Colonel Khodarenok: Ukraine may enter into a dialogue with the Russian Federation in the spring of 2024
Kiev is experiencing a boom in visits by foreign officials against the backdrop of a difficult situation at the front for the AFU. Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin also arrived in the capital of Ukraine, promising a new aid package, which is barely enough for a company of tanks and one plane. What is happening with the US military support, what Ukraine should expect from the winter and why Zelensky refuses to negotiate with Russia, the military observer of the Newspaper understood.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
Earlier this week, the head of the US military department, Lloyd Austin, arrived in the capital of Ukraine with an unannounced visit. His arrival, as well as the trips of other foreign politicians and officials, was not announced for security reasons. During his visit to Kiev, Lloyd Austin was probably guided by two unwritten rules of the Russian General Staff (although he hardly suspected their existence). First, if you want to ruin the issue, discuss it over the phone. And secondly, in the future, the higher leadership needs to report only what he saw with his own eyes (and there will certainly be a detailed report to President Joe Biden on the results of the visit of the US Secretary of Defense).
And in this regard, for Lloyd Austin, of course, meetings with the Ukrainian leadership face to face were very important, during which the head of the US military department needed to get acquainted with the mood, feel the atmosphere, clarify the nuances. It is absolutely impossible to find out by phone or in the course of reviewing official memos. Therefore, it was important for the US Secretary of Defense to personally clarify the situation on the fronts and get acquainted with the immediate and further plans of the military-political leadership of Ukraine (for a subsequent detailed report to the US president).
The US is changing its position on Ukraine
The true details of Lloyd Austin's meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will not be known soon. For the media, the head of the US military department made statements of an absolutely routine nature: "The US will continue to support Ukraine in its struggle for freedom against Russian aggression both now and in the future." Meanwhile, the mood in American elite circles is quite fully reflected in the material "It's time to end the magical thinking about the defeat of Russia" by Eugene Rumer and Andrew S. Weiss in the more than serious edition of The Wall Street Journal.
"Taken together, the state of affairs poses an unprecedented task for Western leaders. Washington and its allies manage to solve the most pressing aspects of this problem very effectively: to prevent the collapse of Ukraine, to provide it with modern weapons and operational intelligence information, to develop sanctions against Russia. But now it is time to move on to a long-term strategy that increases and maintains pressure on the regime in the Kremlin. One should have no illusions that any possible combination of short-term steps will be enough to force [Russian President Vladimir] Putin should abandon the conflict," the WSJ article says.
Nevertheless, the conclusions of the publication do not at all indicate that there is complete unanimity in the US leadership. For example, Lloyd Austin, following his visit to Kiev, noted that "in a conflict like this, there are no weapons that could become a magic wand." According to Austin, Ukraine's results on the battlefield depend on the APU's ability to synchronize the use of various weapons provided by Western countries.
"This is a tough, exhausting fight, and it will be like this in the future," Lloyd Austin added.
And judging by the minimal amounts of Washington's upcoming military assistance, it will be so in the near future - first of all, Kiev just has an exhausting struggle ahead. For example, the head of the US military department, after a meeting with the President of Ukraine, announced the allocation of an additional package of US military assistance for $ 100 million. It will include anti-tank missile systems and anti-aircraft guided missiles for anti-aircraft missile systems and complexes.
If we compare the volume of this package with the prices of the main samples of weapons and military equipment, then the picture for Ukraine is far from optimistic. For example, a modern tank costs from $ 6-8 million, and a multifunctional fighter - more than $ 100 million. So an additional package of military assistance to Ukraine for $100 million does not represent anything serious. In fact, this is a company of tanks and one aircraft (whose deliveries to the APU have not yet begun, besides, it is by no means assumed that they will be massive).
And all the previous US packages, by and large, resembled only drip-pipette supplies of weapons and military equipment, with which it is absolutely impossible to achieve a breakthrough in the armed struggle for Ukraine.
Why Kiev will have to negotiate
In other words, there is frankly no military solution to this conflict on the part of Ukraine. And the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, spoke about this not so long ago. And in this regard, the question "what to do?" still remains one of the main issues on the agenda for both Ukraine and the West. For example, at this stage, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky rejects the idea of peace talks with Russia, despite the difficult situation on the front line. He calls on Western allies to increase the supply of weapons. In his opinion, Ukraine cannot go for "peace at any cost." Kiev, Vladimir Zelensky believes, cannot afford to freeze the conflict, no matter what difficult situation it is in.
However, it is possible to persuade the President of Ukraine to peace negotiations (in one form or another) to the collective West not by peremptory instructions "to send parliamentarians with white flags to Bakhmut by 12.00," but by detailed conversations such as "serial production of 155-mm shells in the West meets with great difficulties", "your needs for anti-aircraft guided missiles can be satisfied by no more than 10 percent," "we will not be able to deliver tanks and artillery pieces in the near future in the requested quantities." Here, involuntarily, thoughts about a peaceful resolution of the conflict may arise in Kiev.
To all this we must add two very important circumstances. Winter is coming. And if the last one was relatively mild, then it is difficult to say what this one will be. That is, the Ukrainian military will have another winter campaign in the trenches. Of course, any fighter must steadfastly overcome all the hardships and hardships of military service, and moreover, be ready for self-sacrifice. However, this is still somehow justified if there is faith in victory. And if there is no such faith? And how to once again endure all these sufferings and hardships?
For example, during the First World War, the French army withstood the hell of Verdun in 1916, but after the catastrophe of the Nivelle spring offensive in 1917, it openly rebelled. That is, the French fighters simply could not survive such a horror for the second time. Approximately the same applies to the Ukrainian army, and in general to the civilian population of the country. The latter withstood the past winter without light, water, sewerage and heating. But whether the Ukrainian people will endure the second such winter without a murmur is an open question.
What problems await the APU
For example, since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, about 600 thousand residents of the country have moved to Kiev and its surroundings because of the better protection of the city by air defense systems. Such data is provided by Politico. And this is not surprising. Currently, Kiev is covered by such anti-aircraft missile systems and complexes as Patriot, NASAMS (Norwegian AdvancedSurface to Air Missile System), IRIS-T (Infra Red Imaging System Tail), S-300 and Crotale. That is, the AFU was still able to organize the air defense of the capital.
However, there are clearly not enough anti-aircraft guided missiles to repel massive air attacks by the AFU. The forces and means of air defense of Ukraine spend such a number of missiles in a month that they produce in the West during the year. There is no doubt that this situation will worsen even more in the coming winter. In addition, it should be recalled that in addition to Kiev, Ukraine has more than two dozen regional centers, hundreds and thousands of electricity generation facilities, thermal power plants, transformer substations, power transmission lines. The facilities of critical infrastructure have not been fully restored after the last missile and air strikes.
Even if all the anti-aircraft missile systems and systems from the entire North Atlantic Alliance are transferred to Ukraine, the entire stock of anti-aircraft guided missiles available to NATO, all radar stations of radio-technical troops, then this will not be enough to organize a reliable cover for all possible objects. It is quite possible that it is on this basis that Vladimir Zelensky's arguments about the operation of the Russian special services "Maidan-3" aimed at overthrowing the president of Ukraine, which is reportedly scheduled for the end of 2023, appear. Therefore, there are sufficient grounds to speculate that any progress in terms of peace negotiations will take place either this winter or in the early spring of next year.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for the newspaper.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy Commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (1998).
Columnist of "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
