With the blocking of US aid of 60 billion dollarsL’Ukraine is on the ropes and the battle against the Russian invasion is becoming increasingly desperate. His army is short of artillery and ammunition, and outnumbered ten to one in some outposts, as it struggles to hold off escalating Russian attacks. There is a glimmer of hope for Kiev, with a congressional vote that could unlock the aid package. But if it fails and Ukraine’s European allies don’t step up, defeat looks increasingly likely and could take several forms, analysts say, including the loss of key territory.
Total defeat
Experts at the US think tank “The Institute for the Study of War” believe that Vladimir Putin is pursuing “maximalist” goals in Ukraine that amount to a “full Ukrainian and Western capitulation”. This could possibly lead – explains the Business Insider website – to an attempt to take control of the entire country. The Russian president last year cited a 17th-century map of Europe to support his argument that Ukraine is not a real country, despite the document clearly labeling some of the territory as “Ukraine.” In a Royal United Services Institute blog post, Oleksandr Danylyuk, former chief advisor to the Ukrainian Defense Minister, noted that the total destruction of Ukraine is Russia’s main goal: “Putin does not hide his genocidal intentions to destroy Ukraine as an independent state and Ukrainians as a separate people. It is obvious that if we lose the support of the West, Putin may achieve his goal of obliterating the largest country on the map of Europe”. “Despite the obvious tragedy of this situation for Ukraine, the consequences of its defeat for the West, and especially for the United States as the leader of the free world, would be no less catastrophic,” he added.
The loss of territories
Others believe that Russia’s ambitions are more limited and that the goal is to launch a massive attack this summer to break through defensive lines and capture a key city or region. The problem – Bryden Spurling, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, told Business Insider – is that it is not clear where the attack could come from: “The difficulty with Ukraine being short of supplies and personnel is that it gives Russia more opportunities to choose the time and place of his offensive on a long battle front”. While it was clear that Ukraine would concentrate its counteroffensive last year in the south, allowing Russia to build extensive fortifications, the Russian attack could come at any point along the front line 620 miles long. Russia may try to take control of Kharkivthe second largest city in Ukraine, which is only about 18 miles from the Russian border, of the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, or to secure control of Donets regionk in eastern Ukraine, which was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of the war.
George Beebe, former director of Russian analysis at the CIA, recently told BI that Russia is seeking to increase and consolidate its territorial gains: “Victory over Ukraine would probably consist of seizing the territory east of Dnieper river that Moscow considers culturally and historically Russian, creating a nobody’s land separating Russian-controlled territory from the rest of Ukraine, and building defensive fortifications to ensure the division is difficult to reverse through new Ukrainian assaults,” he said.
Negotiations and scenarios
But the question of when and under what conditions negotiations to end the war might take place remains unclear.
Spurling, the RAND analyst, said that a Russian victory would most likely take the form of Ukraine ceding large portions of conquered territory to Russia: “Despite the challenges it is currently facing, Ukraine shows little interest for such an agreement, and many of its supporters recognize that Moscow cannot be trusted to uphold its side of any agreement anyway.” Some analysts, such as those at ISW, have warned that Russia would likely use a deal with a weakened and defeated Ukraine to launch a new attack against Ukraine and then its allies in the West. Other analysts are skeptical and believe that the Russian military has suffered such damage in the conflict that it would be unable to launch a massive new campaign against a strengthened NATO alliance. But for Beebe, even if US aid were granted, it would not be enough to turn the tide of the war and allow Ukraine to oust Russian forces. This implies that, in any scenario, the Kiev government will have to cede territory.
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