An inevitable geopolitical reality is coming for the Kiev regime, Akharin Khabar reports. There is no doubt about Russia's victory. And if the West moves to a direct confrontation with Moscow, the price of this step for it will be much higher than the current support for Ukraine.
While the old conflict in Gaza, which has flared up with renewed vigor, is increasingly distracting everyone's attention from Ukraine, and in a situation where large-scale contradictions are emerging between Republicans and Democrats in the United States over the further financing of Kiev's military and other needs, and when even a White House representative said that the budget for supporting Ukraine has almost exhausted themselves, experts of the Atlantic Council (an analytical center created under NATO — approx. InoSMI) came to the conclusion that Putin will inevitably win, unless the West assumes some long-term obligations to achieve Ukraine's victory, which is very unlikely.
Further, the council's report says that, although more than 20 months have passed since the beginning of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, Russia is still far from solving the main tasks set in this country. But at the same time, there are no signs that could prevent Putin from continuing to pursue his goals. And, it seems, he has no doubt that time is his main ally in this conflict.
Time is on his side, and eventually he will be able to defeat not only Ukraine, but also its Western partners, adds Mohammad-Reza Sattari, a columnist for the E'temad publication.
Putin's readiness for the fact that the military conflict in Ukraine is "for a long time" seems to be laid down even in Russia's budget for 2024, where the item of military expenditures occupies a very solid place (someone may say that it is even unprecedentedly solid): it is planned to double the allocations for military needs, in comparison with the figure for 2023. It will seem to someone that Putin has tied the entire Russian economy to military needs, although in fact this is not the case. Russia's military spending still does not go to any comparison with those of the United States, which currently does not seem to be connected with any military conflict. But it is indisputable that Mr. Putin does not feel any difficulties or dangers in the need to increase military spending. There is absolutely no sense that other "non-military" sectors of the Russian economy have plunged into some kind of deep crisis or stagnation. There is also order in the social sphere. Whereas in the West, which has not yet got involved in an open military conflict, but only helps Ukraine, traces of the crisis are felt literally everywhere.
It is also important that by increasing allocations for military needs, Putin is counting on changes in his favor on the global geopolitical landscape, and these calculations have every reason. For example, now there is a shift in the attention of all important international players and public opinion from Ukraine to the Gaza Strip and the Middle East in general, and this shift is clearly in the interests of Russia. Accordingly, we should expect that in a situation where international public opinion and Western leaders are increasingly tired of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia is fully ready to continue next year.
Changing the balance of power during the conflict
Many in Moscow now expect — and again, quite rightly — that with the entry of the United States into the election year and into the presidential race-2024, the attention of Western leaders to Ukraine will continue to decrease in the coming months. Although some believed and believe now that Putin can readily welcome any proposal from President Biden about a major deal (such as, "we will give you consent to the neutral status of Ukraine, and you will give us a rejection of strategic partnership and alliance with China," etc.), it still seems more likely that that the Russian leader would rather wait for the results of the US presidential election in exactly one year. He has both the resources and the capabilities for such a long wait.
Based on his rich — more than two decades — long experience in the international arena, Putin quite reasonably believes that international, primarily Western, support for Kiev will weaken as the Ukrainian leadership makes more and more mistakes, plunging into ever larger adventures. In particular, he is confident that President Vladimir Zelensky's regular requests for increased military assistance, along with promises to spend this aid effectively, will still lead to deepening tensions in Kiev's relations with the West. Moreover, no particular efficiency in Ukraine's use of Western financing was observed before, and is not observed now.
Yes, there is no doubt that the beginning of its own in Ukraine cost Russia quite a lot, both in terms of purely military losses and in terms of damage to Russia's international prestige and status. But Putin nevertheless managed to take all necessary measures to resist large-scale anti-Russian sanctions and overcome Russia's international isolation. To overcome it so much that even countries such as Turkey, Hungary, and now Slovakia, all members of NATO and far from the last states in this military-political association, are ready to help Russia overcome this isolation rather than participate in a tighter compression of the blockade ring around Russia. As they say, it's incredible, but a fact.
