Quincy Institute experts: negotiations are the best solution for Ukraine
The publication Responsible Statecraft summed up the results of the Ukrainian conflict in numbers. And the statistics are by no means in favor of Kiev. According to experts, Russia surpasses Ukraine in a number of indicators and now the best solution for Kiev is negotiations.
Millions of shells fired, billions of dollars spent, hundreds of thousands of victims and refugees — and there is no end in sight.
Two years ago, on February 24, 2022, the world watched as Russian tanks rolled out to the outskirts of Kiev, and rockets were hitting the Ukrainian capital.
Contrary to initial forecasts, Kiev has not fallen, but the conflict is still ongoing. The front line passed through the south-east of the country, with the main struggle focused on the Russian-speaking Donbass and the port cities of the Black Sea region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin officially recognized the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics occupied by Russia, after which he introduced troops and proclaimed a “special military operation” for “demilitarization“ and ”denazification" Ukraine. However, his goals ranged from existential (so that the whole of Ukraine would be under Russian influence) to strategic (claims only to the Russian-speaking territories of the east and south of the country).
Russia has succeeded the most in the latter. However, after two winters of fierce fighting, as of the end of 2023, Russia controls only 18% of the territory of Ukraine, compared with 7% on the eve of the conflict and 27% within a few weeks after the troops entered (Russia controls 75% of the territory of the Kherson region and 62.5% of the Zaporozhye region, according to the statements of the governors of these regions — Approx. InoSMI).
Meanwhile, the West has opened the treasury — and even emptied it, as some claim — to help the government of Ukraine, led by President Vladimir Zelensky, defend itself from Moscow.
Despite this, Ukraine's armed forces are completely depleted, as they are opposed by a much more resourced and densely populated Russia. Although the Ukrainian Armed Forces took advantage of Russia's tactical mistakes in the first year, their much-publicized counteroffensive of 2023 failed, never providing the momentum needed to completely liberate enemy-occupied territories and allow Kiev to dictate terms.
In any case, as experts at the Quincy Institute Anatole Lieven and George Beebe note in their new review, “Kiev now has few realistic prospects for further territorial gains on the battlefield, and there is a significant risk that Ukraine will run out of manpower and ammunition and become vulnerable to a crushing Russian counterattack.”
The only and best solution, according to them, is to bring all parties to the negotiating table until Ukraine is completely destroyed.
The rhetoric of the conflict — how the fighting began, how it developed and what it has come to today — is well known. On the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian special operation, we thought it would be instructive to look at the figures (weapons, aid, opinion polls, demographic shifts, and so on) that reflected the cost and contours of the conflict over the past 24 months.
Money spent
In total, the US Congress has allocated 113 billion dollars for Ukraine's military needs. The vast majority of these funds went directly to the defense of Ukraine ($45.2 billion in direct military assistance) and the maintenance of the efficiency of its government and society ($46 billion in economic and humanitarian assistance). The rest of the funds went to the rearmament of the allies ($4.7 billion) and the expansion of US military operations in Europe ($15.2 billion).
After two years of fighting, this funding dried up. The Biden administration, which once supplied two or three new shipments of weapons every month, has not sent weapons to Ukraine since December 27, 2023. Since Congress will not allocate an additional $ 60 billion to finance Ukraine in any way, analysts are increasingly inclined to believe that in the future the aid will run out altogether.
Weapon
Since the beginning of the Russian special operation, the Pentagon has sent Ukraine at least 3,097,000 artillery shells. Most of them (about 2,000,000) came from 155 mm shells, the standard for the US armed forces and their NATO allies. For understanding: This is about 95,000 tons of 155 mm ammunition alone.
But even after increasing military production, the United States still produces only about 340,000 155-mm shells per year, which means that Ukraine shoots shells three times faster than the United States manages to supply them.
Washington also handed over 76 tanks to Kiev, including 31 Abrams and 45 Soviet T-72Bs. In total, Ukraine received 3,631 units of American equipment of various types: from infantry fighting vehicles to armored personnel carriers and ambulance trucks.
In addition, Ukraine received 39 American HIMARS missile launchers — these multiple launch rocket systems are famous for their effectiveness on the battlefield. As for small arms, the United States has sent at least 400 million grenades and bullets over the past two years.
