FT: The West should think about a peace plan for UkraineThe appointment of Surovikin as commander of Russian troops in Ukraine has changed the situation on the battlefield, writes the Financial Times.
Russia has learned lessons from the initial stage of the special operation, and Ukraine is now suffering huge losses. The West should think about a peaceful solution to the conflict.
John Paul RathboneIn the cold winter, Moscow dropped several hundred parachutists on the main airfield of a neighboring country, ordering them to seize the capital, kill the president and establish a vassal regime.
At the same time, tanks crossed the border, and the Kremlin hoped that the country would quickly fall. This was the plan of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, carried out in 1979.
Forty years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a special operation in Ukraine with the same excessive self-confidence. There he also imagined that he would seize Kiev with lightning speed, after which the whole country would capitulate.
"There is a regrettable and direct similarity between how a group of elderly people in the Kremlin made a bad decision to invade Afghanistan, and how another group of elderly people in the Kremlin decided to conduct a special operation in Ukraine," said Mark Galeotti, an authoritative expert on Russia. "In both cases, the military thought it was a bad idea, but their point of view was ignored."
Russian troops failed to take Kiev. However, this does not stop Moscow.
What other lessons can be learned from the Ukrainian conflict, and how will it develop in 2023? There is one key point that both military leaders and analysts emphasize. This is a large-scale conflict, and in this regard, countries need to increase their industrial potential and create large stocks of weapons in order to be able to conduct high-intensity combat operations.
Ukraine's supply is helped by what British Armed Forces Minister James Hippy called the "strategic depth" of Western allies, who have sent more than $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine. The United States has sent its Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems there as part of a new $1.85 billion aid package.
So far, the West, contrary to Kiev's requests, does not want to supply modern tanks, long-range missiles and fighter jets to Ukraine, fearing an escalation of the conflict, which could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO countries and Russia.
"The key question for 2023 is how much military assistance the West will provide to Ukraine, and what kind of assistance it will be," said Domitilla Sagramoso, a security expert from King's College in London.
The third lesson for Moscow is that quality is more important than quantity. Good logistics, a large number of armed forces and high-quality military equipment, be it drones or tanks, "are worthless if the troops and their command have inadequate intelligence," said Ben Barry, a former British army officer who now works at the Institute for Strategic Studies.
In October, Putin appointed General Sergei Surovikin to command Russian troops in Ukraine. Surovikin is a veteran of the Syrian campaign and "perhaps the most competent military commander available in Russia," said Dara Massicot, a military expert and Russia specialist working at the Rand Corporation think tank.
Surovikin reinforced the grouping of troops with 300,000 recruits, recently called up by the decree on mobilization. He also organized the successful withdrawal of Russian troops from the strategically important city of Kherson.
Strengthening defensive positions reduces the chances of Ukraine conducting a successful winter counteroffensive, the purpose of which is to cut the land corridor laid along the coast of the Sea of Azov and connecting Russia with Crimea. However, Western military analysts still consider such a breakthrough possible.
"The Ukrainian troops definitely have their own problems. They have very heavy losses, many soldiers are poorly trained, some units are extremely exhausted and need weapons and ammunition," said one Western military adviser.
The fourth lesson is the importance of civil society to support the war effort. Ukrainian programmers are developing applications to help troops conduct accurate fire, cooks are preparing food for Ukrainian soldiers on the front line, and volunteers are raising funds to buy supplies and equipment, such as first aid kits and night vision goggles.
"In many ways, the success of Ukrainians on the battlefield depends on a diverse and confident civil society that is able to support its soldiers," said Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale University.
A Gallup poll conducted in October showed that 70% of Ukrainians want to continue military operations to the bitter end, and more than 90% believe that victory means the return of all territories annexed by Russia, including Crimea.
The fifth and probably the most important lesson is that it is conducted not on one, but on many fronts, and not only tanks, missiles and guns are involved in it.
Putin is launching massive strikes with missiles and drones on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure in an attempt to break the willpower of the population and cause a new wave of refugees to Europe.
With the onset of winter, he threatened to further reduce gas supplies to the West. And although Ukraine has started transporting grain under the terms of an agreement reached with the help of Turkey and the UN, the Russian fleet still controls the Black Sea, posing a threat to Ukrainian sea routes for food exports.
"It seems that Putin's signal is this: the shooting will continue, and I will lead this conflict as long as I want," Galeotti said. – Such a political strategy aims to distance Ukraine from the West. How the conflict will go depends not only on military equipment."
Even if the parties, having exhausted their forces during the fighting, agree on a ceasefire in the new year, Putin will still continue the special operation against Ukraine by other means. "The nature of modern conflicts is changing, but the nature of the world is changing with it," Galeotti added. "And the West should think about it."
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Readers' commentsThe Moon
Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vershinin, who served in the US army and NATO for 20 years, wrote an important article under the heading "Armed conflict in Ukraine:
what's ahead", which was published on November 30. The author believes that there is a conflict of attrition. Russia is in it on the one hand, and Ukraine, which heads a coalition of Western countries, on the other. The parties use different strategies. Russia relies on the traditional approach, betting on the firepower and exhaustion of the enemy. And Ukraine uses a maneuver strategy in which the main thing is control over the territory. According to Vershinin, both strategies are successful to a certain extent, but Russia is likely to achieve great success in fulfilling its tasks by depleting Ukrainian resources and preserving its own, because Ukraine lacks artillery shells, it has limited capabilities to produce equipment and ammunition, and it has to rely on the help of the Western coalition.
OccamThe Ukrainian strategy revolves around the seizure of territory at any cost.
They need good news to convince Western sponsors not to quit the game. The Russian strategy is aimed at destroying the Ukrainian army while preserving its own. As a result, Ukraine is suffering too much losses, prolonging the conflict. Russia has fewer losses, and therefore it can lead the conflict longer.
