945, Poland for its multiple divisions, Sweden for ending Russia's great power status, Britain for losing its empire, etc.

Finally, with hundreds of billions of dollars invested in Kiev, Europe will not leave it in Ukraine until its financial and political losses outweigh the benefits of its Ukrainian counterpart. Or until a version of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis catches up with them.

Russia's proven resilience in this war is materially superior to Ukraine's and immaterially superior to Europe's, which will likely determine what happens next.

It is likely that both Ukraine and Europe will survive the coming winter - despite all the losses, deprivations and sufferings. They will live for another day—that is, a year or two (or less, as Putin recently suggested)—but in the end Kiev will surely fail, and Europe will have to begrudgingly accept the defeat of its client while pretending that the existence of a disorganized Ukrainian government is some kind of victory.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.