May be missing point but Japan should not be doing business with Russia anyway.
This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
And, failing at it. The Baltics are proof. Given a taste of freedom and prosperity the Russian way seems kind of crappy.
The Ukrainian government has been showing an increased willingness to get to the negotiating table to end the war, with the latest development being a trip by the country's top diplomat to China to explore avenues forward. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, and communicated in a statement that "I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests."
"China’s role as a global force for peace is important," he emphasized, while also stipulating that Kiev will only engage Moscow when Putin is "ready to negotiate in good faith." However, he added that "No such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side." This marks the first such trip of Ukraine's foreign minister to China since the war began in February 2022.
Wang in a readout said that Russia and Ukraine had each "sent signals of their willingness to negotiate to varying degrees.
From Ukraine's perspective, China alone is a powerful enough external actor which possesses enough influence with Moscow to get it to end the invasion. For Beijing, this is an opportunity to show itself a crucial counterweight to the United States on the world stage in dealing with intractable conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement continued in follow-up to Wang's comments, saying, "Of course, the negotiations should be rational and substantive, aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace."
Wang had in the meeting warned the Ukrainian diplomat that there is the "risk of escalation and spillover" of the conflict, adding that "China believes that the resolution of all conflicts must eventually return to the negotiation table."
Last week, President Zelensky issued a surprise reversal, saying that a second Ukraine peace summit should include Russian representation. "I believe that Russian representatives should be at the second summit," Zelensky told a press conference in Kiev on July 15 while outlining preparatory work for another summit.
The first "Summit on Peace in Ukraine at the Bürgenstock" in Switzerland in mid-June importantly did not have either Russian or Chinese participation. While Beijing had been invited, Russia was not, and the Chinese government cited this as a reason it found the whole endeavor futile.
China has been busy presenting itself as peacemaker while condemning 'hegemonic' Washington...
"China’s role as a global force for peace is important," he emphasized, while also stipulating that Kiev will only engage Moscow when Putin is "ready to negotiate in good faith." However, he added that "No such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side." This marks the first such trip of Ukraine's foreign minister to China since the war began in February 2022.
Wang in a readout said that Russia and Ukraine had each "sent signals of their willingness to negotiate to varying degrees.
From Ukraine's perspective, China alone is a powerful enough external actor which possesses enough influence with Moscow to get it to end the invasion. For Beijing, this is an opportunity to show itself a crucial counterweight to the United States on the world stage in dealing with intractable conflicts from Ukraine to Gaza.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement continued in follow-up to Wang's comments, saying, "Of course, the negotiations should be rational and substantive, aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace."
Wang had in the meeting warned the Ukrainian diplomat that there is the "risk of escalation and spillover" of the conflict, adding that "China believes that the resolution of all conflicts must eventually return to the negotiation table."
Last week, President Zelensky issued a surprise reversal, saying that a second Ukraine peace summit should include Russian representation. "I believe that Russian representatives should be at the second summit," Zelensky told a press conference in Kiev on July 15 while outlining preparatory work for another summit.
The first "Summit on Peace in Ukraine at the Bürgenstock" in Switzerland in mid-June importantly did not have either Russian or Chinese participation. While Beijing had been invited, Russia was not, and the Chinese government cited this as a reason it found the whole endeavor futile.
China has been busy presenting itself as peacemaker while condemning 'hegemonic' Washington...
A Ukrainian Brigade Collapsed—And Now Hundreds Of Soldiers Are Surrounded Near Prohres
Two battalions face a hard choice: fight their way out or hope for rescue
www.forbes.com
The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine
Instead of Abandoning Kyiv, Washington Should Give It the Tools to Win
The United States has hit a wall in Ukraine. President Joe Biden’s incrementalist approach is not working. Instead, it has led to a long and tragic war of attrition. Ukraine’s faltering performance in the past year has raised the grim prospect of a Russian victory, which would see Kyiv fall under Moscow’s imperial dominion.
Former President Donald Trump has promised to change the U.S. approach if he wins reelection in November, insisting he could end the war “in 24 hours.” And Trump’s running mate, U.S. Senator J. D. Vance, has written that Ukraine should limit itself to a “defensive strategy” to “preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence.” The solution both Trump and Vance seem to favor is a negotiated settlement that would allow Washington to focus its attention and resources elsewhere.
