The American diplomat Henry Kissinger, who passed away almost precisely a year ago, said he wished both sides of the Iran-Iraq battle of the 1980s was shed. As 2024 comes to an end and everyone is preparing for Donald Trump’s returning to the White House on January 20, Kissinger’s saying looks dreadfully fitting for the Russian combat in Ukraine: both sides are losing.
The previous 12 months of terrible, protracted conflict have left both flanks exhausted, and neither has gained a major advantage. Russia’s forces have gained some province in eastern Ukraine.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, by early December, Russian troops had seized 2, 700 square meters of Ukraine this year, which is a huge boost on the 465 square kilometers it seized in 2023 but represents a simple 0.4 % of Ukraine’s total land area.
Russia has seized less than half a percentage of Ukraine at an estimated value of 350, 000 deaths. Russia lost 1,500 soldiers every time, according to the UK Ministry of Defense, which is a much lower fatality rate than it experienced in 2022 or 2023, according to a report from the ministry of defense. Media critics have often predicted that in the face of this stress Ukraine’s threats were about to decline, but so far, this has not happened.
In August, Ukraine launched its own invasion of Russia by crossing the Russian frontier and capturing roughly 1,400 square kilometers of place in the Kursk region. This forced Russia to give an estimated 50, 000 soldiers, including 12, 000 Northern Korean soldiers, to try to push the Ukrainians out, which thus far they have failed to accomplish. However, the place occupied by Ukraine has shrunk to about 800 sq km.
At the same time, the two factors have been attacking deep inside each other’s land. Ukraine has focused on attacking hands shops, oil refineries, and the management of Russia’s causes, while Russia has continued to focus its missile strikes on Ukraine’s electricity grid and its cities.
In the biggest coup of the year, Ukrainian spies have recently spied on Moscow, killing a top missile designer and the head of the country’s chemical, biological, and imaging forces, as well as this week.
The battle is between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties are aware that the first few months of the year could see democratic transitions that might be beneficial for them: President Putin may become anticipating Donald Trump’s resumption of the US president, given that this makes it unlikely that the US Congress will grant any additional authorization for the use of American-provided weapons for long-range strikes inside Russia.
For whatever it may be fair, the Financial Times later reported that Trump’s” near foreign policy aides” had informed European counterparts that their employer is presently inclined to continue military aid to Ukraine.
According to polls, President Zelensky may become anticipating Germany’s February 23 general election, in which Olaf Scholz may be replaced by Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democrats, who is much more popular.
New social changes among his own allies have weakened President Putin: the decline of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria was triggered by the failure of either of Assad’s major supporters, Iran or Russia, to engage physically.
Iran has had a bad time, as the violent groups it wings and funds have been crushed or weakened, one by one, by Israel: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran’s personal forces in Syria. Putin was unable to send planes or soldiers to Syria because Russia’s forces are so stretched out by the conflict in Ukraine.
If both sides are losing, both are now putting forward conditions for peace talks, which both must know are unrealistic. Putin made the claim at his annual press conference on December 19 that he was open to compromise, but that the end result of negotiations must be the complete reversal of Russia’s territorial claims.
Zelenskyy insisted at a meeting with EU and NATO leaders in Brussels on the same day that a peace deal could only be reached if the US received a security guarantee and Ukraine received a NATO membership in the future.
Negotiations always begin with extravagant, unrealistic claims. The most likely scenario is that if real discussions do occur next year, there will be stronger bargaining positions in Ukraine than in Russia, but that President Zelensky will have to step down in order for Ukraine to get the best possible outcome.
Trump will enter office with a Russia that has been weakened by Syria, no longer has a strong ally in Iran, and will look an easy target for a self-declared deal-maker like him to push around, which makes its position look more likely to be stronger.
If, between now and late January, Ukraine’s intelligence agencies and military forces can pull off more surprises like their Moscow assassinations, Russia will look all the weaker. Trump will be aware that he can use Putin’s authorization to launch long-range Ukrainian strikes [or continued weapons deliveries ] as a bargaining chip.
Trump will go a long way in favor of allowing Ukraine to join NATO, or even to aspire to join, because it goes against his long-held desire for America to lessen its responsibilities to defend Europe.
He won’t interfere with European NATO members ‘ offering Ukraine security guarantees, but whether Germany, France, the UK, Italy, or Poland will feel compelled to do so must be a subject for debate.
President Zelensky has played a heroic role in Ukraine’s fight for survival. Although he continues to enjoy a lot of support, the country’s martial law continues as a result of the invasion of 2022, which required the waiver of any presidential elections scheduled for April 2024. This enables Putin to assert that Zelensky’s position is unsupported, and that no peace agreement could be reached.
Which opens the door to a final act of heroism: that Zelensky could choose to announce his retirement in order to demonstrate what a resilient democracy it really is by holding presidential elections in which he would not run.
Nobody can dispute Zelensky’s and his family’s right to a holiday and a respectable retirement.
This is the English translation of an article La Stampa published in Italian that was originally published in English on Bill Emmott’s Global View. It is republished with permission.