No quick end to the war in Ukraine: so how do we get ready for the long haul?

In a few days, we will be in December, out of autumn and deep into the winter. The Ukrainian army has pushed its operations against Russia in southern and eastern Ukraine as long and as hard as it could; but as the snow falls and sub-zero temperatures set in, the last attacks of either side will fizzle out and both Kyiv and Moscow will lick their wounds and assess where they now stand after nearly two years of war. Although there has been no decisive outcome thus far, and it is still impossible to predict reliably who will be the ultimate winner and loser, both Kyiv and Moscow will use the winter lull in fighting to reflect on how they can better exploit their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses going forward into 2024. Neither side is close to winning, but not close to losing either. There is still, from the perspective of both Kyiv and Moscow, everything to play for.

This said, Moscow will probably be the more confident of the two sides heading into the winter break whatever they may say to the public gallery. For Russia, winning has always meant not losing and holding on to its 17% of occupied Ukrainian territory until Ukraine acknowledges the impossibility of regaining that territory and Kyiv’s Western partners run out of patience and resources to support the Ukrainian war effort. So, Russia can afford the prolonged stalemate and defensive war of attrition into which military operations in Ukraine have now sunk. Moscow feels that it has time on its side and with Kyiv not able to achieve a major or decisive breakthrough, the West will eventually put pressure on Zelensky’s government to come to the negotiating table and agree to territorial concessions. If Western arms deliveries to Kyiv and other types of economic and financial support slow down, Ukraine will simply have to stop fighting, even if its army is not defeated in the field and popular support for Zelensky’s strategy of resistance remains high – or so Moscow, and many western commentators, believe. It will then be a question of how much Western diplomacy can help Ukraine to salvage something from the wreckage and secure enough of Ukrainian territory to keep Ukraine as a viable country with sufficient ports, minerals and energy deposits, industry, infrastructure, and arable land to rebuild its economy and society. At the same time, a peace settlement short of the restoration of all Ukraine’s sovereign territories would be even more dishonourable and dangerous for Kyiv and its Western partners if it failed to provide Ukraine with adequate security guarantees against further Russian aggression in future.

Even if ‘Ukraine fatigue’ may now be an unavoidable reality in the United States and Europe, the alternative of capitulation to Russia is still sufficiently unbearable to make it something to avoid as long as possible – and as long as inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia is still within our grasp. A Russian victory, as leaders in the Baltic states and elsewhere in eastern Europe are at pains to point out, would not only allow Putin to gain total control over Ukraine and impose a Moscow-friendly government in Kyiv – whether Russian troops occupy the entire territory or not –  but also to threaten NATO member states and even to attempt a limited attack. The EU, which is on the cusp of beginning membership negotiations with Ukraine, and NATO, which has promised Kyiv alliance integration as well, would be obliged to backtrack on these processes indefinitely. So, keeping the Ukrainians in the fight delays that day of reckoning now that the much-touted Ukrainian spring offensive has failed to deliver the core Western objective of inflicting a military humiliation on Russia and deterring it from further adventures. Yet as we head into the winter and the third year of the war the question is: how many more chances will Ukraine still have to achieve victory before the weapons and the funding dry up? Already the assistance packages are being announced more infrequently and with smaller amounts. The Pentagon is down to its last $5bn unless Congress approves a new funding package for Ukraine soon. Only $1bn is left to finance new weapons production to replace equipment that the Pentagon has already sent to Kyiv from its stocks. One more spring offensive next year still seems feasible but if that fails as well, given the many layers of fortified Russian defences, then this time next year Kyiv will almost inevitably be dragged towards the negotiating table and forced to cede territory to Moscow. The current conflict in Gaza is not helping Ukraine. Not only is it diverting weapons like air defence batteries and artillery to Israel that Kyiv urgently needs, but it has also taken the war in Ukraine off the TV screens and the front pages of newspapers. This is depriving Zelensky of the platform he enjoyed during the first year of the war to reach out so successfully to international audiences and to rally support for his cause. Correspondingly and as winter approaches, Western politicians feel less pressure and urgency to come through with new assistance packages. This is not only true of the US Congress but also of the EU, where Hungary is currently blocking a Commission proposal to allocate €50bn in financial support for Kyiv and other EU member states have consistently refused to restock the European Peace Facility, which is used to collectively purchase weapons for Ukraine, up to €20bn.

So, if a year is what Ukraine and its well-wishers in Western governments have left to turn the current stalemate around, what are the steps that they need to take to enable more Ukrainian success?

