With Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalling and Western support showing signs of exhaustion, will the war take a tragic turn in 2024 for Kyiv and Europe?
Volodymyr Zelensky, who travelled to Washington in early December, was unable to persuade the Republicans blocking the US aid package for Ukraine. Zelensky, titled last year as the leader of the free world, and Western leaders that promised to support Ukraine (“as long as it takes”) now look as small as ever, according to Politico.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who last year skipped his annual telethon, where he answers curated questions from citizens, spent several hours on air this year, radiating confidence and praising the Russian army’s achievement. Putin promised to recruit half a million more “volunteers” next year and to really deliver on the objectives of his invasion of Ukraine.
War turns to politics
At the eleventh hour, and thanks to the ingenuity of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Union leaders managed to send a message of hope to Ukraine by inviting Kyiv to start EU membership negotiations earlier this month. However, the 50-billion-euro aid package continues to be blocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Despite Joe Biden’s efforts to convince Congress, decisions in Washington on aid to Ukraine are also stalling.
“The problem with the Republican Party is that they don’t want Biden to succeed in Ukraine. They may want Ukraine to succeed, but Ukraine’s success would be Biden’s success. They cannot allow that,” Toms Rostoks, director of the Centre for Security and Strategy at the Latvian National Defence Academy, told LRT.lt. “That is why I am sure that the aid packages for Ukraine will be insufficient, they will provide enough to keep Ukraine in the game, but not enough to be able to go on the offensive next year.”
The publication Foreign Policy recently quoted its sources in the Republican Party saying that Zelensky’s December visit to Washington and his attempt to persuade US politicians to stop blocking aid to Ukraine was a complete misfire and that some Republicans felt cornered and became even more opposed to the aid package pushed by Democrats.
According to Foreign Policy, the Biden administration has repeatedly told Ukrainian officials to cut off contact with Congress, especially Republicans, and to refrain from political pressure; reportedly, Zelensky has been instructed not to meet with members of Congress on Zoom. The White House has also blocked other congressional leaders from contacting Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, although they are still visiting. Kyiv is frustrated with the political strife within Washington.
“Our biggest vulnerability now is political-psychological. We need to put a lot of work and effort into overcoming the paralysis in the US, in the EU. The problems raised by countries like Hungary are about political tactics, diplomacy, a matter of negotiation. The problem is that we don’t have much time to play such political games,” Tomas Jermalavičius, head of studies at the Estonia-based International Centre for Defence and Security Studies (ICDS), told LRT.lt.
Warnings of “war fatigue” in the West are also growing louder. According to Rostoks, this could mean that Western politicians have concluded Ukraine is not losing the war and that it is therefore time to get political.
“When there is a real possibility of Ukraine’s defeat, important decisions will be taken again. This is very sad because the lives of Ukrainians are at stake,” the analyst said.
Problems on the battlefield
As Western military reserves are already running low, a Pentagon spokesman recently said the US will have to choose between continuing to help Ukraine and arming its own forces.
“Events of the last months are in Russia’s favour, and Moscow is simply gloating, with a great deal of confidence that it will be able to achieve its war aims,” said Rostoks of the Latvian National Defence Academy. “I don’t think there is any basis for that confidence, but although the Russian offensive has been stalling for a year and a half, they now believe they are on solid military footing, they have enough personnel, ammunition, and their war industry is working well. Therefore, they are quite confident about the year ahead.”
In Ukraine, political problems have also returned to the scene. There are major disagreements between President Zelensky and Valery Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces; Kyiv recently banned former President Petro Poroshenko from travelling abroad; and corruption scandals are surfacing, as well as discontent over the leaky mobilisation procedure.
The problem of replenishing the ranks of Ukrainian troops is also down to many people no longer thinking of war as an existential issue, as they did in the immediate wake of the February 2022 Russian invasion, according to a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.
“We have heard about the country’s courage and ingenuity, but millions of men fit for military service are not doing it, and there is corruption in the country,” according to Rostoks. “However, I have hope that Ukrainians can still not only stay in the war but also win it, achieve political victory.”
To do this, Ukraine also needs to strengthen its military industry – Zaluzhny pointed out in an interview with The Economist that the country could itself produce most of the weapons it now receives from the West. To do this, however, it would need Western financial support and investment. Another major challenge is training Ukrainian staff officers to plan and synchronise large-scale manoeuvre operations, for which Western assistance is also essential, stressed Jermalavičius of the ICDS in Estonia.
What to expect in 2024?
Even before the Ukrainian counter-offensive, some observers had been saying that should it stall or fail, that wouldn’t warrant the West cutting off its support. On the contrary, it would be an opportunity to learn from mistakes and prepare for the next phase of the war.
Retired US General Ben Hodges has long argued that taking Crimea would be crucial for Kyiv’s breakthrough. Ukraine will never be safe without taking back the peninsula, he has insisted. Ukrainian forces have already succeeded in forcing Russia to withdraw its Black Fleet headquarters from Sevastopol and its warships from their base in Crimea to smaller bases on the Russian Black Sea coast.