The war does need to end—and end quickly. The answer is not to cut off all U.S. aid or rush into a lopsided deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The United States can still get out of an untenable situation and also avoid handing Russia a win. To halt open-ended U.S. expenditures and preserve Ukraine’s independence and security, the United States and its allies need to give Kyiv one last serious chance at victory—defined not as a return to Ukraine’s 2013 borders (as Kyiv would prefer) but as a sustainable restoration of roughly its 2021 borders.
To make that outcome possible, Washington and its allies must substantially and speedily improve Ukraine’s military position with a large infusion of weapons—and place no restrictions on their use. The most realistic chance for peace will come if Ukrainian troops can launch a decisive push that sends Russian forces back across the pre-2022 lines.
A new U.S. president could catalyze the policy shift to make this happen; an incoming Trump administration, for instance, could seize the opportunity to signal American strength and put the conflict to bed, shoring up the United States’ international reputation and allowing Washington to turn to other priorities. But no matter who is in the White House, a short-term boost of unrestricted military aid offers the best chance for long-term peace on Europe’s frontier.
FOREVER WAR
The Biden administration’s current strategy is unsustainable both for the United States and for Ukraine. In 2022, after Russia attacked and Ukraine showed remarkable determination to fight back, Washington and some of its allies gradually and tentatively began to send military aid to Kyiv, placing restrictions on how and where Ukrainian forces could use the more advanced capabilities. They feared that a more resolute response would trigger Russian escalation, potentially extending the conflict beyond Ukraine and putting the West in harm’s way. Putin’s nuclear saber rattling has so terrified U.S. and European officials that even though they claim to seek a Ukrainian victory, in practice they provide Kyiv only enough support to keep it from crumbling under the Russian onslaught. The apparent goal is not to defeat Russia on the battlefield but to sustain Ukraine “as long as it takes”—that is, hopefully, until Moscow concludes that further aggression will be self-defeating and ends the war itself.More than two years into the fighting, Kyiv has not folded, but neither have its Western partners given it the tools to win. A long war of attrition is likely to end in Ukraine’s collapse. Kyiv does not have enough manpower to send reinforcements into the trenches for years to come, and away from the frontlines, the rest of the country is struggling. Three-quarters of Ukrainian businesses are experiencing labor shortages because of emigration and military conscription (and the casualties that follow). The agricultural sector has lost fertile acreage: for some crops, the amount of harvested land has decreased by about a third. The loss of ports, such as Mariupol, has caused serious problems for producers looking to export. A February report cosponsored by the World Bank estimated that rebuilding Ukraine’s housing, infrastructure, and industry will require close to half a trillion dollars. As time goes on, the situation will only get worse.
Time is not on the side of Ukraine’s Western partners, either. European countries have claimed that Russia’s war is an existential menace to the continent, but for the most part, their recent military investments have been modest and they have been reluctant to disburse large sums of money to prop up Ukraine’s economy. Countries on Europe’s eastern frontline are the exception; Poland will spend more than four percent of its GDP this year, and Finland, a new member of NATO, plans to double its artillery ammunition production by 2027. But even these countries will be forced to recognize that every artillery shell they deliver to a weakening Ukraine is one fewer that will be available to their own forces. If Russia makes further gains in Ukraine and ramps up its threats to the West, those countries may no longer accept such a tradeoff.
cont...
The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine
Instead of abandoning Kyiv, Washington should give it the tools to win.
For the United States, there is no benefit in bankrolling a protracted conflict. Biden’s strategy of providing incremental aid will not prevent Ukraine’s eventual destruction, and it will keep United States bogged down in a war without a path to victory. It is also politically unsustainable: in the wake of decades of deeply unpopular “forever wars,” American leaders can no longer promise indefinite financial outlays and weapon supplies on the basis of a strategy with no prospect of success.
The United States is also taking larger strategic risks by restricting its support for Ukraine to incremental armament. Moscow can lean on its war economy and has no need to negotiate as long as it is confident that it can bleed Ukraine to a surrender and outlast Western support for Kyiv. And Ukraine cannot afford to negotiate from its current position of weakness, either, having lost territory and access to the Sea of Azov, a crucial waterway for its agricultural exports, and lacking the means to reverse either loss. This means the war will drag on—and the longer it does, the more time Russia has to create problems for Europe and the United States in other parts of the world. Moscow may expand its cooperation with North Korea by sharing satellite and ballistic missile technologies, devote more military forces to destabilize countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the wider Mediterranean region, and jam GPS signals across an increasingly large region in Europe. China, meanwhile, is building up its own military, and it could take advantage of persistent volatility in Europe to advance in the Pacific.