Let us take the military situation first. The year is ending on a slightly more positive note for Ukraine. Its soldiers have managed to cross the Dnipro river south of Kherson and establish a bridgehead of between 3 to 8km. The Russians have brought in reinforcements to try to dislodge the Ukrainian units, but if the latter can stay put and expand the bridgehead further, they can start to bring in heavy equipment and long-range artillery for the next offensive. The Russians will find it more difficult to bombard Kherson. A Ukrainian offensive next spring pushing south could reach Crimea and cut the Russian forces in two. This might induce Putin to negotiate on terms more favourable to Kyiv. But the Russians will undoubtedly try to push the Ukrainians back over the river. So, holding the bridgehead during the winter and preventing the Russians from building more extensive fortifications by constantly harassing them needs to be Ukraine’s top priority. A second piece of good news is the success that Kyiv has had in driving the Russian navy out of the coastline around the Crimean Peninsula. Moscow is now building a naval base on the other side of the Black Sea in Abkhazia. The Ukrainian effort has been helped by the long-range anti-ship, artillery and cruise missiles like the Storm Shadow, Scalp and ATACMS that it has recently received from the allies –  although Germany is still holding back on supplying its Taurus cruise missile. The partial Russian withdrawal is not only enabling Kyiv to conduct more amphibious operations in the Black Sea and against Russian bases in Crimea but also to export more of its grain from Odesa and other ports along the new corridor that it has established along its coastline to Romania or Türkiye. Already, over 200 ships have taken advantage of this new route which remains in operation despite Russian attempts to mine it. An initiative by Türkiye, Romania and Bulgaria to set up a joint force to clear the Black Sea of mines will only help to give Ukraine greater freedom of movement in the sea to secure its economic lifeline. Ukraine has been successful in parrying the Russian counter-attacks, which have been as intense as Kyiv’s own offensive. Russian attacks to take Avdiivka near Bakhmut or to advance towards Kupiansk in the north have proven to be costly with Ukraine claiming thousands of Russian soldiers killed and tanks and armoured personnel carriers destroyed. It is difficult to verify these figures but the Russians have undeniably suffered enormous losses. The question of course is whether this matters given Russia’s greater demographic and political capacity to sustain casualties coupled with Putin’s ability to continue the war free from domestic constraints. Yet the good news for Ukraine is that if Moscow has stalemated its offensive, the Ukrainian army has also frustrated Moscow’s plans for further advances. Western weapons supplies, training and intelligence have not been sufficient to enable it to win but certainly adequate to prevent Kyiv from being defeated. Yet the irony of drip–feed supplies is that they indefinitely prolong a war that they are designed to shorten. 

The head of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has been commendably candid in describing the challenges facing the Ukrainian army and has called for new technologies and a fresh strategic approach. A tactic of attrition kilometre by kilometre and trench by trench will be too long and costly for Kyiv to sustain. Its soldiers will become increasingly exhausted and replacing experienced troops will become harder. So, Ukraine needs game changers that can turn the war around quickly. NATO’s job during the winter months is to work with Ukraine’s Defence Minister, Rustem Umerov, and General Zaluzhnyito define that new military strategy and resource it. One element is air power, which is vital to protect troops on the ground. The training of Ukrainian pilots on the F16 fighter jet is only now getting underway at a new centre in Romania. It has taken months since a decision last spring to start the training to get it up and running. The US, which makes the F16, has had to supply the necessary certification. The Netherlands has promised to supply some F16s to Ukraine but far more will be needed to equip Kyiv with an airforce worthy of the name plus air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, like the Sidewinder, in sufficient quantities. The US has just received a large order for 400 Sidewinders from Japan; so how many will it have to divert to Ukraine? Another priority is more stealth and jamming technology and advanced sensors to make it easier for Ukrainian troops on the move to avoid early detection by Russian forces. Also on the list are more observation and attack drones, long-range artillery, cruise missiles, suppression of enemy air defences, counter-battery fire and mine clearance systems. Ukraine needs bigger stocks of ammunition too, especially the standard 155 mm shell. The EU promised to purchase 1mn of these for Ukraine on international markets using €1bn from its EU Peace Facility but so far has struggled to locate one-third of this total. As important as the weapons supplies and training are, it is vital that the NATO allies and Kyiv agree on a common strategy and stick to it. The spring offensive has been undermined by barely concealed bickering over priority objectives and tactics with the US advocating a combined arms and big single-thrust approach that Ukrainian commanders have judged to be too risky and ill-adapted to the realities on the front lines. They have preferred a more gradual, multi-probe approach and bleeding the Russian forces before trying to defeat them. Again, arguments between Kyiv and its Western allies have only helped the sceptics in the US Congress to demand a war-winning plan from the Biden Administration before they commit to any further financial aid. Yet once a new approach based on better exploitation of advanced military technologies is devised, the allies must resource it fully to give Ukraine a realistic chance of prevailing in 2024. What 2023 has underscored is that we are in a classic chicken-and-egg syndrome, in which Ukraine blames inadequate Western weapons supplies and delays for the stalemate and Western politicians blame the stalemate for the lack of more weapons and money. So, the allies need to be honest with themselves and Kyiv: do they really want a Ukrainian victory or not?

