One of the most important things to do when writing and thinking about the course of a war is the hardest for a journalist — it’s to wait. Don’t say anything and watch events unfold. When analyzing or covering a conflict, there are some things that are immediately apparent — like the failure of a Russian missile attack over Kyiv, or Ukraine’s urgent military need for better fighter aircraft — but other seemingly simple questions are surprisingly difficult to answer.
When I traveled to Ukraine in May, I could see missile attacks firsthand, the vital role of Western equipment in the war effort and the remarkable courage of the Ukrainian people. But there were other things I saw that I couldn’t process immediately. I was there in the weeks before the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and while I was struck by the Ukrainians’ resolve, I was also struck by something else: a sense that the Ukrainians were, if not actually pessimistic, deeply sobered by the scale of their military challenge.
Why would Ukrainians feel this way? After all, the Ukrainian military has outperformed virtually every informed prediction of its combat capability. It has thwarted Russia’s initial military objectives, recovered 54 percent of the territory seized by Russia since the beginning of the war and inflicted staggering losses on the Russian military in both material and manpower.
Now, months into a counteroffensive that has struggled to regain the smallest amount of territory — for which Ukraine has paid a high toll — I see why. Ukrainian leaders weren’t spinning me when they tamped down expectations of military success. They were sharing genuine concerns. After more than a year of combat, Ukrainians know that, absent overwhelming Western support, they are David fighting Goliath. Russia still possesses immense, inherent advantages, and despite all its early success, Ukraine could still lose the war.
To understand where we are now, I thought I’d walk through the questions I receive when I talk about my time in Kyiv and the war more broadly. My answers are based on conversations with high-ranking Ukrainian officials, current and former American officials, current and former members of the American military and tracking open-source information on troop movements and tactics wherever I can.
The most recent Ukrainian counteroffensive has been underway for months. Why hasn’t it made substantial progress ?
In hindsight, the better question is perhaps: Why did we think it would? Ask a NATO general to attack a massively fortified defensive line without air superiority, without overwhelming superiority in artillery and without clear superiority in numbers, and the first question he’s likely to ask is: Can we wait to attack until we at least obtain superiority in one of those categories? Or perhaps two? I’d really love to wait until we have all three.
I fear that Ukraine’s past performance — including repelling the initial Russian attack on Kyiv and the rapid advances in the following months — had made us unrealistic about future results. We were hoping for similar advances in the face of much more formidable prepared fortifications. That was unrealistic, and it’s clear to me that the Ukrainian officials I talked to in May were plainly worried that the West was expecting too much.
But I’m reading that Ukraine is finally making some real gains. Can a breakthrough still happen ?
Maybe, but don’t count on it. It is absolutely the case that armies can be pushed to the breaking point and gradual success can eventually yield dramatic gains. After D-Day, for example, the allies slogged through the hedgerows of Normandy for weeks under nightmare conditions before finally breaking out.
But there’s a danger in that notion. It can lead commanders to push offensives for too long, to push soldiers and armies past the breaking point in the belief that a true breakthrough is just around the corner. Historical analogies can be imperfect, but think of the German spring offensives in 1918, toward the end of World War I. The German army delivered blow after blow to the allies, made limited gains, but bled itself dry in the process, rendering it vulnerable to the immense allied offensives that won the war in the late summer and fall.
So you’re saying Russia can still win ?
Yes. To be clear, I don’t see anything like a general Ukrainian collapse unfolding, or anything like a Russian blitzkrieg to victory, even if the Ukrainian counteroffensive proves too costly for Ukraine. Much of the Russian army’s striking power has been destroyed. But it is not hard to see the combination of a shift in momentum on the battlefield, combined with the prospect of waning Western support, that could perhaps lead to a form of defeat even more consequential and demoralizing in some ways than the original Russian plan to conquer Kyiv in a matter of days.
What was once supposed to be a lightning Russian attack has turned into a grim contest of wills, and while Ukrainians are willing to fight, they will be unable to hold Russia back without continued Western support. That means a Russian victory over Ukraine would also constitute a victory over the United States — and a stunning reversal of fortune for Vladimir Putin after the colossal miscalculations of his initial plan.
