Comment on The Conversation
A friend of mine, usually a highly optimistic pro-Ukraine analyst, came back from Ukraine last week and I said, “This is like the German army in January 1945.” Ukrainians are pushed back on all fronts – including in the Kursk region of Russia, which they had entered with much hope and fanfare in August. More importantly, they are running out of soldiers.
For most of 2024, Ukraine was losing ground. This week, the town of Selidovo in the western Donetsk region is surrounded and, like Ugledar earlier this month, is likely to fall next week – the only variable is how many Ukrainians will be lost in the process. In winter, the dire prospect of a major battle to hold the strategically important industrial city of Pokrovsk looms.
After all, this is not a war of territory, but of attrition. The only resource that matters is the soldiers – and here the calculation for Ukraine is not positive.
Ukraine claims to have “liquidated” nearly 700,000 Russian soldiers – with more than 120,000 killed and over 500,000 wounded. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, admitted in February of this year that 31,000 Ukrainians had been killed, without giving information about the wounded.
The problem is that these Ukrainian figures are apparently believed to be credible by Western officials, while the reality is probably very different. American sources say 1 million people were killed and wounded on both sides in the war. Most importantly, this includes a growing number of Ukrainian civilians.
Low morale and desertion, as well as evasion of military service, are significant problems for Ukraine. These factors are exacerbating already serious recruitment problems, making it difficult to supply the front lines with fresh soldiers.
There is a terrible debate going on in Ukraine. The question revolves around whether to mobilize and risk the lives of the 18-25 age group. Due to economic pressures in the early 2000s, Ukraine experienced a large decline in the birth rate, leaving relatively few people between the ages of 15 and 25. The mobilization and severe attrition of this group may be something Ukraine simply cannot afford, given the already serious demographic crisis the country is facing.
And even if this mobilization continues until the necessary policy, legislation, bureaucracy, and training are in place, the war may be over.
History knows no example in which a grueling rivalry with Russia has been successful. Let's be clear without sugarcoating it: this means there is a real possibility of defeat.
Zelensky's maximalist military goals of restoring Ukraine's pre-2014 borders, along with other unlikely conditions – which were not challenged by the confused but self-aggrandizing West – will not be achieved and Western leaders are partly to blame. Reckless wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East have left Western armed forces hollow, ill-armed and completely unprepared for a serious and prolonged conflict, with ammunition stocks likely to reach at best case for weeks.
European promises of millions of artillery shells did not materialize – only 650,000 have been delivered to Kiev this year, while the North Koreans have delivered at least twice as many to Russia.
The US alone has significant stockpiles of weapons in the form of thousands of armored vehicles, tanks and artillery pieces in reserve – and is unlikely to change its policy of drip-feeding weapons to Ukraine now. Even if such a decision is made, the delivery time will be years, not months.
At a confidential briefing I attended recently by Western defense officials, the atmosphere was sour. The situation is “dangerous” and “as bad as she never was” for Ukraine. Western powers cannot afford another strategic disaster like Afghanistan, which, in the words of Ernest Hemingway (aptly quoted by strategist Lawrence Friedman), happened “gradually, then suddenly”.
There will be no decisive breakthrough of the Russian army when they capture this or that city (say Pokrovsk). They don't have the ability to do it. So there will be no collapse – the “Kyiv as Kabul" moment is gone.
However, there are limits to the losses Ukraine can bear. We don't know where that limit is, but we will know when it happens. Most importantly, there will be no victory for Ukraine. There is not and never has been a Western strategy other than to bleed Russia as long as possible.
More fundamentally, two ancient ethical questions about whether a war is just must now be asked and answered: whether there is a reasonable prospect of success, and whether the potential gain is proportionate to the cost.
The problem, as so often before, is that the west has not defined what it considers success. Meanwhile, the price becomes all too clear.
Clearly defining its goals and boundaries would be the beginning of a strategy – and the west is not good at it. NATO leaders must now move quickly beyond meaningless rhetoric or anything that smacks of “as much as it takes”. We have seen where this has led in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
We need a realistic answer to what a “victory” or at least an acceptable agreement – as well as to what extent it is achievable and whether the west will actually pursue it. And then for Western leaders to act accordingly.
A starting point can be the acceptance that Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are lost – something that more and more Ukrainians are beginning to say openly. Then we need to start planning seriously for a post-war Ukraine, which will need the West's support more than ever.
Russia cannot take all or even most of the territory of Ukraine. Even if she could, she wouldn't be able to keep her. It is quite clear that there will be a compromise agreement.
So it's time for NATO – and in particular the US – to formulate a viable end to this nightmarish ordeal and develop a pragmatic strategy for dealing with Russia over the next decade. More importantly, the west must plan how to support a heroic, broken but still independent Ukraine.
Translation: FACTS