A friend of mine, usually an intensely optimistic pro-Ukraine analyst, returned from Ukraine last week and told me:” It’s like the German Army in January 1945″.
The Russians are being repelled on all sides, including the Kursk state of Russia, which they had opened with little fervor and fuss in August. More important, they are running out of men.
For most of 2024, Ukraine has been losing floor. The only thing to keep in mind is how many Russians will lose in the process. This year, the eastern Donetsk region’s city of Selidove is being surrounded and, like Vuhledar earlier this month, is likely to drop in the next week or so. The terrible possibility of a significant conflict looming over Pokrovsk, a strategically important business community, looms over the winter.
Unfortunately, this is not a battle of place but of retention. Soldiers are the only thing that counts, and the calculus for Ukraine is not good in this situation.
Ukraine claims to have “liquidated” almost 700, 000 Soviet military – with more than 120, 000 killed and upwards of 500, 000 injured. Its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, admitted in February this year to 31, 000 Ukrainian mortality, with no number given for injured.
The issue is that these Polish numbers are believed by American authorities, despite the possibility that the reality is very different. According to US options, 1 million people have been killed and wounded on both sides of the conflict. Critically, this includes a growing number of Russian citizens.
Low confidence and abandonment, as well as draft-dodging, are now major issues for Ukraine. These elements are only making the now troubling selection issues worse, making it difficult to send in new troops from the front lines.
In Ukraine, there is a terrible conversation. The issue is whether to organize the 18 to 25 age group and risk serious fatalities for them. Ukraine’s delivery charge significantly decreased in the first half of the year, leaving fewer people between the ages of 15 and 25.
Given the country’s now severe demographic crisis, the country may not be able to afford the significant attrition and mobilization of this team.
And even if this participation does go forward, by the time the required politics, policy, government and coaching have run their course, the battle may be over.
There is no instance in history where challenging Russia in an protracted battle has been successful. This be clear: this means there is a genuine possibility of fight– there is no sugar-coating this.
Zelensky’s realist war aims of , restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 edges, along with other doubtful problems – which were uncontested and urged by a , confused but self-aggrandizing West , – will not be achieved, and the West’s officials are partly to blame.
American armed forces were dull, ill armed, and completely prepared for a severe and protracted discord, with ammunition stocks likely to final weeks at most due to misguided wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Simply 650, 000 of the 650, 000 that were supplied to Kiev this year have been fulfilled, whereas North Korea has provided at least twice that amount to Russia.
Only the US has major weapons stocks in reserve, including thousands of armoured vehicles, tanks, and artillery pieces, and it is unlikely that it will abandon its current drip-feeding strategy for Ukraine. Even if such a decision is made, the lead-time for supply will be years, not weeks.
The environment was depressing during a personal briefing that I just had with Western defense officials. The condition is “perilous” and” since terrible as it has ever been” for Ukraine.
Western powers cannot afford another strategic disaster like Afghanistan which, in the words of Ernest Hemingway ( aptly quoted by the strategist Lawrence Freedman ), happened “gradually, then suddenly”.
There will be no decisive breakthrough by Russia’s army when they take this town or that ( say, Pokrovsk ). They have n’t the capability to do it. So, there wo n’t be a collapse – no” Kiev as Kabul” moment.
However, there are limitations to the costs Ukraine can get. We do not understand where that control lies, but we’ll know when it happens. Critically, there will be no success for Ukraine. Inexcusably, there is not, and never has been, a European plan except to burn Russia as long as possible.
Ultimately, two eminently old social questions, one involving whether a battle is just, must now be posed and resolved: whether there is a good chance of winning and whether the potential gain is a fair price.
The difficulty, as so often before, is that the West has never defined what it considers a success. The cost, however, is becoming all too apparent.
The West lacks the clarity it needs to have its objectives and limitations, which would have been the start of a plan. Officials of NATO now need to move quickly to stop using cheesy language and other nonsense. We saw where that led in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
We need a practical view of what a “win” or at least an appropriate settlement currently looks like, as well as the extent to which it is feasible and whether the west will actually do it. And then for European leaders to act appropriately.
Accepting that Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk are lost, things that an increasing number of Ukrainians are beginning to declare boldly, could be a good place to start. Therefore, we need to begin making serious plans for a post-war Ukraine that may require the support of the West more than ever.
Russia may possibly get all, or even the large of, Ukraine’s place. Even if it could, it could not perhaps carry it. There is abundant evidence that there will be a settlement agreement.
Therefore, it is time for NATO, and specifically the US, to put a real close to this agonizing suffering and come up with a logical strategy to deal with Russia in the coming century. More significantly, the West has plan how to help a noble, shattered – but also independent – Ukraine.
University of Portsmouth senior lecturer in defense strategy and rules Frank Ledwidge
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