The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, wanted results before the end of the second year of war. It doesn’t have those results, but it does have big needs: 450,000 to 500,000 more troops, about 17 million artillery shells, and 350 to 400 billion dollars to get its territory back to the 1991 borders, a goal it doesn’t abandon And this when it is assumed that Russia is able to resist and maintain the invasion for several years, to the disappointment, or fatigue, of the allies, especially Europeans.
There is some disillusionment with Ukraine, which is unfair. Above all because there has been an important factor of self-deception from the beginning, which has generated great expectations – especially from analysts and opinion-makers linked to the Atlantic concert – from the response of the Ukrainians to the invasion, which was mainly to his ability to organize and to incomprehensible Russian mistakes. For example, when the so-called “tank coalition” was organized, everyone knew that 100, 200 or 300 battle tanks were completely insufficient for a counter-offensive (the US, by the way, offered only 31 of its fabulous Abrams) . And a similar thing happens with the F-16 planes, which have yet to arrive. The Ukrainians went on the attack in June in an unprecedented manner, without air cover, and their counteroffensive ended in failure.
Very limited in weaponry, they have nevertheless stopped all Russian attacks, retaken some territory and, above all, regained control of the Black Sea for their agricultural exports, and put the Russian navy on the defensive, which is already a lot. Instead, Russian successes are limited to the conquest of an enclave of relative importance, Bakhmut, involving only a few tens of square kilometers. The lines of a front of more than a thousand kilometers have changed very little.
With delays in Western supplies, with Ukrainian obstinacy in the Battle of Bakhmut (a mistake for which responsibility has not been clarified), 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 progress impossible – explains Christian Villanueva, director of the magazine Ejércitos, which offers a complete report daily. 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 essence, target location and fire rate, the difference between killing or dying), Russia has improved and put itself in the day. Some and others are turning more and more to drones, both spies and armed, ten times cheaper than a shell projectile. Russia is said to produce 300,000 a month and Ukraine 50,000, but with difficulty. Meanwhile, Ukraine is rationing its artillery ammunition and Russia has resorted to imports from Iran and North Korea.
Right now Russia has the initiative in all sectors, but it is relative. On its main objective, to take the town of Avdiivka, it has advanced only two kilometers, at a cost of 13,000 casualties between October and November, according to US intelligence. Avdíivka, a city of around 30,000 inhabitants, of which only a thousand remain in the interior, is 30 kilometers from the provincial capital of Donetsk, and conquering it would serve 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, twice as many as it deployed for the invasion, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, which says between 20,000 and 25,000 men enter training centers each month, while registering casualties of 15,000-20,000 men monthly on the battlefield. However, half a million Russians would have signed contracts to go fight, according to Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaia, so the Kremlin does not need – unlike Kyiv – to call for a mobilization. Russia expert Mark Galeotti believes that volunteering sponsored by Gazprom or Roscosmos has been a success. The Kremlin is devoting 40% of its budget to defense, around 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 the same thing happens with its armored vehicles: only 30% of what is needed. This explains, he says, that the field of action of the Russian troops “has been reduced significantly over the last few months”.
In 2024 there will be no changes of a strategic nature, according to analysts such as Samuel Charap, from the Rand Corporation. But we need to define what future strategies each has. Vladimir Putin has been changing his goals depending on the circumstances, so that today his strategy seems to be limited to resisting and waiting for the exhaustion of Ukrainian forces and Western allies. With one key factor added: a hypothetical Donald Trump victory in the November 2024 election, which would end American supplies to Kyiv. In this sense, the allied strategy – marked by the USA – to bleed Russia, little by little 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 it seems that it is also limited to resisting and waiting to have modern and powerful weapons, and reproving its ranks. Big goals, such as recapturing Crimea, are no longer discussed.
2024 may be a difficult year in which the rosary of attacks and counter-attacks continues with enormous human attrition, until the arrival of weapons and ammunition (and it will not be in 2024 as much as 2023) allows Ukraine a new impetus l next year Kyiv, meanwhile, “is trying to bind Western companies to produce weapons in the country, and thus equip itself with the capabilities to fight in the long term”, points out Christian Villanueva.
Although by then Russia will also have improved its arsenal and the momentum may be theirs. Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka believes, as do others, that Russia will make a big industrial effort this year. This involves battle and armored tanks, ammunition, missiles, guided bombs (it was in short supply at the beginning of the war) and drones.
Regarding the disagreements between Zelenski and the Chief of Staff, General Zalujni, in Kyiv it has been criticized and debated that he has not yet presented a strategic plan for 2024. In his dismissal, it could be said that it would be better for the Ukrainians that no one knew what they intended to do – unlike what happened with the counter-offensive – but it must also be borne in mind that plans are made based on the resources one has.
