The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, wanted results before the end of the second year of war. It does not have those results and instead has great needs: 450,000 or 500,000 more soldiers, some 17 million artillery shells, 350,000 or 400,000 million dollars to recover its territory up to the 1991 borders, an objective that it does not abandon. And this when it is assumed that Russia is capable of resisting and maintaining the invasion for several years, to the disappointment, or fatigue, of the allies, Europeans above all.
There is a certain disillusionment with Ukraine, which is unfair. Above all because there has been an important factor of self-deception from the beginning, generating great expectations – especially on the part of analysts and opinion leaders linked to the Atlantic concert – from the response of the Ukrainians to the invasion, which was due above all to their organizational capacity and incomprehensible Russian errors. For example, when the so-called “tank coalition” was organized, everyone knew that 100, 200 or 300 tanks were completely insufficient for a counteroffensive (the US, by the way, only offered 31 of its fabulous Abrams). And the same has happened with the F-16 aircraft, yet to arrive. The Ukrainians launched an unprecedented attack in June, without air cover, and their counteroffensive ended in failure.
Very limited in weapons, they have nevertheless stopped all Russian attacks, have retaken some territory and, above all, have regained control of the Black Sea for their agricultural exports, putting the Russian navy on the defensive, which is not bit. Instead, Russian successes are limited to the conquest of a relatively important enclave, Bakhmut, involving only a few dozen square kilometers. The lines of a front of more than a thousand kilometers have changed very little.
With delays in Western supplies, with Ukrainian persistence in the Battle of Bakhmut (a mistake for which responsibility has not been aired), Russia had time to build strong defenses. The Ukrainians have not been able to advance. Almost nothing moves.
“There are structural reasons for technological development that make advances impossible,” explains Christian Villanueva, director of the magazine Ejercitos, which offers a complete daily report. “It is a situation of total stagnation because there is no surprise factor.” If Ukraine had an advantage in the first months in electronic battlefield management systems (they involve, in short, target location and rate of fire, the difference between killing or being killed), Russia has improved and caught up. Both are increasingly using drones, both spy and armed, ten times cheaper than a howitzer projectile. It is said that Russia produces 300,000 a month and Ukraine 50,000 but with difficulties. Meanwhile, Ukraine is rationing its artillery ammunition and Russia has resorted to imports from Iran and North Korea.
Right now Russia leads the initiative in all sectors, but it is relative. In its main objective, taking the city of Avdíivka, it has only advanced two kilometers, at a cost of 13,000 casualties between October and November, according to US intelligence. Avdíivka, a city of about 30,000 inhabitants, of which only a thousand inside, it is 30 kilometers from the provincial capital of Donetsk, and conquering it would help the Russians to keep the Ukrainian artillery away from the latter. In addition to the symbolic effect, since Ukraine has never lost Avdíivka.
Russia has more than 400,000 men on the ground, double those it deployed for the invasion, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, which states that between 20,000 and 25,000 enter training centers each month, while casualties of 15,000 are recorded. 20,000 monthly on the battlefield. However, half a million Russians have signed contracts to go fight, according to Russian analyst Tatiana Stanóvaya, so the Kremlin does not need – unlike Kyiv – to call for mobilization. Russia expert Mark Galeotti believes that volunteering sponsored by Gazprom or Rosskosmos has been a success. The Kremlin is dedicating 40% of its budget to defense, close to 10% of GDP. The Russians are believed to have “achieved a limited reconstitution of their forces” and are producing about 200 tanks a month, according to Galeotti. Ukrainian analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko estimates that Russia has about 2,500 tanks in Ukraine, when it should have at least 6,000 for its 560 tactical battalions, and that something similar happens with its armored vehicles: only 30% of those needed. This explains, he says, that the field of action of Russian troops “has been significantly reduced in recent months.”
In 2024 there will be no strategic changes, according to analysts such as Samuel Charap, from the Rand corporation. But it remains to be defined what future strategies each has. Vladimir Putin has been changing his objectives depending on the circumstances, in such a way that, today, his strategy seems to be limited to resisting and waiting for the exhaustion of the Ukrainian forces and the Western allies. With an added key factor: a hypothetical victory of Donald Trump in the November 2024 elections that would end North American supplies to Kyiv. In this sense, the Allied strategy – marked by the US – of making Russia bleed, gradually helping Ukraine and prolonging the war, has been reciprocal to the Russian one, but perhaps wrong…
On the part of Ukraine, the strategy is even more indefinite, and also seems to be limited to resisting and waiting to have modern and powerful weapons, and to replenish its ranks. Great objectives, such as recovering Crimea, are no longer talked about.
2024 may be a difficult year in which the string of attacks and counterattacks with enormous human attrition continues, until the arrival of weapons and ammunition (and it will not be so much in 2024 as in 2023) allows Ukraine a new boost to next year. Kyiv, meanwhile, “tries to tie Western companies to produce weapons in the country, and thus provide itself with capabilities to fight in the long term,” says Christian Villanueva.
Although by then Russia will also have improved its arsenal and the momentum may be its own. Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka believes, as do others, that Russia will make a great industrial effort this year. This involves combat and armored vehicles, ammunition, missiles, guided bombs (it had a deficit at the beginning of the war) and drones.
Regarding the disagreements between Zelensky and the Chief of the General Staff, General Zaluzhni, it has been criticized and debated in Kyiv that he has not yet presented a strategic plan for 2024. In his defense it could be said that it would be better for the Ukrainians if no one knew what it intends to do –unlike what happened with the counteroffensive–, but we must also take into account that the plans are made based on the resources one has.
