4 Years Later: The Return of the Soviet Spirit

Moscow, spring 1989: in the spacious apartment of a French diplomat, about fifteen Russian intellectuals are invited to dinner. In the Baltic countries, the revolt is rumbling, the will for independence clearly beginning to gain ground, despite the repression; in Georgia, the army's intervention against demonstrators has radicalized the independence movement; other forms of unrest are stirring Armenia.

That evening, the conversation focuses on the inevitable dismantling of the USSR. Speech is free, with Perestroika having loosened tongues and minds. The guests agree that Baltic separatism is unlikely to yield major consequences: "these regions were never truly assimilated," admit those around the table. The Central Asian Republics could easily go their own way, as the Slavic element is not dominant in their populations. The main debate revolves around the Caucasus countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia certainly have their own identities, but haven't history and culture closely linked them to the destiny of Russia?

Of course, the case of Ukraine and Belarus is not even mentioned. It goes without saying that these two Republics are inextricably bound up with Russia. A few months earlier, the diplomat in charge of internal affairs at the embassy had made a brief investigative visit to Kyiv. Reporting on his mission to his colleagues, he did mention meeting determined independence activists. His discoveries were met with great skepticism.

Yet, on August 24, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine declares the Republic independent. On December 1st, this independence is massively approved by the population in a referendum (with a lower score in Crimea). The final act takes place on the night of December 8th of the same year in the Belovezha Forest (in Belarus), when the leaders of the three Republics - B. Yeltsin for Russia, S. Shushkevich for Belarus, L. Kravchuk for Ukraine - created the Commonwealth of Independent States, de facto leading to the dissolution of the USSR (which Gorbachev had to resign himself to announce on December 25th).

It is likely that Boris Yeltsin, driven by his rivalry with Gorbachev, did not truly measure the scope of what he was doing. In his mind, the agreement he had made with his Ukrainian and Belarusian apparatchik colleagues probably did not mean the Kremlin - where the Russian flag would be raised in place of the Soviet flag on December 26th - would stop controlling the new political configuration, as it had for centuries . The Russian president was unaware of this History lesson the British and French had experienced in their own empires a few decades earlier: once the genie of national sovereignty is out of the bottle, it is impossible to put it back in.

Vladimir Putin's War

If we recall all this, it is because it helps shed light on what happened four years ago in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is a product of that era. He is a Soviet apparatchik reconverted in many respects but who retains a Soviet reptilian brain. Deep down, he has never truly accepted the collapse of the USSR. In the autumn of 2021, a whole series of factors convinced him that the time had come for him to forcefully retake control of the great neighbor: his military successes in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, and then Syria; the retreats of the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere; the weakness he detected in his American counterpart, Joe Biden, when he met him in Geneva on June 16, 2021; and not to mention the anxiety caused by the gradual distancing of Ukrainian elites from the Eastern world and the lukewarm European reaction to the annexation of Crimea.

What Is the Assessment?

At the time of assessment, after four years, the first thing to remember is the appalling carnage on the human level, which is counted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Currently, Russian losses amount to 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers per month. As Michael Kofman points out in his synthesis of the war for Foreign Affairs, it is estimated that since December 2025, Russian recruitment has no longer been quite able to cover the losses. Various measures taken by the Kremlin, such as restrictions on the Telegram messaging service, widely used by Russian society, suggest that, for lack of being able to establish a general mobilization proper, the regime is preparing to implement disguised forced conscription measures.

The stated objective of the Ukrainians is to increase the Russian loss figure to at least 40,000 or even 50,000 per month. They themselves are suffering under the scythe of death, and the scarcity of relief troops as well as the lethality of the deployed weapons render the war very difficult. However, the now defensive position of the Ukrainian army comparatively limits losses. Despite the carnage, and despite the rapid appearance of new weapons of war and new tactics, the frontline is only moving slowly. Russia is said to have advanced 60 kilometers in four years. The "kill zone", saturated with drones and other weapon systems, is an inferno in which, however, Russian commanders do not hesitate to sacrifice increasingly unmotivated combatants.

What Perspectives?

What could be the decisive factors for change in the situation at this stage, the conceivable "game changers"?

The least probable eventuality, everything suggests, would be an American reversal, which would allow a coordinated strategy of Western pressure at a time when the Russian economy is showing real signs of weakening. Two elements allow this scenario not to be completely ruled out: first, Mr. Trump's well-known versatility; second, the fact, which is moreover troubling, that on other fronts, the current American administration does not hesitate to mistreat Russian strategic interests, whether it is in the Middle East, Venezuela, or Iran.

The other two conceivable vectors for change lie, on the one hand, in a possible collapse of Ukrainian society and, on the other hand, in a possible disruption of the Russian economy.

The first of these two hypotheses constitutes something of a taboo, but a Russian breakthrough on the front may occur or the strategy of terror against society may eventually bear fruit. The second hypothesis is based on tangible data: certainly, Russian growth still reached 1% in 2025, but on the basis of a non-productive war economy: inflationary pressures are strong; major tensions affect the labor market, given the pre-eminence of the war effort; entire sectors of the economy not related to armaments, such as construction, are on the verge of bankruptcy; at the micro-economic level, administrative malpractices are becoming increasingly frequent, discouraging entrepreneurs.

However, as Alexandra Prokopenko points out in The Economist, there are reasons to believe that the Russian economy may, albeit in a degraded state and at the expense of the country's future, still hold out for a long time. And above all, one cannot be certain that for Putin himself - at the stage of his personal trajectory - the state of his country's economy is still a decisive factor. This brings us back to our starting point, Putin's personal impulse. One can fear that the Russian dictator now wants to go -whatever the cost to his people - to the end of the war he has unleashed. To the near certainty of being able to count on Donald Trump's complacency is also undoubtedly added his hope that European public support will weaken, or even that elections will send to power governments that are more favorable to his interests in certain capitals within the next two years.

Conclusion

For Europeans, there is no other strategy than to maintain and, as much as possible, increase their support for Ukraine, and to increase their pressure on Russia.

On a political level, European leaders should not give up trying to further influence the American decision-making process. The establishment of an Élysée-Kremlin channel, opened by the visit of the President's diplomatic advisor to Moscow, can indirectly contribute to this. The Kremlin managed to find the keys to impress Mr. Trump, via Mr. M. Witkoff and Kushner; we refuse to resign ourselves to the idea that the Europeans cannot succeed better in getting their messages across, in simply making American leaders perceive the reality of this war.