If Ukraine were forced to sue for peace even if it retains, for example, control of Kyiv, then it’s easy to imagine the fall of Volodymyr Zelensky, a restoration of Russian dominance in Ukrainian affairs and a battered Russian military regaining its prestige. After all, it will have won in the classic Russian way: by enduring more than its adversary could withstand and slowly grinding it into defeat — a catastrophic result for American security, the Western alliance, Ukrainian independence and the international order.
Is there a scenario for Ukrainian victory ?
Also yes, but only if Western aid continues to flow. Ukraine is in the midst of an incredibly difficult task: It’s integrating a host of new weapons and tactics into an army that is already fighting for its life. Problems were inevitable. As The Times reported last month, Western-trained brigades have stumbled in battle. Ukraine’s way of war is different from the NATO way of war, and the most logical way of approaching the conflict is by achieving synthesis between the two methods, not by entirely overhauling Ukrainian tactics, especially when the Ukrainian army is fighting with a fraction of NATO’s capabilities.
At the same time, a competent Republican Party could make a strong case that the Biden approach itself has hamstrung Ukraine — by providing stepped-up aid slowly, often after weeks and months of Ukrainian pleading. Ukraine would likely be in a substantially better position if it had received F-16s, Abrams tanks and ATACMS missiles sooner, and in greater numbers.
Yet it is still true, in spite of these missteps, that the combination of Western arms and Ukrainian valor is proving incredibly potent on the front and beyond. With the exception of the Russian capture of Bakhmut earlier this year, its army has lost considerable ground since its initial offensive culminated in the spring of 2022. There’s an argument that as long as Ukraine retains Western aid, incorporates steadily more Western arms into its military and continues to evolve, it can, in fact, slowly but steadily push the Russians back. Maybe, just maybe, it can even cause a sudden collapse.
What do you think will happen ?
I think some form of stalemate is the most likely outcome. And by “stalemate” I mean something short of Kyiv suing for peace or Ukraine pushing Russia entirely out of its territory. Instead I mean something that looks like Korea, where the back and forth of attack and counterattack eventually grinds down into something resembling a stable, static line of defense.
But there are good stalemates and bad stalemates. The Korean War, in fact, provides an illuminating example. North Korea utterly failed in its drive to unify the peninsula, and while U.N. forces were driven back from the North by Chinese divisions, the resulting armistice left the South free, protected by the United States, and ultimately created the conditions that have built the nation that exists today — one of the most economically and culturally dynamic countries in the world.
That’s what a good stalemate can look like for Ukraine — yes, Russia might retain some territory in the east, but the vast majority of Ukraine that would remain in Ukrainian hands would be free, independent and on the road to joining NATO. In 10 years, it would still be armed to deter Russia, but its future would look more like South Korea’s than, say, Belarus’s.
A bad stalemate would mean Russia not only retains a large chunk of Ukrainian territory but also that the threat of renewed hostilities would cow both Ukraine and the West, creating the conditions for the Belarus scenario, an ostensibly independent nation that exists under the Russian thumb. A bad stalemate like this one would ultimately be no stalemate at all, but rather a slow-motion Russian victory that leaves Putin (or his successor) stronger, Ukraine subjugated and the West likely divided and uncertain.
If a stalemate is probable, why not push for peace now ?
There are two quick answers to that question. First, there’s no indication that either party believes that the conflict is stalemated on present lines, and if the West actually tries to stalemate the conflict by, say, withholding the weapons Ukraine needs to press its offensives and repel additional Russian attacks, it makes peace less likely, not more. In other words, weakness will not result in Russian magnanimity.
In one of the most insightful conversations I had while I was in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian government official told me that Putin’s theory of victory depends on pushing as hard as he can and then waiting on elections in the West. A Western demand for peace on present lines would be a vindication of his strategy. A Western concession that Ukraine won’t enter NATO (or that it won’t offer other substantial security guarantees) would be seen as an ultimate vindication of his initial attack. Absent security guarantees, Ukraine will likely slowly re-enter Russia’s orbit, even in the absence of another war.
In other words, while David might be able to win once against Goliath, if we let David remain David — utterly alone against a much larger foe — it’s only a matter of time before David falls.
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AW: Krisenherd Ukraine ab Mai 2023
Zitat von nurmalso2.0