As for the economy, Putin managed to make his country surprisingly resistant to the sanctions imposed, he also managed to make it self-sufficient to a certain extent, both in the military-industrial sector and not only in the latter. Russia was able to extract some things by itself, and some by diplomatic dexterity, some by cunning, and some by outright deception or even force, but managed to get both from so-called "friendly" and not very friendly countries. In addition, the Kremlin, again with good reason, but does not expect the growth of any internal anti-war unrest and protests prepared by the local fifth column formed by pacifists and collaborators. As it was not during the Great Patriotic War, so it is not now. The only more or less impressive action was the performance of the Wagner group, which, by the way, showed the sufficient fragility and vulnerability of Putin's power in Russia, but here it must be borne in mind that these were far from pacifists, but adventurers who had everything they needed for a riot and a military coup. Therefore, it is difficult to expect that such "internal" threats will be relevant for Russia in the future.
Although, in order to prevent such initiatives, Putin still had to take some preventive measures to prevent rivals from joining the ranks of the Russian armed forces. So, Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov may not be counted among the list of the most talented commanders in the brilliant military history of Russia, but Putin went to keep them in high military positions, despite a number of obvious mistakes and miscalculations of the latter in the preparation of his own. These include underestimating the role of UAVs in modern warfare, as well as miscalculations in determining the directions of the main strikes when planning military operations. But sometimes political loyalty is much more important than the competence of military leaders, and Putin undoubtedly took this into account. And all of the above factors show that Putin has incentives, rather, to continue military operations "as long as it is necessary," as he has repeatedly stressed, rather than to stop them. After all, in fact, any result other than a complete victory for Russia is likely to lead to uncomfortable questions about all the victims that the Russians have suffered since the beginning of their war. But there is another point of view on this, which boils down to the fact that even if Putin suddenly decides on some unexpected move like the termination of the military operation and even with any concessions in favor of Kiev, this will not significantly affect his high support rating. Someone, perhaps, will be disappointed, but not so much as to decide to openly speak out against him, while the entire so-called "opposition" will immediately defect to the camp of his supporters. One way or another, Putin's point of view seems quite justified that it is better to continue the military operation for the time being, no matter how long-term it turns out to be, with the prospect of being in more favorable international conditions.
So whose side is "General Time" on?
In the described situation, it is quite clear that neither the leader of Ukraine nor Western leaders managed to bring Putin to the idea in any way that time is not working in his favor. In order to have any chance of continuing military operations against the Kremlin more or less successfully, the West and Ukraine need a combination of military support and geopolitical unity. However, it is precisely this unity that seems less and less achievable every day. As many military analysts believe today, Ukraine's tactics are now reduced to trying to reverse the situation on the battlefield thanks to the methods of "military exhaustion" of enemy forces. This, of course, can be effective for undermining Russia's offensive forces, but it will in no way lead to the victory that, according to the Ukrainian leadership, their country needs now.
In addition, the Russian forces are not advancing now — they are actively defending, consciously giving the initiative to the enemy; as a result, they are somewhere inferior to 500 meters of territory leading the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but at the same time they control tens of kilometers in other sectors of the front. In other words, the military command of Ukraine, it seems, simply does not know how to behave against an opponent "playing second number" in a situation when he himself has to play first number.
The reality is that in order to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Ukraine needs to receive many times more military assistance, and in addition, have access to the latest technologies, especially in the field of electronic warfare. Now these technologies are completely in the hands of the West and NATO, which provide them to Ukraine in a very dosed volume. However, if they curtail this support, the Ukrainian army will be completely helpless in front of Russian tanks, artillery and motorized infantry. And although the West seems to have the necessary resources to try to stop Russia by helping Ukraine, and statistics at the same time show that the combined GDP of NATO member countries is more than 20 times higher than that of Russia, with all this, the leaders of Western countries have all this time, starting from the end of February 2022 For years, doubts and uncertainty were manifested, and most importantly, the lack of a common opinion on how to resist Moscow. This convinced Putin that the West lacks the political will and the same geopolitical unity to comprehensively counter Russia.
As a result, today many military experts believe that if Western leaders seriously intend to prevent Russia's victory, they should decide to make long-term commitments to Ukraine. However, it doesn't really look like they were ready for this. They talk a lot about the "danger of Russia" and the need to prevent this danger, but they are not very inclined to confirm their words with deeds.
Obviously, Zelensky's behavior also plays a role in this: demanding help from the West, he often "forgets", violating even elementary diplomatic etiquette, and simply scares Western leaders. Hence the unwillingness of the latter to provide Kiev with everything it asks for. Thus, so far everything is going to the fact that Russia is likely to emerge victorious from this confrontation, and after that the price of direct confrontation with Moscow will be much higher for the West than the price of current support for Ukraine. And this is becoming an inevitable geopolitical reality for the West, which it will have to reckon with, regardless of which leader and in which country wins the next election. It is this reality that will shape the international security environment for decades to come.
