Notes

How Does the War in Ukraine End?
The other is the “justice party”, which thinks Russia must be made to pay dearly for its aggression. The obvious strategy is to try to break the road and rail corridor linking Russia proper to occupied Crimea, so cutting off the peninsula from its hinterland, with an attack towards Melitopol or Berdansk. Combine that with another attack on the now repaired 12-mile (19km) Kerch Bridge to the Russian mainland and Crimea would be increasingly isolated and vulnerable. In response, companies on both sides of the Atlantic announced plans to restart production lines for artillery shells and other weapons considered somewhat arcane until recently.

Russian forces were bombarding Kharkiv, and they had taken territory in the east and south as far as Kherson, and surrounded the port city of Mariupol. Senior Ukrainian officials who spoke to the BBC here in Kyiv all argued that President Putin could not ride out a catastrophic loss of authority. A would-be challenger to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he would end the war in Ukraine on day one of his presidency. Another senior official, who spoke on condition he was not named, went further, suggesting that President Putin would be forced to dismiss his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov, perhaps as a response to another military setback. And the future of the EU's economic aid is seemingly dependent on Hungary's incongruous stance. From this perspective Russia remains a long way from a sustainable victory.
In addition to being willing to accept huge losses, the Russians have shown themselves to be adept at defensive operations and have improved their use of drones and electronic warfare capabilities. There is also the extremely tricky issue of mobilisation which is now being addressed but requires up to 500,000 recruits. In this scenario, the United States would give the Ukrainian military whatever it needs to advance as far as possible in its counteroffensive. At an appropriate point next year, Ukraine would declare a pause in offensive military operations and shift its primary focus to defending and rebuilding liberated areas while integrating with Western institutions. Then, at its July, 2024 summit in Washington, NATO would invite Ukraine to join the Western alliance, guaranteeing the security of all territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at that point under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. But Russia under Putin has
never ended its wars at the negotiating table; at best it has frozen them, keeping its options open.

At dedicated Assembly session on Ukraine , UN chief calls for ‘restraint, reason and de-escalation’
Despite desperate pleas from Kyiv for the West to come to its aid, Nato has categorically ruled out sending troops to Ukraine. "We need to give them weapons like Javelin anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, ammunition and protective equipment. Every Nato nation should be helping them," he says. Tom Malinowski was a Democratic member of Congress representing New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District from 2019 to 2023, and assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration. For two years, Biden and Zelenskyy have been focused on driving Russia from Ukraine. Many experts I consulted, however, advised girding for a struggle that could last a lot longer, even if the war in its more acute form resolves sooner.


The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record. “We want Ukraine to have the strongest hand possible when that comes.” The spokesperson emphasized, however, that no talks are planned yet, and that Ukrainian forces are still on the offensive in places and continue to kill and wound thousands of Russian troops. “We want them to be in a stronger position to hold their territory. It’s not that we’re discouraging them from launching any new offensive,” the spokesperson added.

On the offensive this spring
Then Henry Kissinger, a former secretary of state, said negotiations should start within two months to avoid “upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome”. There would ideally be a return to the line of February 24th; “pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself,” he declared at the World Economic Forum, a talkfest in Davos. Russia, he said, had an important role to play in Europe’s balance of power; it should not be pushed into a “permanent alliance” with China.


Still, Western arms — even though supplied in an incremental, cautious manner — in Ukraine have similarly been key to halting Russian advances. In theory, that gives the West influence over the direction of the war. The West could — as Ukraine has sought — supply even more sophisticated weapons, faster, in the hope of convincing Russia that it cannot win. Both sides are now digging in as Moscow’s “special military operation”, which was intended to last a matter of days, grinds into another year of attritional warfare. Russia is throwing waves of recruits and mercenaries into close-quarters battles around towns like Bakhmut and Vuhledar.

Russian advances in the east
The Brookings Institution’s Fiona Hill, a senior director for European and Russian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council from 2017 to 2019, also pointed to the Kremlin’s imperial aspirations as a key indicator to watch, but added that these could be thwarted by developments off the battlefield. The recent arms donations — Kyiv still wants fighter aircraft and long-range tactical missiles — are predicated on the assumption they’ll force Moscow to end its invasion and begin negotiations because military costs are too high. That objective has coexisted with an expectation that Putin’s government will probably never stop fighting, as losing the war could spell the end to his political power. That conflict, also between neighbours, was fundamentally fought over territory and resources.


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