What Zelenskyy’s military revamp means for ‘winning’ in Ukraine

If talk of the war in Ukraine last year revolved around how its military offensive was going, today it’s largely centered on how the nation’s defensive lines are shaping up.

Last month, Ukraine’s prime minister announced a “record amount” of government funding for the construction of bulwarks.

Why We Wrote This

The war in Ukraine is at a pivotal point, after a disappointing counteroffensive and a halt of U.S. aid. Ukraine’s task now is to demonstrate a clear war strategy and shore up Western support.

While that’s good news to soldiers battling in the trenches against their deeply dug-in Russian adversaries, these sorts of messages do little to counter concerns among Western allies that, two years after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the war has reached a stalemate. This was also the assessment from Ukraine’s top general, Valerii Zaluzhny, who was fired Thursday in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framed as a much-needed pivot.

Stalemate is a concern, too, for Republican lawmakers in the United States who are withholding war funds for Ukraine while demanding, among other things, that Kyiv – and the Biden administration – articulate just how the war against Russia might be won.

Coming up with a “theory of victory” would, “I think, ease some concerns of supporters and opponents [of war funding] – if it’s a good answer,” says retired Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser on international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

If talk of the war in Ukraine last year revolved around how its military offensive was going, today it’s largely centered on how the nation’s defensive lines are shaping up.

Just last month, Ukraine’s prime minister announced a “record amount” of government funding for the construction of bulwarks.

Why We Wrote This

The war in Ukraine is at a pivotal point, after a disappointing counteroffensive and a halt of U.S. aid. Ukraine’s task now is to demonstrate a clear war strategy and shore up Western support.

This was also the assessment from Ukraine’s top general, Valerii Zaluzhny, who was fired Thursday in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framed as a much-needed pivot.

“2024 can become successful for Ukraine only through effective changes in the basis of our defense,” Mr. Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Another social media post by a Zelenskyy advisor added that Ukraine needs to prevent stagnation on the front line, since it negatively affects public opinion.

It’s a fair request, argues John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a bipartisan think tank in Washington.

Promising to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” does not a strategy make. The U.S. needs a coherent plan, he says, “to break the stalemate and convince Putin he can’t outlast the West.”

Coming up with a “theory of victory,” including a realistic assessment of how Kyiv might win, would “I think, ease some concerns of supporters and opponents [of war funding] – if it’s a good answer,” says retired Col. Mark Cancian, senior adviser on international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also in Washington.

“There’s already a lot of discomfort, even among Ukraine’s supporters, about how this is going to end – or is this going to be a forever war?”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor/File

A Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr, (right), uses a probe and a pineapple-shaped fragmentation grenade as he trains soldiers of the 128th Brigade of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense force to counter Russian mines that litter Russia’s built-up defense lines in the Zaporizhzhia region, on Aug. 2, 2023.

Training and equipment needed

Kyiv’s previous plan for winning centered on reclaiming the occupied territories “bite by bite,” Colonel Cancian explains. The Ukrainian Army fought back Russian invaders in Kyiv and then in Kharkiv by the spring of 2022. By the following October, it had pushed the Russians out of Kherson.

“When the counteroffensive began last year, many people expected something like that – that is, that the Ukrainians would take another bite out of the occupied territories,” he says. “Maybe they’d get to the Sea of Azov, maybe they’d get halfway there. But they would take a bite out, then rebuild, then take another bite – and just keep going until they reoccupied their country.”

Instead they have become tangled up in massive Russian defensive zones laden with mines.

Without enough de-mining equipment and vehicles, Ukrainian forces have sometimes had to resort to going out with ropes and grappling hooks that troops pull across fields. A plan for a renewed offensive, analysts say, could focus on better training and more equipment for crossing those fields.

At the same time, Ukraine is struggling to execute what’s known in military parlance as “combined arms maneuvers.” This involves coordinating on the battlefield between, say, infantry and artillery forces in a way that defending against one makes the adversary vulnerable to the other. It’s a tall order: Only the United States’ most experienced allies do it really well, analysts say.

Keeping pace

As much of a slog as the war may seem, Mr. Hardie argues the “stalemate” description is unhelpful, since it seems to suggest “that Washington could unilaterally walk away without severely damaging U.S. interests.”

The reality, he says, is that both sides must keep pace or collapse.

If aid from NATO nations dwindles, Russia could see an opening to try a new offensive amid a Ukrainian lack of ammunition and equipment.

President Zelenskyy succeeded in securing about $54 billion in fresh support from the European Union last week, as Hungary lifted its veto on further Ukraine aid. The EU, however, is expected to fall short of its goal to supply 1 million ammunition rounds to Ukraine by March. Leaders have promised that they’re still working to ramp up European defense manufacturing base.

For the U.S., continuing to aid a beleaguered Ukraine is also a good strategy, argues Stephen Biddle, professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

“That’s the smart move for the U.S.,” he says. “The money we spend on Ukraine isn’t quite a rounding error for the U.S. defense budget, but it’s not a huge fraction of it.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arrives while Republicans hold a closed-door meeting after blocking a bipartisan border package that had been tied to wartime aid for Ukraine, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.

It’s also a “very efficient” way to push back against a “pattern of aggression by Russia that could, if continued, threaten treaty allies for whom we have a substantially greater legal obligation to shed blood.”

War weariness on “one or probably two sides” eventually spurs adversaries to accept compromises they would otherwise reject, Dr. Biddle says.

But not yet. A vision of “victory” through negotiated settlement after a grinding war of attrition “is not an easy sell,” Dr. Biddle acknowledges. Fighting will continue until it’s clear on both sides that there is little chance of a breakthrough.

Still, among everyday Ukrainians, the needle is very gradually beginning to shift toward territorial concessions to Russia. While 8 in 10 Ukrainians still object to that idea according to a December poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the number is shifting: 9 out of 10 were opposed in the same poll last May.

As Ukraine considers a new mobilization law to call up more male soldiers, those figures could shift further.

In the meantime, Western-supplied weapons, training, and anti-mine equipment – as well as long-range arms to harass Russian forces – could help Ukraine punch through Russian defenses and put itself in a stronger negotiating position, Mr. Hardie argues.

“Our goal in the West,” he says, “should be to maximize Ukraine’s leverage” for the truce that may one day come to pass.

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