A second priority is to help Ukraine build its own modern defence industry so that it can increasingly supply more of its own needs.  Next week, the US is organising a meeting with executives from the Ukrainian defence sector in Washington to discuss the joint production of weapons systems. Last September, Kyiv hosted a meeting of 250 representatives of North American and European defence companies to encourage them to invest in the 500 large, medium and small companies currently on the Ukrainian defence market, and develop joint venture, co-production and licensing agreements. Already, German manufacturer Rheinmetall has announced that it is setting up a plant in Ukraine to repair and service, and upgrade where necessary, Leopard 1 and 2 tanks, and other land vehicles. Getting damaged equipment repaired and back into the front line quickly is almost as important to military success as producing and supplying new equipment. A repair shop in Ukraine rather than thousands of kilometres away in Germany or the US can certainly help here. In the days of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had a major defence industry, specialising in aircraft engines, missiles, transport aircraft and T72 tank construction. More recently, this sector partnering with civilian tech companies has shown its skills in building all kinds of drones as well as anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. As Ukraine will inevitably be devoting a large share of its GDP to defence for many years to come as it seeks to protect itself from a resentful and vengeful Russia, private sectors and venture capital investment in the Ukrainian defence sector makes sense for business as well as moral reasons. NATO and the EU are also developing plans to ramp up defence production and engage with industry. The NATO Defence Industry Symposium, organised by Allied Command Transformation, was recently held in Stockholm and the EU Commission is planning to unveil its new defence technology and industry strategy in March. NATO has set up a DIANA programme to look into promising new technologies as well as two innovation hubs and an Innovation Fund. The EU has its Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) capability groups, its European Defence Fund and the European Defence Agency to organise collective weapons development and procurement. Both NATO and the EU need to open all these activities fully to Kyiv and allow it to benefit, subject to commercial and industrial safeguards and technology transfer rules, from the results. This can help to accelerate its defence modernisation. The worst thing we can do is to decrease our supply of weapons to Kyiv at a critical time while hindering its capacity to develop its own domestic production and become less dependent on foreign finance and assistance. Ukraine can reciprocate and help to build confidence by creating the right regulatory and legal framework to encourage Western investment and local production. 

Our next priority has to be helping Ukraine to survive yet another winter. Moscow is already returning to its strategy of trying to make life even more miserable for Ukrainians by depriving them of shelter, health services, electricity, food supplies, transportation and clean drinking water. In the last month alone, intensified Russian drone attacks on the power grid have caused power outages in 400 towns and villages across the country. Kyiv, the capital, is a particular target as over 600,000 Ukrainians have sought refuge there from more exposed areas of the country, since the city has the best missile defence. Despite Russia destroying or damaging 50% of Ukraine’s electricity grid and transmission capacity in its missile and drone strikes last winter, the system still functions and Ukraine’s power companies were even able to export a limited amount of electricity to central and eastern Europe during the summer. Private companies such as DTEK have proven particularly adept at repairing damaged transmitters and transformers and keeping gas production flowing. DTEK has requested air defence batteries to protect its major generators and storage facilities although these are unlikely to be sufficient as Kyiv needs to protect weapons production plants and critical infrastructure too. Last winter, the EU stepped up to the plate reversing its gas pipelines to supply Kyiv and sending it emergency generators and repair kits to keep radiators warm and the lights switched on. We do not yet know how harsh the imminent winter will be but, almost inevitably, Ukraine will need a similar winter survival support effort in the weeks ahead. What is crucial is that the Commission be able to use its existing budget to finance this support as Hungary is already linking its approval of further aid packages for Kyiv to the Commission releasing funds allocated to Budapest under the EU’s post-COVID Recovery and Resilience Plan. Budapest’s backsliding on EU democratic values and now even a poster campaign against Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, will not make this an easy step for the EU to take. Meanwhile, the EU as part of its long-term recovery and reconstruction strategy for Ukraine needs to see how the national power grid can be made more resilient against Russian attacks, for instance with a more networked and modular grid organisation easy to restore and reroute, and by running as much as possible of it underground.

