Guest Of Honor

Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington on Wednesday. Dmitri Medvedev was in Beijing.

10 months on from Vladimir Putin’s ill-conceived invasion, the war in Ukraine is a stalemate. Zelensky’s celebrated underdogs and a motley crew of Russian conscripts, mercenaries, separatists and god only knows who else, are dug in on opposite sides of a 600-mile front line.

Putin this week described a “difficult,” “extremely complicated” situation in occupied territories, and asked his domestic security apparatus to step up surveillance of “traitors, spies and saboteurs.” He also handed out medals to the hand-picked leaders of the four regions he annexed, and the Kremlin indicated Wednesday that Moscow sees no chance of peace talks.

The message to everyday Russians is clear enough: Putin is (pot) committed to a pseudo-religious, imperialist fever dream, and he doesn’t care that pursuing it may ultimately mean erasing decades of economic progress, and condemning Russia to geopolitical obsolescence. Putin’s naked nuclear threats are now routinely brushed aside as desperate bombast, and his military’s disastrous showing in the early days of the invasion made clear that Russia stands no chance in a conventional conflict with the West.

More than ever, Putin needs Xi Jinping’s China. Russia arguably became a client state of Xi’s shortly after the invasion, and although the Kremlin is keen to present the “strategic relationship” as a partnership of equals, such claims, implicit or otherwise, are laughable. Russia’s pre-war economy was smaller than three US states. China’s economy, hobbled though it is after three years spent laboring under draconian pandemic curbs and a devastating property crackdown, is still expected to catch the US over time. The PLA is generally seen as a match for the US military depending on theater and context. Prior to the pandemic, Xi’s “Belt and Road” initiative expanded China’s role in debt-funded international development as did the Beijing-headquartered Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. And so on. Suggesting any China-Russia partnership is a marriage of equals is akin to suggesting the US-Australia relationship is symmetric.

On Wednesday, Xi told Medvedev that China would prefer peace talks. He called on “relevant parties” to “stay rational and restrained.” Beijing would doubtlessly say that applies to the US and NATO, but Russia is certainly a “relevant party” too. “Mutual security concerns,” Xi went on to say, should be resolved using “political methods.” Last month, Xi told Germany he’s opposed to the deployment of nuclear weapons in the conflict. Although Beijing’s propaganda machine habitually faults NATO expansion for the war, there’s no chance Beijing would defend Russia if Putin used a tactical nuke. I’m quite sure that’s been communicated to the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, Zelensky will meet with Joe Biden and address a joint session of Congress. Less than 48 hours ago, he was on the front lines in Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces are fighting the Wagner Group, Putin’s private army. The city has is now “burned ruins,” in Zelensky’s words. “The battle for Bakhmut… has turned into one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war,” The New York Times wrote, documenting Zelensky’s somber (and extremely risky) visit. “As losses for both sides have mounted, Ukraine’s hold on the ravaged city has taken on a symbolism that outstrips its military significance.” Apparently, “Bakhmut Holds” is now a national rallying cry.

Zelensky’s Capitol Hill cameo came as Congress was set to approve additional funding for Ukraine, taking the total to more than $100 billion. Biden was poised to announce nearly $2 billion in immediate aid, including, notably, a Patriot battery. The Kremlin is displeased about that. “[It] does not bode well for Ukraine,” Dmitri Peskov said Wednesday. On the contrary, it bodes just fine for Ukraine. Short of a nuclear escalation, Putin is doing everything he can to break the nation, to no avail. An ongoing, Syria-style bombardment perpetrated by Russian Air Force General Sergei Surovikin (not-so-affectionately known as “General Armageddon“) has produced a lot of darkness and a lot of international condemnation, but not much in the way of strategic gain.

The Washington visit marked Zelensky’s first overseas trip since the invasion. His penchant for being photographed all around Ukraine, and virtually always wearing combat attire, is a daily source of embarrassment for the Kremlin. Putin, by contrast, is always in a suit, and usually holed up in the Kremlin looking disinterested during meetings and, when addressing the nation, irritable.

Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak (who, I’d be remiss not to note, has made some claims during the war that turned out to be misleading), was forthright about the purpose of Zelensky’s trip. “Weapons, weapons and more weapons,” Podolyak said. “It is important [he] personally explains why we need armored vehicles, the latest missile defense systems and long-range missiles.” A US official said Biden won’t ask Zelensky to negotiate with Putin.

Ukraine’s state news agency on Tuesday showed soldiers in Bakhmut gifting Zelensky a Ukrainian flag bearing their signatures. “We will turn it over to the US Congress and to [Biden] from the guys,” Zelensky said.

Meanwhile, some of Putin’s “guys” still aren’t sure what, exactly, Russia is doing in Ukraine. “Of course he had no idea how terrible it would be there,” the wife of a Russian soldier told the Washington Post late last month. “We watch our [state] TV channels and they say that everything is perfect.” It’s rare that Russians speak to foreign media about sensitive domestic issues, let alone on the record.

Another disenchanted spouse told the Post that before her partner was mobilized, she was “a fervent pro-war patriot.” Now, not so much. Russian troops “have no clue what to do” in Ukraine, she said, citing her husband’s first-hand account. “They were just abandoned.”

On Monday, the UK’s military defense intelligence agency suggested Wagner Group commanders may be threatening to “summar[ily] execute” recruits near the front lines if they refuse orders to engage Ukrainian positions. Some of the recruits were described as “poorly trained convicts.”