Kharkiv

Getting into Ukraine can be tricky, especially if you don’t speak Ukrainian or have a national television network paying your way. I recommend the latter: it seems slightly easier and they have hair and wardrobe budgets. I cross into Chop on a short train carrying a mix of old couples and young kids. When I get off I’m directed to a booth manned by soldiers, who ask my business. Journalist, I say. The guard asks for press credentials. The best I can do is a copy of the magazine, but reading The Spectator is apparently something he’s unwilling to do and I’m waved through immediately. Russian spies, take note. I have two hours to kill before my train to Lviv, so I do what anyone would do — wander the blacked-out streets in search of a drink.

The Ukraine war’s first seven months have been a long slog, with high costs in both men and material. Then, over the last week of combat, that suddenly changed. While casualties undoubtedly remained high on both sides, the Ukrainian army’s surprise counteroffensive in the northeast shattered Russia’s defensive lines and culminated in the most humiliating Russian tactical defeat since its forces were pushed out of Kyiv in April. While Russian President Vladimir Putin was celebrating the opening of a new Ferris wheel in Moscow, his troops 534 miles to the south were dropping their weapons and retreating.

No one should think that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine means that Xi Jinping will decide to use force against Taiwan anytime soon, if ever. China is not Russia, nor Taiwan Ukraine. Yet neither should policymakers presume that Beijing will not be influenced by what happens on the other end of Eurasia. Washington must consider whether and how Putin’s aggression has raised the stakes in defending Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China. At the least, US strategists will seriously have to assess whether a global environment in which norms of international behavior are regressing may serve to spur Beijing to military action that once seemed unlikely.