Entrenched: stalemate in Ukraine’s east

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Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. Today from London, I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. In America, there's been a crescendo of calls to reform the police in recent years, particularly in the wake of senseless killings. Our correspondent visits two alternative policing programs to see how they're playing out. And we take a look at a British book that consistently tops the best seller lists decade after decade. In its pages lies a narrative of slow cultural change. Millions of people have read it, studied it to extract its essential wisdom, the Rules of the Road. But first, Many thought that Russia's invasion of Ukraine would be over in mere days. But 11 weeks on, the war continues and continues to change in its scope. And it's changing the multilateral order, stiffening the spine of the NATO alliance and perhaps expanding it. This morning, Finland's Foreign Minister, Pekka Havisto signaled his country's intent to join.

The accession of Finland would strengthen the security and stability of the Baltic Sea region and northern Europe. Finland is a regional security provider and would further strengthen NATO as a future ally.

That would double the border that Russia shares with NATO allied countries. For Ukraine, military and economic assistance just keeps coming. American lawmakers pledged another $40 billion worth this week.

It's about democracy versus a dictatorship. Democracy must prevail.

But what does it look like as of now on the ground in Ukraine?

Well, the war has been going on for two and a half months and it is grinding towards a stalema.

Chris Lockwood is the Economist's Europe editor.

The Russians have failed completely in their main objective, which was to take control of the whole country. But they are still pursuing their secondary objective, to take control of the Donbas region in the east. But the Ukrainians are fighting back very hard. And it looks to me as though this conflict could go on for quite a lot longer now, which was exactly.

The fear when Russia changed its tack in focusing on eastern Ukraine. How do things look there right now?

So about six weeks ago now, the Russians reframed what they were trying to do and said that they were withdrawing from the north, the area around Kyiv, the capital, to concentrate on the east of the country and south. And most of the fighting now is going on in the east. What the Russians principal objective has always been was to secure the Donbas region. At the beginning of the war, only occupied about a third of that region, which composes of two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk. And it's now taken control of quite a lot more, something like 70% of each of those two provinces, but still not all of it. What it wants to do is complete that operation, and that requires closing off sort of big pocket of Ukrainian army presence where they are trying to push the Russians back, but are in danger if the Russians could break through of finding themselves. Now, that doesn't look as though it's happening. The Russian advance to close this pocket is running into a lot of difficulties, but it's getting quite unpleasant. There's heavy shelling of a couple of important towns in that area and really quite heavy fighting. But what you're not seeing is very large movement on either side. It's slow to a snail's pace because.

The Ukrainian resistance is on some level working.

Yes, the Ukrainians are fighting back very hard, and that is partly, in fact, probably very largely because it's now in receipt of some much better equipment, mostly coming from America, also from other European countries in particular. What it has is longer range artillery. That's giving it the ability to hit Russian artillery positions without themselves being in range. So in some places that's forcing the Russians back. Actually, that has been most successful not in the Donbass, but a little bit further north in the area around Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine. And there the Ukrainian army has been really very effective, as far as we can tell, at pushing the Russians right back away from the city so that they are no longer in artillery range of Kharkiv. And in some cases it even looks as though they're on the point of being pushed back across the border. The Russian border with Ukraine is only about 50 or 60 km from Kharkiv at that point. And it's quite possible the Russian units will be pushed right out. My guess is that the Russians will abandon their operation in the Kharkiv area and concentrate a bit further south on those Donetsk and Luhansk areas.

And for the sake of argument, if eastern Ukraine, if the Donbas region were to fall under Russian control, what do you think the plan would then be for Russia?

Well, first I should say that I'm not sure that will happen. The Russians are finding it very difficult to complete their plan conquest of the Donbas. And in particular, they haven't even managed to secure Mariupol, which is the largest city in the Donbas region that they don't currently have, and one of the biggest ports in Ukraine too. They've got most of the city, but not all of it. But if that fight in the Donbas more or less is completed, the Russians end up with most of it, then what will they want to do? Well, I think the next objective would be to fully secure their land bridge. That is a bridge that connects the main part of Russia to Crimea further to the west, and that runs through the Donbas and over into the next door province. Now, that work is sort of almost complete from the Russian side, but what I would then expect to see is a Ukrainian pushback to try and sever it.

But why is that land bridge so important to Russia?

