One is the motivation, determination and courage of the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian nation as a whole, which is unprecedented in modern war history Ukraine will win by restoring completely its territorial integrity by spring 2023 at the latest Crossing over to the east side of the Dnipro river to pressure Russia's vulnerable road and rail links into Crimea might be too demanding But the possibility of Kyiv launching a surprise new offensive can never be ruled out Those who seek to invade another country anywhere across the great Eurasian steppes are condemned eventually to winter in it
The costs of the war, both material and human, might break the level of commitment of the Russian political elite For a potential peace deal the core demands of at least one side need to change There is no evidence that this has happened, or that it will happen soon The winter will be difficult, as Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure will try to break the morale and endurance of an already shattered population The victorious powers - Ukraine, UK, USA - will shape a new international security architecture The exact timing of the inevitable Ukrainian victory will be determined by the speed at which Nato can deliver a new game-changing package of military assault weapons tanks, planes, long-ranged missiles
Western weapons helped Iraq achieve early battlefield successes against the much larger Iran, which had to resort to costlier tactics like human wave attacks, where artillery columns charged towards Iraqi formations, risking heavy casualties in the hope of overwhelming the enemy “And there was a proxy war overlaid onto it,” Morris told Al Jazeera, referring to the US support for Iraq in furtherance of its own interests in the Middle East But Ukraine joining NATO could itself be how the war ends, consistent with Biden’s current policy — and at a time and on terms set by Ukraine and its allies, not by Russia Gaining security within NATO as a strong, pluralistic, democratic state would absolutely count as a victory for Ukraine — arguably as big as quickly regaining Crimea The undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, told the Senate in January the Biden administration still expects the 45 billion Ukraine aid package Congress passed in December to last through the end of this fiscal year But the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Celeste Wallander, warned at the hearing that the current funding level “does not preclude” the administration from needing to request more assistance before the end of September
The Ukrainians have fought a clever media war, and they are remarkably consistent in the messages that they deliver to their own people and their Western allies, as well as their enemies in Moscow It started, they said, with his disastrous decision to mount a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year The Wagner mutiny, and Mr Prigozhin's denunciation of the Kremlin's justifications for the war have, they said, removed what remained of Mr Putin's chances of hanging on The Ukrainians do not have unlimited resources of course, especially artillery ammunition and long-range precision weapons
For example, the tactic of repurposing dishwasher electronics for weapons, mocked in the West as a sign of desperation, probably means “somebody thought about that from the beginning,” he said In the course of the past year, Putin’s domestic propaganda strategy has morphed from a message of “fight the Nazis” in Ukraine to “fight the West” there, said Stefan Meister, a Russia and Eastern Europe expert at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations “The narrative is the great struggle of the Cold War,” he said, a framing that has helped to attract new recruits Perhaps Italian analyst Lucio Caracciolo was the most pessimistic of all “This war will last indefinitely, with long pauses for cease-fires,” he said
At different times in this conflict Russia has resembled Iran’s position, and Ukraine has mirrored Iraq’s in that war — if only incompletely — said Jeremy Morris, professor of global studies at Aarhus University in Denmark In the meantime, Nato has focussed on shoring up its eastern borders The irony here is that while Moscow has been demanding Nato move its forces further westwards, Putin's invasion of Ukraine has achieved the exact opposite A second way for Ukraine to win — at least theoretically — would be through a diplomatic agreement “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia — never,” President Joe Biden said in a speech in Poland this year, and rightly so
That, in turn, could pressure Putin to strike a peace deal or even bring about new Russian leadership, Herbst told me Senior officials from around 40 countries, including China, and India, held talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the weekend with the aim of agreeing on key principles that could underline a future settlement of the war So a more likely end point here is not a negotiated peace, but rather a conflict that consolidates around lines of control “You end up with something between a frozen conflict and an everlasting war, in which neither side has the energy or economy to win,” Nixey said Ukraine is assembling a force of more than 100 western Leopard 1 and 2 tanks, plus others, and a similar number of armoured vehicles that it hopes to use whenever the spring muddy season eases, to smash through Russia’s defensive lines in a D-day offensive Wars require the tacit approval and support of those on the home front
The Russian pull-out from Kherson has partly led me to this conclusion Firstly as a psychological boost for the Ukrainian people, secondly as a profound embarrassment for the Kremlin and thirdly by handing Ukraine's forces a key operational advantage - all approaches into Crimea are now within range of Ukrainian weapon systems Sadly, this will continue to be a long-protracted political, economic and military battle of resolve Around Kreminna and Svatove they are very close to a big breakthrough that would throw Russian forces 40 miles back to the next natural defensive line, close to where their invasion effectively began in February “Many people have been left without access to heat, electricity, and water, particularly in the east and south,” he said
By October 2022, the picture had changed dramatically and having failed to take Kyiv, Russia withdrew completely from the north Ukrainian forces were also quick to deploy Western supplied arms such as the Nlaw anti-tank system, which proved highly effective against the Russian advance Russian ground troops moved in quickly and within a few weeks were in control of large areas of Ukraine and had advanced to the suburbs of Kyiv The Ukrainian General Staff says settlements in the area - including Klishchiivka and Andriivka - are continuing to come under artillery and mortar fire Perhaps most significant is the activity around Avdiivka, a strategically important town on the front line in eastern Ukraine The village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region could offer a similar stepping stone but Russian forces are reported to have made some advances in the area
Sometimes the best way to understand what’s possible is to ask impossible questions "I think the danger for Ukrainians is if they really do end up with a stalemate, where they've gained very, very little territory where a lot of the equipment supplied by the West has been written off with Ukrainians having suffered very significant casualties," Shea said “It was undeniably brave of Biden, an 80-year-old, to visit Kyiv, but I’m not convinced that he sees Ukraine as an election-winning issue either,” Nixey said
“It would have to get pretty bad for the Russians to get there,” he said, adding that there’s no way of knowing how many reserves the government stashed away after years of fat checks from energy sales An inability to do so could foster economic discontent capable of turning public opinion against the war, Lichfield told Defense News Past attempts to squeeze the will for war out of Moscow economically also didn’t yield the immediate results for which experts hoped