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Last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the United States, now in his third year, to galvanize American support for his country’s defense against Russian aggression.
During what appears to be a last-ditch trip before November’s presidential election, the Ukrainian leader presented the Biden administration with a so-called “victory plan” aimed at forcing Russia to end the war. Tragically for the Ukrainian people, it is highly unlikely that President Zelenskiy’s plan will restore peace to Ukraine. Here’s why:
beginning. This plan lacks a realistic definition of victory and an actionable strategy to achieve it. President Reagan famously told his confidant and advisor Richard Allen in 1977 that his vision for winning the Cold War with the Soviet Union was, “We win, they lose.” Sounds simple.
But underpinning this approach was a thoroughly thought-out containment strategy developed and implemented by Regan and his team over many years. This strategy consisted of a series of very specific measures centered on strengthening America’s military power and defense economy while weakening Soviet military power.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and President Biden head to the Oval Office at the White House on September 21, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Unlike Reagan’s plan, Zelensky’s plan is just the same old plea he has been employing for more than two years to increase U.S. and European arsenals and authorize missile strikes deep into Russian territory. The repackaged demands lacked a comprehensive strategy for winning, and U.S. and European officials were “unimpressed,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
What is being touted as a new “concrete” plan does not include a clear path to winning the war. Furthermore, Zelenskiy’s definition of victory against Russia remains wishful thinking. In an interview with The New Yorker during his visit, President Zelenskiy admitted that his “mindset has not changed” regarding complete victory for Ukraine.
He calls for a “just” victory, which he defines as the retaking of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, from Russia and a path to Kiev’s NATO membership. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine and has occupied Crimea for 10 years.
Ukraine’s membership in NATO, which Russia considers part of its strategic security perimeter, has long been a red line for Moscow. It’s Putin’s version of the Monroe Doctrine. To force it, Putin started this war. So while Zelensky’s aspirations are understandable, they are currently unattainable.
Number 2. Zelenskiy’s plan ignores the reality on the ground. Russia continues to make slow but steady advances on the battlefield. Russian troops are advancing deep into Pokrovsk after claiming control of the eastern coal-mining town of Ugledal (“Gift of Coal”) on Wednesday. Capturing Pokrovsk would give Russian forces a strategic advantage in occupying the rest of Donbas. A hub city connecting seven different roads and railways, Pokrovsk is used by Ukraine to supply its troops.
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Russia launched 1,300 Iranian-made Shahed drones toward Ukraine, the most ever. Not a day went by in September without a drone attack. (East 2 West)
Meanwhile, Kiev has been under intense shelling from Russian missiles and drones throughout September. Russia launched 1,300 Iranian-made Shahed drones toward Ukraine, the most ever. Not a day went by in September without a drone attack. According to the United Nations, Russia has destroyed 50% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. As winter approaches, many areas of the country are becoming uninhabitable due to lack of water, heat and electricity.
Reversing the current situation is a monumental task that Ukraine is not in a position to achieve. Even the US intelligence community, in a recent report leaked to the New York Times, said, perhaps intentionally, that President Biden would allow Ukraine to use US long-range missiles to attack military targets deep in Russia. Even so, he acknowledged that Ukraine’s trajectory would not change. War in the most fundamental sense. The number of Long Range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) supplied to Ukraine is insufficient to fulfill this role. Neither the United States nor Europe has the additional reserves or production capacity to rapidly build up their depleting arsenals.
The main factor that Mr. Zelensky and the Biden-Harris administration have ignored concerns the power disparity between Russia and Ukraine. It is a combination of the amount of weapons, the number of troops, defense economics, and the production capacity of the military-industrial complex. Here are the facts.
Ukrainian soldiers ride a tank near the front-line town of Vledal on February 22, 2023. (Reuters/Alex Babenko)
third. Ukraine is dramatically outgunned and outmanned by Russia. There’s a reason the Pentagon considers Russia a “nearly peer competitor” that even the U.S. military would have a hard time defeating. This is because if the United States commits troops to the theater, Russia is likely to join forces with China, Iran, and North Korea. South Korea. All three countries support Russia’s war effort.