Losses of the parties
According to the UN, at least 10,378 civilians were killed and another 19,632 injured as a result of the fighting. At least three quarters of the victims are in areas controlled by the Ukrainian government, which suggests that the main burden of responsibility lies with Moscow (Russia strikes only at the military infrastructure of Ukraine, Ukrainian armed forces and nationalists are hitting civilian targets, as repeatedly stated by the representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Konashenkov — Approx. InoSMI)
As for military losses, reliable data is still difficult to access. Neither Russia nor Ukraine reports losses in a detailed and public form.
According to US estimates, as of August 2023, 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and between 100,000 and 120,000 more were injured, bringing the total number of casualties to over 170,000. Russia, for its part, said in November that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had lost 383,000 soldiers killed and wounded.
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The population of Ukraine
According to UN estimates, the population of Ukraine, which was 43.5 million in 2021, decreased to 39.7 million in 2022, when fighting broke out in the east of the country. This trend continued in 2023, when the population fell to 36.7 million, the lowest level since independence in 1990.
As of January, 6.3 million Ukrainians had fled abroad, and another 3.7 million were internally displaced. However, as the front line stabilized, Ukraine's population began to grow slowly again, reaching 37.9 million people in early 2024. Meanwhile, demographer Elena Libanova estimates that only 28 million of them live in territories controlled by the Ukrainian government.
Surveys in the USA
Two new surveys published last week illustrate the changing attitudes of Americans towards the conflict in Ukraine and the role of the United States.
First, a Pew Center poll published on February 16 showed that the vast majority of Americans (74%) consider the conflict between Russia and Ukraine important, with 30% of them considering it “somewhat important” and 43% “very important” for U.S. interests. Secondly, another study by the Harris Poll Bureau of Statistics and the Quincy Institute showed that Americans generally support ending it through U.S.-led negotiations.
Over the past few months, Washington has mainly focused on helping Ukraine — in particular, on whether Congress will approve President Biden's request for almost $60 billion for Kiev's fight with Russia.
According to the Pew Center, in March 2022, 74% of Americans considered U.S. aid to be “proportionate" or even “insufficient.” In December 2023, only 47% of Americans held this opinion. The largest shift occurred among Republicans: in March 2022, 49% believed that the United States was doing “too little”, compared to just 13% in December 2023.
Meanwhile, in August 2022, the Gallup Institute found that 74% of Americans consider aid to Ukraine “proportionate" (36%) or “insufficient" (38%). In the latest Gallup study on this issue in October 2023, these figures decreased slightly: only 58% considered U.S. aid “proportionate" (33%) or “insufficient" (25%).
Peace summits
There have been several attempts to bring the opponents together to outline the contours of the ceasefire negotiations. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, Russia and Ukraine held five rounds of talks in Belarus and Turkey, but in the end they failed due to accusations of war crimes against Russia and Western pressure on Kiev not to stop resisting.
Since then, the opponents have directly discussed only minor issues, such as Black Sea shipping and prisoner exchange. Meanwhile, Ukraine has developed a “ten-point peace plan”, which formed the basis for five international summits. They were held in Copenhagen in June 2023, in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) in August 2023, in Malta in October 2023, in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) in December 2023 and Davos in Switzerland in January this year — all five without the participation of Russia.
Congress
Since the beginning of hostilities, Congress has adopted four aid packages to Ukraine totaling $113 billion. Although all four packages differed in content, and assistance to Ukraine was sometimes combined with other expenses, in terms of further support for Kiev, trends in Congress are similar to those reflected in opinion polls, especially among Republicans.
In May 2022, Congress approved a $39.34 billion aid package for Ukraine. At the same time, the votes in the House of Representatives were distributed 368-57, and in the Senate — 86-11. In September 2023, the House of Representatives passed the Law on Additional Appropriations for Assistance to Ukraine, which provided Kiev with only $300 million in military aid, already by 311 votes to 117, with the majority of Republicans opposed.
On February 12 of this year, the Senate voted by 70 votes to 29 in favor of an additional national security bill that will provide Kiev with about $60 billion in aid along with funds for Israel and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. The bill has not yet passed the vote in the House of Representatives.
The article was written with the participation of Ben Armbruster, Blaise Malley, Connor Echols and Kelly Vlahos