Well, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, and when they did that, they created a problem for themselves because Crimea is not connected by land to Russia. The only way to get to it was by sea. And then subsequently an actual bridge across the Strait of Kerch was built. But it's extremely vulnerable. It's not any secure way to keep Crimea supplied and connected to Russia. So an objective has always been to securely connect Crimea back to Russia. And that would also have the advantage in Russian eyes of denying the Black Sea coast to the Ukrainians, which would have a strangling effect on its economy. Since so much of its business consists of exporting things like grain that really have to be moved by sea.

We've talked about Ukrainian resistance in the north and Russian gains, slow though they may be in the east. What about the south?

Well, the south is another area that will become very important, I think, in the weeks to come as the Ukrainians try to push the Russians back. The Russians are still in the south, trying to keep on pushing. Their advance out towards the west has stalled at a place called Mykolaiv, which is north of Crimea but to the east of Odessa. Originally, the Russians plainly wanted to drive their advance along that southern part of Ukraine all the way to Odessa, which is practically as far to the west as you get. But that hasn't happened. Odessa has not come under direct attack. It gets missile strikes from time to time. Nothing from artillery. They're far too far away for that. Odessa is a great pearl in Russian eyes, a beautiful city founded by Catherine the Great. And I'm sure they wanted it, but they also didn't want to destroy it. And I think Odessa has blessedly been spared the fighting and that will continue.

And so far we've only been talking about how the military bit of this will progress. What about peace talks? Have they stalled entirely?

Peace talks have not stalled in the sense that they are supposedly being carried on by zoom. There haven't been any face to face talks for many weeks now. But they are at a low level going on. I don't think they're making any progress at all. But the mechanism is still being kept alive, I think, for the future when perhaps a settlement of some kind will have to be addressed. But I think we're very far off that yet. We need to see how the situation in the Donbass settles. We need to see whether Ukrainians really do intend to mount a counterattack in the south to break this land bridge and perhaps to liberate the province of Kherson, that's the one immediately north of the Crimea, which the Russians have occupied. They'd very much like to get it back, the Ukrainians. So I think until all of that has resolved a bit more clearly, we won't really be in a position to do anything substantive at the negotiating table.

And what about the prospect that some sort of resolution might be reached by ceding territory? Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in earlier stages of this that not one inch of Ukrainian territory would be given away. But now, as this is so costly for both sides, one wonders whether that might yet happen.

Well, it seems to me that the Ukrainians are in quite a bullish position. I've just returned from Kyiv and talked to many of the senior there and there is a sense that they can get back pretty much all of the territory that was taken by the Russians since the beginning of the invasion and that therefore, politically it would be very difficult for them not to do that, for them to end up giving the Russians anything. People are genuinely outraged by what Russia's done, by the terrible war crimes that were committed in suburbs north of Kyiv in particular and what's happening in Mariupol 2. So they will push back very hard, I think. On the other hand, getting the Russians out of this territory is also perhaps going to be difficult. So we have to be prepared, I think, for a conflict that will drag on for quite some time.

Chris, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you.

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The sad truth is that it could have happened anywhere in America, but it happened on a street corner in the country's 46th largest city, Minneapolis. George Floyd's murder two years ago this month at the hands of a police officer sparked some of the most widespread unrest America has ever seen. In many places, the tragedy prompted long overdue questions about how the police are trained, how they're funded, and how they should deal with those who are vulnerable. In other places, innovation is already underway. Our U.S. public policy correspondent, Tamara Jilkes Bohr has been visiting New Mexico to see two programs in action.

Is it a welfare check?

Whoa.

Can you screenshot information?

Because we're actually at the location now and there's no information on this individual. So does it give an apartment number?

In the courtyard of a rundown apartment complex in the New Mexico city of Albuquerque, a distressed middle aged woman tries to find out what has happened to her friend?

So you're going there now? Because I already called, and nobody is on the office. She's not answering their phone, and I need to leave town tomorrow, and I need to know what's going on, because I've been calling the phone. Are you her family or something?

I'm friends.

Close friends.

Close friends.

She's being helped by three civilian responders from an organization named Albuquerque Community Safety, or acs. She gestures toward a flat on the ground floor. The door is locked, the lights are off, and the window coverings are drawn. She fears that her friend is lying dead inside. But a neighbor says he saw a body being removed days earlier.

Look, that I have bad feelings because of that. What is that?

That's flies.

That flies. Well, her body was in there for quite a while.

That's why we were thinking she might stick. One of the ACS responders calls the complex's management and confirms that the woman's friend had died and her body was taken away.

Thank you much for coming.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

I really appreciate it.

The team comfort the woman before returning to their vehicle.

I don't see nobody here. Why are you in line here?

