Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy in Ukraine is increasingly clear for all to see: strategic patience.
This phrase is commonly associated with former President Barack Obama’s North Korea policy. It’s a fancy way of saying, “We plan on putting more pressure on the other side and sitting pretty until they blink.” As history demonstrates, it didn’t work on North Korea — if anything, the diplomatic isolation, in combination with U.S. economic sanctions, merely convinced Kim Jong-Un that prioritizing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs was the right course of action.
Putin’s strategic patience policy is different for any number of reasons. To name the most obvious, the United States and North Korea weren’t in the middle of a shooting war when Washington invoked it. But the assumptions behind the approach are the same: Use time to your advantage and gradually increase the amount of coercion until your adversary either gives up or agrees to enter a diplomatic process on your terms.
This is precisely what Putin is doing in Ukraine today. On the military front, the Russian army is pressing multiple offensives along the front line, bombarding Kyiv with a torrent of attack drones and ballistic missiles and making it known to Washington and its European allies that any peace process will have to take into account Moscow’s maximalist terms.
Russia has jolted its massive defense-industrial base into producing so many drones and missiles of various calibers that it can now afford to saturate, or at least attempt to saturate, Ukrainian air defenses. According to statistics from the Institute for the Study of War, large-scale Russian air strikes are now occurring every three to five days, compared to the 10-12 days earlier in the war. This uptick serves two purposes for the Russians: instilling psychological terror in the Ukrainian population and forcing the Ukrainian army to expend limited air defense munitions.
The Trump administration understands what the Russians are doing. President Donald Trump, for one thing, thinks Putin is jerking his chain and has said as much to reporters on countless occasions this month. Although Trump doesn’t have much love for the Ukrainians, he is now opening up the U.S. defense industrial base to Washington’s NATO allies so they can purchase U.S. weapons on Kyiv’s behalf. On July 14, Trump also warned Putin to expect tariffs of as much as 100%, and, more importantly, tariffs on foreign buyers of Russian oil and natural gas, if he doesn’t sign a peace deal ending the war in the next 50 days.
In the two weeks since, however, Putin hasn’t exhibited any more urgency than he did before the White House announced its policy shift. The Russian bombs continue to do damage, Russian troops continue to grind it out in an attempt to reclaim the entirety of the Donbas region, and the Kremlin has been exceedingly migraine-inducing when it comes to its cooperation with the U.S.-mediated diplomatic process.
Although Ukrainian and Russian officials sat down for a third round of talks in Istanbul last week, the two delegations flew back home with nothing to show for it save for more prisoner releases — low-hanging fruit if there ever was any. The diplomatic positions of the respective parties haven’t moved one iota — the Ukrainians still want an immediate, unconditional ceasefire, whereas the Russians are only willing to consider incremental 24-48 hour truces so the combatants can collect the dead bodies littering the fields and gulleys of eastern Ukraine.
Indeed, Kyiv and Moscow can’t even agree on how the diplomacy should be conducted, let alone what any prospective deal should consist of. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again called on Putin to agree to a face-to-face summit, arguing that top-level engagement is the only way diplomacy can move forward. The Russians are characteristically dismissive of the idea, likely viewing it as a trap by Zelensky to illustrate just how uncooperative the Russian side is.
“A high-level meeting can and must put a final point in the settlement and seal the modalities and agreements that are yet to be worked out by experts,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last Friday. “It’s impossible to act otherwise.” Kyiv, naturally, considers this to be yet another stalling tactic on the Kremlin’s part.
IS TRUMP READY FOR PUTIN’S RETALIATION?
Ultimately, this is all part of Putin’s grand scheme, which in reality is the oldest play in the history of war-related diplomacy: Slug it out, move the facts on the ground closer to your advantage, and persist until the other party gets exhausted or simply quits because it can’t afford to carry on anymore. This has been Putin’s strategy ever since the war began more than 3 1/2 years ago, and it remains his strategy today.
Can the U.S. change Putin’s calculus? Many U.S. foreign policy analysts believe so, arguing that the only way to do so is to sustain, if not increase, U.S. military aid to Ukraine and ensure the aid itself is immune from Trump’s whims. And yet Putin is firmly committed to winning, or to be perceived as winning, in Ukraine, regardless of the obstacles Washington, Europe, or the Ukrainians throw up. Most would call this messianic stubbornness — Putin would call it a calculated gamble.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner. His opinions are his own.