War in Ukraine must not be forgotten as bleak conflict slips down the headlines: Andy Brown

Whatever way you look at it, what is happening in the Ukraine right now is bleak. Throughout the autumn neither side was able to make significant progress during the season of mud. A lot of very brave Ukrainian soldiers lost their lives or their limbs trying to launch attacks through miles of mine fields under heavy fire. A lot more Russian soldiers, former convicts and foreign mercenaries have had their lives sacrificed by Putin in reckless assaults against Ukrainian positions.

Putin has continued to order drone attacks and bombardments of targets like power plants that are of vital importance to the lives of the ordinary people he claims to want to save. Whole cities have been reduced to rubble and huge areas of land made deadly for generations by hidden mines.

Yet the war has slipped from the headlines and there has been a gradual erosion of the willingness of some in the West to pay for the cost. Whenever support from countries like Poland has had an impact on the standard of living of local farmers and lorry drivers it has become difficult to sustain.

There have even been reports of significant numbers of Ukrainian men of military age paying corrupt officials for paperwork that provides them with exemption.

It is tempting for some to believe that it might be better to recognise the reality on the ground and try and get some kind of peace deal signed that stops the fighting and leaves both sides in possession of whatever they currently hold.

Unfortunately, there are massive problems with that. The first, and the most important, is that President Putin has recently re-iterated his conviction that Ukraine isn’t a separate country but an integral part of Mother Russia. He believes it is an historical duty to bring the two parts of one homeland together. Under his rule.

Whilst he persists in this belief there is no easy compromise. Any pause in the fighting will simply be accompanied by the rebuilding of his military forces and readying them for the next invasion.

Which means that the fighting is going to continue and could easily get worse. At the start of this conflict most analysists believed that Russian military resources were so strong that they would simply roll over Ukrainian defences and would achieve a quick victory.

That was proved wrong because of bad tactics which left long columns of troops bogged down on narrow roads where they were easy targets. And because of the sheer bravery and determination of Ukrainian people.

The resources which provided that resistance aren’t limitless. It is real people who are being killed and sooner or later the number of brave volunteers that Ukraine can field reaches a limit. There simply aren’t enough men of fighting age to replace losses with troops of the same quality as the early volunteers.

Russia has a larger population and a larger economy. Putin has no moral qualms about sending people to their deaths and spending a fortune on using Iranian drones to kill people from a distance.

There is nothing in military logic that says that it is impossible for him to win. His forces could punch through exhausted lines. Tired cold and muddy defenders trying to protect many hundreds of miles of the front can’t automatically be assumed to keep holding on.

The better news is that there is also nothing automatic about the willingness of ordinary Russian people to put up with endless deaths. Bad wars triggered major political change in 1905, twice in 1917, and at the end of the 1978-92 war in Afghanistan.

It remains very possible that the Russian people will tire of paying the price for Putin’s thirst for power.

In such circumstances the worst thing we in Britain can do is to lose interest in the war halfway through and hope it goes away. If we intended to fail the Ukrainian people when the going got tough then we should never have offered them any support in the first place.

It is better to capitulate without a fight than to offer support and then withdraw it. There are times when the brutal necessity is to carry on fighting because the alternative is worse. A victory for Putin would be a very genuine threat to everyone’s long term safety.

It would be wonderful if a secure and fair peace deal could be struck that allows people in each locality to decide freely for themselves which country they wish to belong to. No such arrangement is possible whilst Putin is in power.

For as long as Ukrainian soldiers remain willing to put their lives on the line the least we in Britain can do is to try and make sure they are properly equipped and continue to have our full support.

This isn’t a good time to forgive and forget. It is a time to sustain our support for a suffering ally.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley in North Yorkshire