According to the recently released National Defense Strategy Board (NDS) report, the United States is completely unprepared for such a multi-theater war. The commission concluded that “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and capabilities necessary to be confident that it can deter and win combat.”
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That is precisely why Biden will not allow Zelensky to use US long-range weapons to strike deep into Russia. Mr. Biden is well aware that the risk that President Putin will use nuclear weapons and that the United States will be drawn into direct war with Russia is real. This has been revealed by large intelligence agencies and confirmed by the extensive wargames we have conducted with them.
On August 12, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the situation in the Kursk region at his official residence on the outskirts of Moscow. (Gabriil Grigorov/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
4th. Russia also has an overwhelming advantage in human resources. Of the approximately 1 million casualties in this war, Ukrainians lost about 480,000 and Russians about 600,000. But Russia’s population is three times that of Ukraine, and Putin can fight a war of attrition down to the last Ukrainian.
According to the same NDS committee report, Russia has already deployed 15% more troops than at the start of the war, as the average age of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russia reaches 43-45 years old and Ukraine bleeds. In September, President Putin ordered by decree a further build-up of the Russian military (for the third time since the start of the war), adding 180,000 troops.
Russia’s armed forces currently number 2.38 million people, of whom 1.5 million are active duty soldiers. (By comparison, as of June 30, 2024, the U.S. military had approximately 1.3 million active duty soldiers and 738,000 reservists and National Guard members.) And just last week, President Putin announced that he would be joining the military. approved a law granting immunity to prisoners sent there. Battle in Ukraine.
Ukrainian military personnel from the 1st Independent Tank Brigade ride a BREM-1 evacuation tank near Vkhledar, Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 6, 2023. (Reuters/Rishi Niesner)
5th. Russia also has an advantage over Ukraine in terms of defense and economy. According to the European Parliament, Russia’s aggression caused Ukraine’s GDP to decline by nearly 30% in 2022. Although tax revenues fell, total spending increased by 270% from 2021 to 2023, with defense and security spending increasing dramatically. In August, Ukraine narrowly avoided default when S&P Global downgraded the country’s credit rating to “selective” default pending the entry into force of foreign currency commercial debt restructuring.
The IMF estimates that if Ukraine continues to wage a violent war for a year longer than the end of 2024, its public debt level, currently at almost 100%, would rise to almost 140% of GDP. In the coming years, Ukraine will continue to rely on external financial support, with most of the financing needed to come from official creditors such as the EU and the US.
Meanwhile, Russia has significantly expanded its defense spending, rising to 7.5% of GDP. Seven years before the invasion, President Putin activated a legal regime known as a “special period” that put Russia’s military and economy on a war footing. As a result, manufacturing programs producing civilian products were readjusted to produce ammunition and military equipment. The factory currently operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with mandatory three shifts. And supply chains have been redesigned to circumvent Western sanctions. With the military-industrial complex boosting the economy, 29% of the Russian federal budget will be spent on national defense in 2024.
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Former President Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at Trump Tower in New York on September 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nickinson)
Former President Trump was criticized for refusing to say during a debate with Kamala Harris whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia. But President Trump is not afraid of being called a “Putin apologist” by wishful thinkers. Unlike Team Biden-Harris and many bureaucrats in the U.S. government, Trump is a successful businessman who lives in the real world, not the imaginary one. He describes the “art of the possible,” that is, understanding not what we want (sometimes impossible), but what we can (could) accomplish given the available resources. Masu.
As a strategic thinker who adheres to the realpolitik school of thought, Trump has a thorough understanding of the complex world of geopolitics. Therefore, his actions are based not on emotions, but on rational calculations.
This is why President Trump’s response to the debate moderator was, “I want the war to stop.” Anyone interested in saving Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine from total destruction would be wise to heed Trump’s wisdom.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the U.N. Security Council last month that he had no doubt that Ukraine could win the war.
Click here to read more from Rebecca Koffler