The corollary of help to Ukraine has to be more pressure on Russia and a tightening of the screws on the Russian war effort. The first year of the war saw an almost unprecedented round of sanctions against Moscow with 1,200 Western companies abandoning the Russian market and severe constraints on Russia’s ability to trade and access financial markets. The rouble declined and Russia’s GDP was on the skids. European countries, and especially Germany, quickly reduced their long dependency on Russian oil and gas, diversifying to LNG, renewables and other suppliers in Africa, the Middle East, North America and Asia. To date, the EU has adopted 11 packages of sanctions against Russia and a 12th is in the works at the present time. Yet the recent analysis has not been encouraging. Despite a $60 price cap on a barrel of Russian oil and a ban on Russia gaining access to insurance in the West to ship its oil to overseas markets, which was declared by the G7, Russia has acquired a ‘ghost fleet’ of foreign vessels allowing it to export 70% of its oil outside Western sanctions. India and China have been big purchasers. Russian LNG exports have not been affected by the sanctions and last week the government in Moscow announced a major increase in investment in LNG terminals and gasification facilities. Russia has also continued to generate handsome revenues from its exports of nuclear materials, uranium, nickel and other precious metals, diamonds and grain – some of which Putin has offered free to its partners in Africa, notably Somalia and Burkina Faso.  Reports repeatedly come in of Western electronics being found in Russian missiles as international criminal syndicates help Russian companies find workarounds for the sanctions. Meanwhile, the EU and the US are no further to confiscating Russian assets frozen in foreign banks even though Ukraine has repeatedly called for this to help fund its war effort.  Ukraine calculates that $210bn of Russian Central Bank assets are in the EU alone. Yet the closest that the EU’s legal advisers have come thus far is to propose confiscation of the interest earned on these accounts and holdings, not the capital itself. Meanwhile, Russia is importing 1,000 containers of ammunition from North Korea and drones and missile components from Iran. The US and the EU are regularly putting more Russian companies and Western middlemen on their travel ban, asset freezes, trading prohibitions and other lists of sanctions. But clearly, over the winter the US and the EU need to conduct a thorough and honest review of why the sanctions are having less and less impact and how they can be made more effective; for instance in targeting Russia’s LNG exports and trade in uranium, diamonds and metals. Certainly, the current sanctions will hurt the Russian economy in the long term, but as the British economist, John Maynard Keynes, was fond of pointing out: the problem is that “in the long run we will all be dead”.

Finally, there is the challenge of combating ‘Ukraine fatigue’. We have seen with the NATO and Western efforts in Afghanistan that when the public loses faith in the feasibility of a mission a mood of doom and gloom settles quickly on politicians and diplomats. They come to believe that failure is not so bad after all and that the costs of disengagement are less onerous than the costs of persevering with the mission. From this point onwards they become obsessed with exit strategies and ‘cut our losses while we can’ policies. Once this downward spiral sets in, it is virtually impossible to reverse course and get a foreign commitment back on track. Arguments for withdrawal assume vastly greater weight than arguments for continuing engagement and retreat becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The most pressing task of all is for the Western allies to devise a common strategy to counter ‘Ukraine fatigue’. We are no longer in the early stages of the war when Ukraine President Zelensky’s inspirational and defiant speeches to national parliaments and international gatherings were all that was needed to secure support for the Ukrainian cause and propel Western governments into action. Zelensky no longer has the same rock star status outside Ukraine and the situation is now more complex. The Western supporters of Ukraine have to make their own case to their public opinions as to why continuing support for Kyiv, even with no immediate prospect of success, is not an exercise in charity but a fundamental security interest of all members of the transatlantic community. So, assistance to Kyiv is not an option but a necessity. Western governments need to coordinate this communications and lobbying strategy closely with Ukraine in the weeks ahead so that it is effectively targeted at key countries and key groups of opinion formers in parliaments, the media and the business community. Western public diplomacy and communication efforts need to be carefully measured to keep Ukraine in the public eye and regularly. European allies need to roll out their assistance packages and financial commitments carefully to occupy the media space and to demonstrate their individual national commitment rather than creating the impression that everything is in the hands of the US. As the counter-arguments mount up and public attention fades, an effective Ukrainian public relations campaign will not be easy. But Lloyd Austin, the US Defense Secretary, and Boris Pistorius, the German Minister of Defence, have shown what can be done with their unannounced visits to Kyiv this week, as well as the news that Germany plans to double its military supplies to Ukraine next year to €8bn.  Effective lobbying to pressure both NATO and the EU to offer clear and realistic roadmaps to Ukraine to keep its accession process on track has to be a priority for both Kyiv and its Western supporters.

In conclusion, the war in Ukraine will not win itself. As with all human endeavour, nothing is preordained one way or the other. Good strategy is a mixture of patience, persistence and fortitude, but also the capacity to rethink and recalibrate as circumstances change. That is the challenge that Ukraine and its supporters need to meet over the winter months. The winter pause may well force a break in military operations but if it also becomes a pause in much-needed hard–headed political and diplomatic thinking about the future of the war in Ukraine, it may well turn out to be a war that Ukraine and the West will needlessly lose. At their risk and peril.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.