At the same time, Washington and its partners should not be overly worried about provoking Russia. Western fears of a Russian escalation have been exaggerated. Throughout his rule, Putin has been careful to avoid a direct clash with the West, conscious perhaps of Russia’s economic and military inferiority. Now, Moscow has an interest in containing the fight to Ukraine because it would have a hard time matching Western firepower and combined forces in an expanded war. Russia threatens to escalate but backs down when confronted with strength. Still, there are limits to what the United States and its allies should do; namely, they should not challenge the Russian army on the frontlines by sending their own troops to Ukraine.
The most plausible way to achieve this goal is to surge weapons to Ukraine and place no restrictions on their use. Ukraine needs artillery, armor, and airpower, and it must be able to strike military targets in Russia, such as airports, ammunition and fuel depots, and military factories. By lifting usage restrictions on Western weapons, especially medium-range missiles, Washington would give Kyiv the opportunity to degrade Russian forces and prevent large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Ukraine cannot defend itself from behind a trench and with a dwindling supply of expensive antiair capabilities.
This surge would give Ukraine one last chance at a tactical breakthrough to restore or approximate its pre-2022 territorial status. From this position, Ukrainian forces could continue to threaten the gains Russia made in its 2014 invasion, especially Crimea. Although Kyiv’s longing to reclaim the country’s pre-2014 borders is understandable, its horrific losses and national exhaustion make a less ambitious definition of military victory much more realistic.
By degrading and pushing Russian forces from the territory they took since early 2022, Kyiv would win itself political options. Such a military achievement could impose sufficient material and reputational costs to force Russia to the negotiating table. Even without negotiations, which in any case may not quell Moscow’s desire to restore its empire in Europe, a rapid and decisive battlefield victory would inflict enough damage on Russian forces to buy Ukraine time to rebuild its infrastructure and industry, regain fertile lands for agricultural production, and strengthen its military capacity to deter further Russian offensives.
The United States and its allies will have the resources to implement this strategy by the time the U.S. election in November has passed or a new president takes office. By early 2025, Western production capacity will have ramped up enough to supply Ukrainian forces with sufficient quantities of artillery shells. U.S. plants are on track to produce 80,000 shells per month by the end of 2024 and 100,000 shells per month sometime in 2025. Add that to the 100,000 or more shells per month that European industry is expected to produce by late 2025 and Ukraine could not just maintain its defensive positions, which requires an estimated 75,000 shells per month, but also initiate offensive action. The U.S. army also has plenty of excess equipment, including older models of tanks and other vehicles, sitting in storage. So far, the United States has sent only 31 tanks to Ukraine, mostly to force Berlin’s hand at providing tanks, but there are hundreds more in storage that could be refurbished and shipped. Ukraine clearly needs more than it has received, as losses quickly thin out its armor stock. A small number of Western fighter jets in the hands of Ukrainian pilots is also scheduled to join the fight in the next months, but there are scores more that European countries could offload to Kyiv. Greece, for example, is considering giving several dozen jets.
Although Washington and its allies cannot send their own soldiers to Ukraine, they can provide additional military training for Ukrainian troops. Manpower is a growing problem for Kyiv. Conscription-age Ukrainians who have emigrated abroad should be called on to come home and join the fight. In the European countries where many of them now reside, governments could form Ukrainian military units and train the new recruits before sending them back to Ukraine.
The decisive factor would be the speed and quantity of lethal aid. If Ukraine can manage a breakthrough on the frontline and force a return to the territorial status quo ante February 2022, it could deal Russia a clear defeat. Crimea would remain under Russian occupation, but it would also remain a weak spot that the Ukrainian military can target to deter Moscow from resuming a large-scale war. The port of Sevastopol, several Russian military bases, and the Kerch Strait Bridge (which connects the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland) have already proven to be vulnerable to Ukrainian sea drones and, in the case of the bridge, a truck bomb. Ukraine should be given more capabilities—such as U.S. ballistic missiles and British, French, and German cruise missiles—to strike these places now and keep them under threat in the event of a cease-fire. By internationally recognized law, they are part of Ukraine’s own territory, so military operations there would not carry the same escalation risks as hitting targets in Russia proper. Only Moscow (and a handful of minor powers) considers Crimea to be part of Russia, and when Ukraine has attacked it in the past two years, Russia’s response has not been any different than its response to Ukrainian attacks on the frontlines.