After the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by an officer in Minneapolis, there were calls across America to defund the police. Now the slogan is defunct. Many departments that lost funding have got their money back. In aggregate, spending on law enforcement rose slightly in 2021, but what many advocates of change were actually hoping for was a reallocation of funds and responsibilities. Quietly. Local governments have been doing this in a variety of ways. Albuquerque city government set up ACS as a third branch of public safety. Its teams vary in makeup, some with a police officer and others without. They respond to emergency calls involving mental health, substance use, homelessness, and other public health issues. One of the responders, Colin, a former officer, says in many situations, it's more helpful for someone like him to attend than the police.

Yeah, that's one of the things that I've definitely noticed as an ACS responder is not having that gun and just looking, you know, having that intimidating look. People are really just their stress levels, you know, when they immediately realize that we're not police. Goes from, you know, here to down here. It's a very pleasant surprise for me to, you know, be able to talk to people and just be able to listen rather than talking, to try to see if they have information or things like that. With acs, I can really just talk to people and listen to their stories and then Try to help them accordingly.

These units provide welcome relief for police departments as the majority of calls do not involve a crime. The situation at the apartment complex is known as a welfare check, and it is one example of a non criminal call typically handled by a police officer. A New York Times analysis of three areas, Montgomery county in Maryland, New Orleans and Sacramento, found that one third or more of police time is spent on these types of calls. That police have wide ranging responsibilities beyond crime is not a problem in itself, but many departments are overstretched. Recruitment and retention have been poor for years, well before demands to defund the police began. The police department in Albuquerque is short of around 400 officers, but the safety of civilian responders is a major consideration. As Mariela Ruiz angel, the ACS program's director, told me, the number one thing we always tell our responders is if you're already walking into a situation that.

You think is bad, don't even bother. Don't even go into the building. You're not forced to, you're not mandated to. You do not need to put yourself.

Or your partner in danger. It's the number one thing we teach.

On first day of training.

Do not be a hero because you're only going to hurt yourself and others.

And we'll call police if we have, if we feel like there's a problem.

An hour's drive away, the state capitol, Santa Fe created an alternative response unit, aru, within its fire department last May. Rather than being completely separate from the police, a trio of responders, a case manager, paramedic, and police officer, answer calls related to mental health together. Sometimes they take people to the safety of shelters or crisis intervention centers. The case manager will follow up with some people to help them with the services they need. This can involve anything from getting government identification to ensuring placement in a rehabilitation facility. Matt Martin is one such case manager. He himself was formerly addicted to drugs and living on the streets. Now he thinks his personal experience is invaluable in his new role.

I spent so many years, like, taking and taking and taking and just causing havoc. I was blessed with an opportunity to do something different. And, you know, people helped me when I needed it. So now it's my turn. And I think I know for me, like, people would all be like, just get your shit together. I'm like, okay, whatever. But when it comes from somebody that's, like, lived through it, like, it just resonates a little more.

But he says with his background, working alongside people from law enforcement can be a challenge.

So I used to go to meetings at the PD with all these officers and the DA and I used to run from you people like I felt super uncomfortable and super humbling. It took quite a while to get comfortable with that. And you know, even with law enforcement, a lot of times, like when I do a ride along or like our army officer, yeah, I'll let them know that I'm recovery. And I think that's important for them to see because I know they get frustrated like, ah, they're just a fucking junkie or whatever. And it just, I mean, I hope that it'll show them like, whoa, people fucking change and people can do good things.

Yeah.

Reformers argue that having unarmed trained personnel arrive to calls could help reduce violence, especially for non white people. Among rich countries, America has the highest rate of civilians killed by police, 33.5 people per 10 million residents, more than triple the rates in Canada and Australia. Black Americans are over three times more likely than white people to be killed by law enforcement. Reducing interactions with armed officers could be part of the solution. The thinking goes, more time is needed to know which type of program is the most effective and how much police intervention is still required. These experiments also require more money, not less to get started, which may inhibit their spread. Other areas trying similar things include Eugene, Oregon, a pioneer and Chicago, as well as Charlotte Mecklenburg in North Carolina and Phoenix, Arizona. But in New Mexico, the innovative approaches look promising.

Last month, a slim but mighty book rose to the top of British bestseller lists. Some would argue it deserved that position, given its iconic illustrations, its prose as familiar and powerful as poetry. If you have to step into the.

Road, look both ways first, always show.

Due care and consideration. For others, of course, the book had an unfair advantage. Drivers are required by law to read it. The Highway Code is essential reading for everyone.

