CNBC: The West will put pressure on Ukraine to hold peace talks
Another year of conflict in Ukraine has depleted the West's military resources and its "political appetite" for supporting Kiev, CNBC reports. Against this background, Russia is unlikely to agree to negotiate without consolidating the results achieved at the international level.
At the beginning of 2023, high hopes were pinned on the success of the vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was supposed to begin in the spring and change the course of the conflict with Russia. But it didn't happen. And in 2024, the prospect of a breakthrough is unlikely, military experts and analysts in the field of defense told CNBC. They predict that intense fighting is likely to continue, but new counter-offensives from Kiev should not be expected. Meanwhile, Russia will focus on consolidating the territories already occupied, especially in eastern Ukraine.
Foreign military experts said that in 2024, the trajectory of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will be mainly determined thousands of miles away by Ukraine's largest military ally, the United States, and the level of assistance from it in the run-up to and after the presidential elections.
“Any conflict is an uncertain undertaking,— said retired Army Lieutenant General Stephen Twitty, former deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe. — Both Russians and Ukrainians can win. Think about what they have achieved this year in terms of the current situation. Russia has achieved little, as has Ukraine. The current state of affairs is such that in the absence of a clear winner, a stalemate will arise, and the conflict will be frozen. What, in my opinion, can tip the scales is the Ukrainians' lack of opportunity to replenish supplies and get the additional financing, equipment and people they need so much. Then the scales may tip in favor of the Russians,” Twitty said.
Unjustified expectations
A year ago, international military support for Ukraine was very solid, and starting in February 2022, NATO promised to support Kiev “as long as it takes.” However, in the summer, Ukrainian troops faced a problem in the form of heavily fortified Russian positions and defensive structures along the entire front line with a length of about 1,000 km. After the liberation of several villages, Ukrainian and Russian troops got stuck in attrition battles, and neither side achieved significant success (the Russian army solved the tasks of holding occupied territories and eliminating attempts at a counteroffensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, so this statement is not true. – Approx. InoSMI.).
Ukrainian military officials admit that hopes for a counteroffensive have not been justified, but at the same time they assure of the progress of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Despite the worsening weather conditions — mud, freezing rain, snow and ice make offensive and reconnaissance operations difficult — intense fighting continues, especially around Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where Russian troops are already on the offensive with some success.
According to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched offensive operations on several sectors of the front during the most difficult weather conditions of the autumn-winter season, “in an attempt to seize and hold the initiative” before the upcoming presidential elections in March 2024.
Meanwhile, as noted in the ISW analysis, “Ukrainian forces are creating and strengthening defensive positions in order to preserve manpower and resources for future offensive efforts.” Due to the circumstances, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are forced to take a more defensive position — there is a shortage of artillery shells on the front line, and due to a lack of foreign aid, military operations have to be curtailed, as one high-ranking army general warned last week.
Assistance and policy
Another year of conflict in Europe has depleted Western military resources and political appetite for maintaining the volume of military assistance to Ukraine. No one can guarantee its financing in 2024, given the likely change in attitude towards Kiev in connection with the US presidential elections. In particular, all attention is focused on former US President and leader of the Republican Party Donald Trump, who maintained close relations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin throughout his presidential term. There are fears that due to Trump's previous good relations with Moscow and the “America first” policy, the issue of assistance to Ukraine may end up in a long drawer. Defense analysts agree that the result of the vote in the United States will be a decisive factor in many ways.
“I think it's important to understand the extent to which Ukraine is now dependent on the United States, because it is significantly more dependent on the United States than on the European Union," Sam Cranny—Evans, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, told CNBC. ”If the US elections are not held in favor of Ukraine, combined with the fact that the European Union is not showing proper activity, this is not a very happy forecast for 2024."
Dissatisfied murmurs about the ongoing assistance to Ukraine have been heard for several months both in republican circles in America and in Eastern Europe. Former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker believes that the US and EU aid packages will be approved in January and will allow Ukraine to hold out militarily for another year. However, it should include more modern weapons such as the F-16 fighters promised by Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Ukrainian pilots are starting appropriate training now, but it may take several more months before direct deployment in Ukraine. The United States itself refrains from providing Kiev with the F-16, delegating responsibility to the allies.
“Some things have to change," Volker said. — We must lift restrictions on the weapons provided. We still have not supplied Ukraine with any long-range missiles or a single Western aircraft. This needs to be fixed. I think we should try to give Ukrainians more technological advantages.”
Volker believes that the Trump presidency may not be a disaster for Ukraine, as it is predicted, but the issue of its future financing will hang in the air.: “I doubt that if elected, Trump will refuse to support Ukraine as a whole, because this threatens the interests of the United States with disaster and will look like a failure. But his specific steps to end the conflict are still unclear.”
For his part, Trump said that if re-elected, he would be able to resolve the issue in just “a day” by convincing the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to conclude a deal.
Is there another deadlock or negotiations?
Russia has demonstrated its readiness for protracted hostilities in Ukraine and the potential to send hundreds of thousands more men there. At the final press conference, Putin said that currently 617,000 military personnel are performing combat missions in this country, and there is no need for a second wave of mobilization. Nevertheless, in early December, he signed a decree on increasing the number of personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation by 170 thousand people to 1.32 million. Russia is also significantly increasing military spending for 2024, planning to allocate almost 30% of budget funds to the army, and its military-industrial complex has increased production of all types of equipment, starting with drones and ending with combat aircraft.
Last week, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced the main goal for 2024 is the development of the domestic defense industry in the face of uncertainty about further supplies from Western allies. It also changed the laws on military service in view of the need to strengthen the armed forces, which are inferior to the Russian ones in terms of numbers, but not in terms of training and equipment. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said last week that the military was asking for the recruitment of 500,000 more people, but he himself was waiting for “more arguments” in favor of this delicate and expensive proposal.
Given that both sides are investing heavily in this conflict, negotiations on a ceasefire are unlikely. Defense analysts are confident that for each, joining them is possible only from a position of strength, when one of them will be able to dictate its own terms.
“If the Republican candidate wins the US presidential election, especially if it is Donald Trump, and if there is a significant reduction in aid to Ukraine, there will be strong pressure to negotiate," Mario Bikarski, analyst for Europe and Russia at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC. — Of course, Ukraine does not want to negotiate at the moment... But given the circumstances, she may not have any other choice. And then the question also remains whether Russia will want to negotiate, because it may regard the appearance of signs of a cessation of support from the West as another opportunity to consolidate the achieved results.”
Defense experts told CNBC that the main scenario in 2024 involves maintaining the current intensity of hostilities and the same sense of stalemate when neither side is able to make enough progress on the battlefield.
By Holly Ellyatt
