Opinions shared about the war in Ukraine have been plentiful and wide-ranging. Many of those views were wrong in the initial stages of the war, but at this point what everyone can agree upon is that this conflict will undoubtedly take years to resolve — and the toll of this war will not decrease soon. After more than a year and a half, the conflict is now entering a new and more dangerous phase. The war is escalating with respect to geography, global implications, and weapons employed. This is occurring while Western populations are becoming increasingly weary of this war.
U.S. officials announced earlier this month that the number of casualties is roughly 500,000. Russia has suffered 120,000 dead and more than 170,000 wounded. Ukraine’s casualty rate is lower: around 70,000 killed and more than 100,000 wounded. Russia’s larger population could give it greater staying power, but Ukrainian resolve appears unshaken.
The conflict expands
The Biden Administration’s hopes of confining the war to the territory of Ukraine are failing. Kyiv is launching more and more drones into Russian territory in an effort to bring the war to the Russian people in response to the massive drone and missile attacks Ukraine has suffered. Ukraine launched its largest drone attack since the war began on Wednesday, focusing the barrage on military targets. Kyiv has also conducted additional strikes on the Kerch Bridge to isolate Crimea and sought to achieve a psychological blow with drone attacks on the Kremlin and Moscow.
The Black Sea has become a theatre of conflict after the Kremlin canceled the grain agreement, potentially drawing in other countries into the war. At the same time, Africa may also witness more proxy conflicts between Russia and the West.
NATO also faces growing concerns on its eastern flank: Belarus and the remnants of the Wagner Group. Since Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny and death, it has been difficult to predict what would come next for the mercenary group. Would Russia integrate Wagner into its own forces? Would they allow the Wagner leader to survive? The demise of Prigozhin and much of Wagner’s senior leadership appears to have answered some of those questions, though what it means for Wagner’s operations in Belarus and Africa remains unclear.
Poland and the Baltic States, all NATO members, have been outspoken that the presence of several thousand Wagner group fighters in Belarus and threatening rhetoric by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko present a growing security challenge. As a result, Poland ordered several thousand troops to its border, as Wagner fighters conducted military exercises near the Polish and Lithuanian borders. Most NATO experts argue that there is little chance of an outright invasion, but Wagner mercenaries could conduct sabotage operations. These exercises were conducted close to Suwalki Gap which is a narrow strip of land that separates Belarus from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea — a region of great strategic value. If a conflict did occur, military experts believe Russia would seek to seize this terrain to isolate the Baltic Republics.
This may be an effort by Lukashenko to just be provocative, but it could have more to do with impending national elections in Poland. The current ruling party (Law and Justice) has described itself as the defender of Polish sovereignty. But Lukashenko’s goading raises the possibility of a miscalculation that could result in disaster.
Moscow’s efforts to maintain if not expand its influence in Africa following the death of Prigozhin suggests that conflict may increase in Africa as well. Russia may seek to benefit from the recent coup in Niger which displaced a democratically elected leader supported by the West. Furthermore, the Kremlin is seeking to replace Prigozhin with a new leader who is loyal to Putin for the thousands of Russian mercenaries currently operating in Mali, Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic. The Kremlin has also expanded its economic and political efforts in Burkina Faso, Algeria, Sudan, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea.
The Niger coup is a particular embarrassment for the United States and its allies. Washington largely trained the Niger army and currently has 1,100 soldiers in the country. But the implications are potentially even more catastrophic. There have now been seven coups across central Africa since 2020, and a growing possibility of a regional war. Moscow is likely pursuing a “hybrid warfare campaign” that seeks to synergize military operations, criminality, refugees, and economic benefit. The dislocation such social unrest and civil wars engender has already dramatically increased the refugee flow to Europe, creating a political and immigration crisis.
Increasing global concerns
Though Western economies are experiencing increasing stability since the pandemic, the war’s growing economic effects are mounting. The Russian economy is increasingly suffering, forcing the central bank to raise interest rates by 3.5% to 12% in a single day. This has serious implications for Russia’s growth and development and brought about a 17-month low for the ruble.
