In a new PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo, Mikhail Alexseev and Serhii Dembitskyi trace the same Ukrainians’ views from 2021 to 2022, showing how Ukraine’s people have mobilized not only for defense, but also for democracy, Europe, and their president. Oleksandr Sushko also concludes most Ukrainians see the war as “not about ethnic belonging but… about freedoms.” Timofiy Brik thus argues Ukraine’s decentralization must be preserved despite calls for concentrated power to fight the war. And Jessica Pisano finds that despite political polarization, Ukrainians have learned they can “work together for the good of their country” despite deep policy disagreements.

In a second new PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo, Henry Hale presents survey data showing Kremlin appeals to “conservative values” are likely to be divisive if pushed to the hilt, so they do not constitute a reliable fallback for the Kremlin should its support drop. This is a real danger: Maria Snegovaya finds indications Russians are tiring of televised war coverage, Putin’s key propaganda tool.

Reality is also belying Putin’s September 7th claim that Russia has “not lost anything and will not lose anything” in its invasion of Ukraine: Susanne Wengle notes the country has already lost “access to Western technologies and the talent of many young Russians who are now in exile,” and Scott Gehlbach points out that Russia’s own Central Bank is warning of substantial economic fallout. Nevertheless, Margarita Zavadskaya believes the Kremlin will be able simply to repress whatever opposition to the war exists.

Russia cannot hope to win a war of attrition, writes Pavel Baev, but seems to be postponing choices to escalate until it’s too late. Volodymyr Ishchenko concurs, arguing that Russia’s political capitalists wage war to continue accumulating wealth through state exploitation, but that this is ultimately unsustainable. Samuel Charap and Michael Mazarr argue that the Russia problem will not simply go away and that Washington should draw on Cold War-era crisis diplomacy to support Ukraine while averting dangerous escalation. Tetyana Malyarenko and Borys Kormych argue Russia’s aggression reflects a failure of its effort to project power against Ukraine while avoiding confrontation with the West and that it could revert to this strategy with de-escalation.

The war has affected Asian multilateralism, says Ekaterina Koldunova, as Russia has almost completely disengaged from the United States and Europe. Echoing his recent policy memo, Kornely Kakachia describes how Georgia’s relations with the West have cooled as the Georgian Dream government has pursued normalization with Russia. Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is currently in overdrive to maintain its geopolitical balance between Russia and the West, finds Nargis Kassenova.