Even in the best-case scenario, there is no reason to expect a defeat of Russia so dramatic as to fundamentally alter Moscow’s strategic outlook. Russia will remain a powerful nuclear state, nurturing deep aspirations to restore its imperial greatness. But to achieve that goal, it needs Ukraine, which would give it the ability to threaten the rest of Europe and hold sway over European politics. Without Ukraine, Russia is only an Asian power, swiftly losing ground to China. Kyiv cannot change Moscow’s strategic imperatives with victories on the battlefield, but it can deny Russia control of its lands. A rapid and significant supply of Western arms would give Ukraine its best chance to push back Russian forces and create the space and the time it needs to rebuild, refit, and deter another Russian advance. There is no strategic rationale for Washington to prolong the conflict with drop-by-drop delivery of supplies; policies designed primarily to avoid escalation will not save Ukraine or stabilize Europe’s eastern frontier. Instead, it is time for the next U.S. president to take decisive action.
www.foreignaffairs.com
The United States is also taking larger strategic risks by restricting its support for Ukraine to incremental armament. Moscow can lean on its war economy and has no need to negotiate as long as it is confident that it can bleed Ukraine to a surrender and outlast Western support for Kyiv. And Ukraine cannot afford to negotiate from its current position of weakness, either, having lost territory and access to the Sea of Azov, a crucial waterway for its agricultural exports, and lacking the means to reverse either loss. This means the war will drag on—and the longer it does, the more time Russia has to create problems for Europe and the United States in other parts of the world. Moscow may expand its cooperation with North Korea by sharing satellite and ballistic missile technologies, devote more military forces to destabilize countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the wider Mediterranean region, and jam GPS signals across an increasingly large region in Europe. China, meanwhile, is building up its own military, and it could take advantage of persistent volatility in Europe to advance in the Pacific.
At the same time, Washington and its partners should not be overly worried about provoking Russia. Western fears of a Russian escalation have been exaggerated. Throughout his rule, Putin has been careful to avoid a direct clash with the West, conscious perhaps of Russia’s economic and military inferiority. Now, Moscow has an interest in containing the fight to Ukraine because it would have a hard time matching Western firepower and combined forces in an expanded war. Russia threatens to escalate but backs down when confronted with strength. Still, there are limits to what the United States and its allies should do; namely, they should not challenge the Russian army on the frontlines by sending their own troops to Ukraine.
DECISIVE ACTION
Instead of dragging out this war, the United States’ goal should be to end it quickly, helping Ukraine defeat Russia and in the process deterring Moscow from pursuing further imperial ambitions. Stabilizing Europe first would allow Washington to concentrate its efforts in the Asian theater, where it faces a looming threat from China, sequencing its strategy rather than risking confrontation with two revisionist powers at once.The most plausible way to achieve this goal is to surge weapons to Ukraine and place no restrictions on their use. Ukraine needs artillery, armor, and airpower, and it must be able to strike military targets in Russia, such as airports, ammunition and fuel depots, and military factories. By lifting usage restrictions on Western weapons, especially medium-range missiles, Washington would give Kyiv the opportunity to degrade Russian forces and prevent large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Ukraine cannot defend itself from behind a trench and with a dwindling supply of expensive antiair capabilities.
This surge would give Ukraine one last chance at a tactical breakthrough to restore or approximate its pre-2022 territorial status. From this position, Ukrainian forces could continue to threaten the gains Russia made in its 2014 invasion, especially Crimea. Although Kyiv’s longing to reclaim the country’s pre-2014 borders is understandable, its horrific losses and national exhaustion make a less ambitious definition of military victory much more realistic.
By degrading and pushing Russian forces from the territory they took since early 2022, Kyiv would win itself political options. Such a military achievement could impose sufficient material and reputational costs to force Russia to the negotiating table. Even without negotiations, which in any case may not quell Moscow’s desire to restore its empire in Europe, a rapid and decisive battlefield victory would inflict enough damage on Russian forces to buy Ukraine time to rebuild its infrastructure and industry, regain fertile lands for agricultural production, and strengthen its military capacity to deter further Russian offensives.
The United States and its allies will have the resources to implement this strategy by the time the U.S. election in November has passed or a new president takes office. By early 2025, Western production capacity will have ramped up enough to supply Ukrainian forces with sufficient quantities of artillery shells. U.S. plants are on track to produce 80,000 shells per month by the end of 2024 and 100,000 shells per month sometime in 2025. Add that to the 100,000 or more shells per month that European industry is expected to produce by late 2025 and Ukraine could not just maintain its defensive positions, which requires an estimated 75,000 shells per month, but also initiate offensive action. The U.S. army also has plenty of excess equipment, including older models of tanks and other vehicles, sitting in storage. So far, the United States has sent only 31 tanks to Ukraine, mostly to force Berlin’s hand at providing tanks, but there are hundreds more in storage that could be refurbished and shipped. Ukraine clearly needs more than it has received, as losses quickly thin out its armor stock. A small number of Western fighter jets in the hands of Ukrainian pilots is also scheduled to join the fight in the next months, but there are scores more that European countries could offload to Kyiv. Greece, for example, is considering giving several dozen jets.
