Vladimir Putin’s pointless war has already led to thousands of people losing their lives, suffering from life-changing injuries or left traumatised by their experiences, along with the destruction of Ukrainian homes and infrastructure. Throughout Europe, refugees now wonder when they will be able to return home and what they will find when they get there. There is more tragedy to come. This is why the search for some sort of ceasefire is growing, though it is still hard to see the form it can take so long as President Putin sticks to his most ambitious objectives – despite his forces being further away from achieving them than they were at the start of the war.
There is a tendency to neglect these costs of war when seeking to make sense of the strategies adopted by both sides, for this does require dispassionate analysis, putting aside wishful thinking and emotion. Yet the human dimension must always be kept in mind. We are not looking down on a chessboard with otherwise inanimate pieces being moved by a strategic grandmaster according to some clever plan. Those being moved have their own perspectives and agency, their own motives and anxieties.
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