Few cultural critics spend very much time thinking about the Highway Code, but they really should. Arguably, it is one of the most influential British books of the 20th century, and it's certainly one of the most read, if you count reading from the beginning to the end.

Catherine Nixie is a Britain correspondent for the Economist.

If you take the 1959 edition, 24 million copies of that were made and 14 million of them were handed out for free. Over the years, it's repeatedly gone to the top of the bestseller lists, and in the past 20 years, it's outsold everyone from John Le Carre to Yo Nesbo, Virginia Woolf, and even one William Shakespeare.

Okay, let's go back a little bit. What is the history of the Highway Code?

Well, the history of the Highway Code Initially, when we got cars on the streets, nobody thought of having any codes at all. And then everyone started getting killed. So Britain's first victim was killed on the roads in 1896. And the coroner who examined her said, I hope such a thing would never happen again. But of course it did. It happened again and it happened a lot. By the time the first code was produced in 1930, Britain's fleet of motorized vehicles had risen to 2.3 million. But the annual deaths on the roads were around 7,000. Today, there's about a quarter of that and we've got 10 times as many cars. So it's easy to see that they needed a code.

So the pragmatic concern is clear cut. But you're suggesting that the Highway Code has cultural relevance.

The Highway Code doesn't just chronicle changing use of the roads, it chronicles a changing country. And it does so in quite some detail. It's been reissued regularly since 1931, and every issue is a different snapshot of Britain. So if you look at the early editions, then the drivers in them all wear cravats and Panama hats and they've got an imperious air and they, they seem to be waving people out of their way. This is a period when cars were topless, driving was glamorous and roads were largely completely lawless. The other people on the road in the early editions, they include sheep and herds of cattle and of course, a pack of hounds, which would have been of great concern to the kind of gentlemen who are wearing cravats and Panamas. But absolutely nowhere do you get any sense that there might be any women on the roads or driving cars. All the drivers are without exception.

He.

But beyond that first edition, you say further additions chronicle changes to all that?

Yeah. You can see as people get a bit more used to the car, the Highway Code starts to change. So as vehicles become more sophisticated, roads get busier and more complex. The Highway Code has to respond to how the roads are changing. So the 1968 edition records that there's been innovation and developments in the way that seat belts are used, the speed limits that have been introduced, there was now a 70 mile speed limit. Road markings had changed and developed. And there was another development, which is that women now appeared to be on the roads and driving cars, even often by themselves. And the Highway Code starts to reflect this and breathalyzers appear, because it was only in the 60s that it became illegal to drive while drunk. Although by the second edition of the Code, they've already mentioned that it's probably not a Good idea. And it starts to hint at the democratization not just of driving, but of Britain itself. So if you read the early code, not just are they all wearing cravats and Panama hats, but the language is quite complicated. It's quite senatorial. It's quite patrician in its tone. And in later editions, they rewrite it because, quite simply, it used too many long words. And so you can see this shift in the idea that cars used to be something that gentlemen of a certain class took out for a spin for fun, to being something that was used by everybody and that everybody needed to be able to cope with.

It's interesting, then, that the Highway Code, an otherwise, may I say very boring book, kind of holds up a mirror to British culture through the ages. Is there anything that really stuck out to you besides the loss of cravats and packs of hounds?

I mean, what really strikes you is the loss of glamour, of driving. It's the same as you see in aeroplanes as they go from utterly spellbinding to boringly mundane. It's the demise of the golden age of driving. In its early pages, driving is so glamorous and exciting, and people dressed up for it. I mean, you know, the cravat and the hat, they're an important part of it. And then slowly, the tone changes. It becomes more humdrum. It becomes more a thing that everyone recognizes is dangerous. Plans are already being made for a highway code that will allow for people to use driverless cars and watch films at the wheel. So there's this real sense that driving is now safe, not something that you do for pleasure. It's just a chore that you do when you'd really rather be doing something else. And one of the things you see above all in the new code is that it's chronicling a world that is ceasing to capitulate to the car. In the 20th century, the world gave way before the motorcar and turned itself upside down for it. And now you get the sense that the world is starting to push back. Cities are kicking cars out, perhaps entirely like Paris, and they're controlling the cars. So the latest code has a hierarchy of road users. Pedestrians are at the very top, and motorized vehicles are at the very bottom.

Katherine, thanks very much for joining us, and happy driving.

Thank you for having me.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. Drop us a line@podcastseconomist.com or leave us a rating wherever you listen. We'll see you back here tomorrow.