One hundred days ago, before sunrise, Russia launched artillery attacks on Ukraine before sending troops to the main cities, starting a war against a much smaller country and an army outnumbered in number. destined to quickly overthrow the Kyiv government.
But the brutal invasion has shattered these predictions, awakening old alliances, testing others, and spreading death and destruction across the country. Both armies are now linked in fierce and bloody battles across a 600-mile-long front to control eastern Ukraine and gain the lead in the conflict.
Analysts say the winner, if any, is unlikely to emerge in the next 100 days. Some anticipate an increasingly insoluble struggle in eastern Ukraine and a growing confrontation between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the West.
New Western weapons promised in Ukraine, such as the long-range missiles announced by President Biden this week, could help it reclaim some cities, which would be important for civilians in these areas, said Ian Bremmer, chairman of the group. Eurasia, a political risk. consulting organization. But they are unlikely to drastically alter the course of the war, he said.
Ukrainian soldiers of the 95th Air Assault Brigade carrying water near their base in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Friday. Credit … Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times
Compressed by the tightening of Western sanctions, Russia said it would likely retaliate with cyberattacks, espionage and misinformation campaigns. And a Russian naval blockade of Ukrainian grain is likely to worsen a food crisis in poor countries.
“What we’re seeing now is how the war in Ukraine is likely to be in 100 days, not radically different,” Bremmer said. “But I think the confrontation with the West has the potential to be significantly worse.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly said on Friday that “victory will be ours” and noted overnight that 50 foreign embassies had resumed “their full activities” in Kyiv, a sign of the fragile sense of normalcy. who was returning to the capital.
However, more than three months after a war that has radically altered Europe’s security record, killed thousands on both sides, displaced more than 12 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis, the forces Russians now control a fifth of the country, an area larger than the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.
Asked during a briefing with reporters on what Russia had achieved in Ukraine after 100 days, presidential spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said many populated areas had been “liberated” from the Ukrainian army, which he described as ” of the Nazi mentality “. duplicate a false narrative that the Kremlin has used to justify the invasion.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that the invasion had caused destruction that “defies understanding”, adding: “It would be difficult to overstate the cost that the international armed conflict in Ukraine has had on civilians over the past 100 days “.
Antonina Morgun cleaning the garden near the remains of her mother-in-law’s destroyed house in Kukhari, Ukraine, on Friday. Credit … Nicole Tung for The New York Times
More than 4,000 civilians have been killed since February 24, according to UN estimates. Ukrainian officials place the death toll much higher.
The war has also led to the largest refugee exodus in Europe since World War II. More than 8 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced and more than 6.5 million have fled to other countries, according to the United Nations.
Half of Ukrainian companies have closed and lost 4.8 million jobs. The UN estimates that the country’s economic output will fall by half this year. Ninety percent of the population is at risk of falling near or below the poverty line. At least $ 100 billion in infrastructure damage.
“We may not have enough weapons, but we resist,” said Oleh Kubrianov, a Ukrainian soldier who lost his right leg fighting near the front line, speaking hoarsely as he lay in a hospital bed. He still had shrapnel embedded in his neck. “We are many more, and we are motivated and convinced of our victory,” he said.
In fact, a recent poll found that almost 80% of Ukrainians believe that the country “is moving in the right direction.”
“The idea of Ukrainian identity expanded,” said Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian writer, describing national sentiment. “More people feel Ukrainian, even those who doubted their Ukrainian and European identity.”
The legendary dog who smells Patron bombs arrives at Lviv’s Dynamo Stadium during the celebration of International Children’s Day on Wednesday. Credit … Diego Ibarra Sánchez for The New York Times
Russia is also suffering from the invasion, geopolitically isolated and facing years of economic dislocation. Its banks have been cut off from Western finances and, with oil production already down by 15 per cent, it is losing energy markets in Europe. Its industries are struggling with the shortage of basic materials, spare parts and high-tech components.
Finland and Sweden’s decisions to abandon more than 70 years of neutrality and apply for NATO membership have highlighted the disastrous strategic costs of the invasion of Russia.
Major Western companies such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Nike have disappeared, apparently to be replaced by Russian brands. The impact will be less noticeable outside the big cities, but with nearly 1,000 foreign companies leaving, some consumers have felt the difference as stocks run out.
While existing stocks have maintained much of the country, Russia will soon have a much more Soviet feel, going back to a time when Western products were non-existent. Some importers will make a fortune by bringing everything from jeans to iPhones to engine spare parts, but the country will become much more autonomous.
“In Russia, the most important thing in the last 100 days is that Putin and the elite have firmly established themselves on an autocratic and isolationist path, and the elite and the general public seem to support it,” said Konstantin Sonin, an economist. Russian University of Chicago.
“The course seems to be resolved, and it will be difficult to reverse even if the war ends miraculously quickly,” he added. The next step is likely to be a return to more centralized economic planning, he predicted, with the government setting prices and assuming the allocation of certain scarce goods, especially those needed for military production.
War also resonates worldwide. On Friday, Macky Sall, President of Senegal and President of the African Union, made a direct call to Mr. Putin to release the grain of Ukraine as the countries of Africa and the Middle East face alarming levels of hunger and starvation.
A grain store on a farm on the outskirts of Lviv in western Ukraine. Credit … Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
At a press conference with Putin in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, Mr. Sall also blamed Western sanctions on Russia for exacerbating Africa’s food crisis.
“Our countries, even though they are far from the theater,” said Mr. Sall, “are victims of this crisis economically.”
Tens of millions of people in Africa are on the brink of starvation and starvation.
On Friday, Chad, a landlocked nation of 17 million, declared a food emergency, and the United Nations has warned that nearly a third of the country’s population would need humanitarian assistance this year.
At the moment, peace in Ukraine does not seem to be going anywhere.
On Friday, the sky around Sievierodonetsk, the last major city in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, still under Ukrainian control, was filled with smoke as both armies exchanged blows in a fierce battle.
Ukrainian troops were moving heavy and shelling weapons down the roads to the front line, pouring men and armor into the fighting. Russian rockets struck an area near Sievierodonetsk in the late hours of Friday afternoon, landing with multiple loud explosions that were heard from a nearby village. The missiles crossed the sky from Ukrainian-controlled territory to Russian positions.
A Ukrainian armored column in a line of trees near the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Wednesday. Credit … Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times
Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, said both sides could be bogged down for months or years in a war of “positions” rather than movement.
“This is not a bad scenario for Russia, which would keep its country at war and expect fatigue to take its toll on Westerners,” Tertrais wrote in a document for the Institut Montaigne. Russia would already win to some extent, “putting the occupied regions under the thumb for a long time.”
However, Tertrais believes that a gradual material and moral collapse of the Russian effort remains more likely, given the low morale of Russian troops and the general mobilization of Ukraine.
Amin Awad, the United Nations crisis coordinator for Ukraine, said that regardless of who won the conflict, the toll was “unacceptable”.
“This war has not and will not have a winner,” Mr. Awad in a statement. “Rather, we have witnessed for 100 days what is lost: lives, homes, jobs and prospects.”
Carlotta Gall, Dan Bilefsky, Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Cassandra Vinograd, Elian Peltier and Kevin Granville all contributed to the reports.