Hudson Institute experts Luke Coffey and Peter Rough, writing in Foreign Policy, suggest that the West should help the Ukrainian forces to take Crimea, first by supplying weapons that would allow Ukraine to strike the Kerch bridge, other Russian logistics hubs, air and naval facilities and isolate the peninsula. At the same time, Ukraine must strike targets inside the Russian Federation to prevent Russian forces from regrouping and launching new attacks. Washington has prevented Kyiv from using American-supplied weapons for such attacks but could help the Ukrainians build up their own capabilities for such strikes.
General Zaluzhny admitted in an interview with The Economist that neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian forces are able to achieve dominance and breakthroughs, which has led to a positional war. The Russian forces are trying to pretend that they have stopped the Ukrainian counter-offensive and are carrying out their own offensive operations.
“I don’t think Russia has the forces and the capacity to even achieve tactical breakthroughs, to develop them into operational successes. They also lack equipment, manpower, and so on. [...] We will probably see such hotspots of greater or lesser intensity throughout the winter, somewhere Russia achieving some success, occupying a dozen square kilometres, and elsewhere the Ukrainians,” said Jermalavičius.
If Western support for Ukraine grows next year, and the training of Ukrainian troops in Western countries accelerates, the Ukrainians may go on the counter-offensive.
In mid-December, The New York Times reported that US and Ukrainian military commanders were already looking for a new strategy for the war, although their visions differed. The US proposes that Ukraine should focus on defence and maintaining its current positions, as well as on building up its forces and weapons stockpiles over the year, forcing Russia to consider negotiations with Kyiv in 2025. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians want to switch to a ground offensive or long-range strikes.
But Rostoks is sceptical: “Barring miracles, I don’t think we will see a Ukrainian counter-offensive next year. Of course, something unexpected could happen.”
If not, Ukraine may be forced to negotiate. Kyiv’s predicament has drawn comparisons with the second phase of the Winter War between Finland and the USSR when Finland was forced to make territorial concessions but kept its independence.
“The short-term challenges need to be resolved first, and for Ukraine, it is important to maintain political and social cohesion, not to succumb to dark thoughts that everything is falling apart. [...] It is also important not to be torn apart internally,” said Jermalavičius.
Rostoks believes that Ukraine’s best chance to win the war is not to crush Russia on the battlefield, but to build a strong defence that can absorb Russian attacks and make Moscow realise that continuing the war is futile.
“Russia continues to feel that it has to go on the offensive, but if Ukraine has the opportunity to inflict significant losses on Russia, this should eventually translate into some political dynamics within Russia itself,” the military expert said.
The next target?
Some Western politicians and observers have started warning that once the war in Ukraine is over, Russia could rebuild its military capabilities within a decade or even quicker and start threatening NATO. President Putin has publicly insisted that he does not intend to go to war against the alliance, but at the same time, he has said he takes issue with Finland’s NATO membership.
“A year ago, we thought that the West’s economic power would definitely translate into military power, the only question was how quickly. The answer seems to be not soon enough. Eventually, we will get there,” said Rostoks.
While the European Commission is only now promising to make recommendations on how to strengthen Europe’s military industry, the continent’s arms manufacturers are still waiting for assurances that their products would have a market, should they decide to ramp up production.
NATO is also rushing to increase deterrence on the Eastern Flank. Canada has promised to deploy a heavy armed brigade in Latvia, as Germany has in Lithuania, but Ottawa is not increasing its defence spending and German media report that the “Lithuanian Brigade” is facing challenges due to shortages of weapons.
“The indecision of our Western partners is tiresome. Sometimes it seems that they do not feel any urgency,” said Rostoks.
After the Cold War, Europe’s military industry did not receive enough orders, resulting in plant closures, loss of expertise, supply chains and technology. “What has come out is a boutique industry, so to speak, which is totally inadequate to prepare for a real war,” said Jermalavičius.
There is talk that Putin may announce a new wave of mobilisation after the presidential election in March, although during his telethon the Russian leader only spoke of mobilising half a million “volunteers”.
“The reconstitution of the ground forces will start from the moment when the active hostilities in Ukraine end. Now Ukraine is winning us time, but not peace. Obviously, they are not going to deliver peace on a platter. Russia and its regime are likely to survive, so their intentions and political will to rebuild their forces must be taken seriously,” stressed Jermalavičius.
NATO must therefore increase its deterrence more quickly so that the Kremlin does not see a window of opportunity to attack the Baltic states, he insisted. For now, Lithuania has a target of building a fully-manned military division by 2035, but this is several years too late, according to Jermalavičius.
“The current decisions expose us to more risks than we should take on,” he stressed.
No one knows the Kremlin’s intentions for the Baltic states. The large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 also came as a surprise to many, with Moscow convinced that it would be able to take Kyiv within days.
“In the end, I think NATO’s deterrence in the Baltic region will hold. It all depends on the end of this war and the thinking in the Kremlin. If Russia wins this war, they may feel emboldened, they already have far-reaching plans and they may want to go beyond Ukraine, they may feel that their window of opportunity is closing,” said Rostoks.
“On the other hand, I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me how, after the difficulties in Ukraine, Russia could think that trying to do it again would be a good idea,” he added.
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