Meanwhile, Kyiv has employed naval drones against Russian ships raising the possibility of reducing Moscow’s ability to export grains, fertilizer, and oil from its ports in the Black Sea. This could have major global implications. More than 3% of the world’s supply of oil moves through the Black Sea. Roughly 750,000 barrels of Russian crude oil per day were historically shipped from Russian Black Sea ports, though that has already reduced to between 400,000 and 575,000 barrels a day. State Department energy experts estimate that prices could rise $10 to $15 per barrel if Russia is prevented from using the Black Sea to export oil.
While the Ukrainians have attempted to create safe corridors for maritime travel via the Black Sea, the Russians are also seeking to destroy Ukrainian grain destined for export as well as the port infrastructure that is critical to the Ukrainian economy.
This has threatened NATO members located on the shores of the Black Sea: Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. Ukraine has increasingly depended on Romania to export its grain via the Danube River through its Izmail and Reni ports. These three NATO countries have immense economic interests tied to the Black Sea. These developments could draw them into the conflict and force NATO to increase its force posture in the region.
Russia’s efforts to destroy Ukrainian grain and infrastructure will have a significant effect on wheat and other commodity prices. Ukraine has historically accounted for over 10% of the global wheat market and exported 33 million metric tons of grain since it brokered the agreement with Russia via the United Nations and Turkey. If Kyiv struggles to export wheat, corn, barley, and sunflower, it could cause famine in some countries in Africa and the Middle East.
A peace summit in Saudi Arabia demonstrated growing global concerns but appears to have done little to find a path to peace. Ukraine attended, along with 40 other countries, but Russia did not. China and India both sent representatives, and many other states in attendance would be significantly affected by a reduction in Ukrainian grain exports. The event did demonstrate the growing global concern about the war’s economic impact, humanitarian challenges as well as growing threats to nuclear security, the environment, and food distribution.
Expanding violence, weaponry, and the nuclear question
From the onset of this conflict, NATO has sought to calibrate its military assistance to Ukraine with an eye on how such support might be construed as escalation by Moscow. As the war continued, many of the qualms NATO allies had at the onset have faded, as members agreed to provide F16 fighter aircraft and long-range missiles. The U.S. has also provided the controversial cluster munitions.
In response, Moscow has become more indiscriminate in missile and drone strikes against populated areas. Russia has increasingly employed “two tap strikes” on Ukrainian cities. The first attack on a residential area will be followed by a second attack about 40 minutes later to also kill or injure first responders.
Moscow has created a massive ecological disaster with the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and fears remain that Russia might orchestrate a disaster at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such plant in Europe, which Moscow’s forces control. President Vladimir Putin has also continued to openly threaten the use of nuclear weapons in a clear attempt to intimidate the West.
But Putin has also gone beyond rhetoric. He has ordered the movement of Russian tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus, and Russian doctrine for the use of such weapons is substantially different from the United States, which emphasizes the use of a nuclear weapon as a last resort. Still, it is hard to imagine a scenario where a nuclear strike would not result in enormous negative strategic results for Russia for, at best, limited tactical gains. The possibility Russia might escalate to nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out, however. Still one of the casualties of the Ukraine war is nuclear arms control. The last remaining treaty that limits Russian and American strategic nuclear weapons (New START) will expire in February 2026. It is very unlikely to be renewed which will likely result in a new nuclear arms race that may be more difficult to stop than during the Cold War.
Political dynamic at home
Western weariness with the war is illustrated in the ongoing U.S. presidential campaign. Three major Republican presidential candidates — Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis — have either been noncommittal about their support for Ukraine or opposed to providing further assistance.
The U.S.’s financial assistance to Kyiv has been substantial: $113 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid. However, that support was provided under a budgetary authority outlined by Congress prior to the Republican Party securing a majority in the 2022 elections. Most of those funds are now gone, and President Joe Biden has requested an additional $24 billion in military assistance that the House and Senate will consider when they return from recess in September.
This will undoubtedly be a contentious debate. Seventy House Republicans voted to end Ukraine's military assistance in July, and some argue that additional funding for Ukraine would violate the budget caps agreed upon as part of the resolution of the debt ceiling issue in June.
Putin will enjoy this political turmoil in the United States, as he clearly believes his willpower is stronger than Washington and its allies. As the United States enters a presidential election year, the Ukraine war will be a major campaign issue — and it should be. But politicizing what is now the most important foreign policy challenge the United States faces is extremely dangerous. How this conflict is resolved will have a profound effect on both American interests and global stability for decades to come.