Although Washington and its allies cannot send their own soldiers to Ukraine, they can provide additional military training for Ukrainian troops. Manpower is a growing problem for Kyiv. Conscription-age Ukrainians who have emigrated abroad should be called on to come home and join the fight. In the European countries where many of them now reside, governments could form Ukrainian military units and train the new recruits before sending them back to Ukraine.
The decisive factor would be the speed and quantity of lethal aid. If Ukraine can manage a breakthrough on the frontline and force a return to the territorial status quo ante February 2022, it could deal Russia a clear defeat. Crimea would remain under Russian occupation, but it would also remain a weak spot that the Ukrainian military can target to deter Moscow from resuming a large-scale war. The port of Sevastopol, several Russian military bases, and the Kerch Strait Bridge (which connects the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland) have already proven to be vulnerable to Ukrainian sea drones and, in the case of the bridge, a truck bomb. Ukraine should be given more capabilities—such as U.S. ballistic missiles and British, French, and German cruise missiles—to strike these places now and keep them under threat in the event of a cease-fire. By internationally recognized law, they are part of Ukraine’s own territory, so military operations there would not carry the same escalation risks as hitting targets in Russia proper. Only Moscow (and a handful of minor powers) considers Crimea to be part of Russia, and when Ukraine has attacked it in the past two years, Russia’s response has not been any different than its response to Ukrainian attacks on the frontlines.
Even in the best-case scenario, there is no reason to expect a defeat of Russia so dramatic as to fundamentally alter Moscow’s strategic outlook. Russia will remain a powerful nuclear state, nurturing deep aspirations to restore its imperial greatness. But to achieve that goal, it needs Ukraine, which would give it the ability to threaten the rest of Europe and hold sway over European politics. Without Ukraine, Russia is only an Asian power, swiftly losing ground to China. Kyiv cannot change Moscow’s strategic imperatives with victories on the battlefield, but it can deny Russia control of its lands. A rapid and significant supply of Western arms would give Ukraine its best chance to push back Russian forces and create the space and the time it needs to rebuild, refit, and deter another Russian advance. There is no strategic rationale for Washington to prolong the conflict with drop-by-drop delivery of supplies; policies designed primarily to avoid escalation will not save Ukraine or stabilize Europe’s eastern frontier. Instead, it is time for the next U.S. president to take decisive action.
The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine
Instead of abandoning Kyiv, Washington should give it the tools to win.
TLDR version of the above article is the US/west has to go all in NOW to end this war in a satisfactory way for Ukraine. The west's incremental approach with restrictions on Ukraine will only end in eventual defeat.
Ukraine simply doesn't have the manpower or resources to win a protracted war of attrition.
Ukraine simply doesn't have the manpower or resources to win a protracted war of attrition.
After watching the Ukrainian offensive efforts hit a brick wall last year, I don’t see how they do it without the kind of AirPower only the US has.
It can’t be replicated with a few dozen fighter jets.
We are lucky they continue to grind meat and not learn lessons or entrench themselves. This war has show. The ones playing defense inflict by far the most pain.
Take the shackles off the Ukrainians use of ATACMS, storm shadow cruise missiles and other deep strike weapons, up the quantity and you don't have to rely on aircraft.
The problem is we give them that stuff but limit their use and quantity.
To change the battlefield we have to give them the ability to interdict the Russians ability to bring up reserves etc to react to Ukrainian lines of attack. We've basically tied one hand behind their backs to avoid "escalation".
I don’t think those exist in stocks that could genuinely replicate the battlefield effect of American airpower as we’ve witnessed it since 1991.
But maybe the drone armies that Ukraine may be creating can. We read about large drone strikes that may include dozens of drones but there are also stories about Ukraine trying to coordinate much larger numbers at one time. I really hope to see something like that soon.
Pilots are a lot harder to replace than infantry meat-bags...
Time for NATO to start engaging Russian air targets 50mi inside the Russian border.
Don't like it, Vlad, don't violate NATO airspace, anymore. That's the deal.
For the United States, there is no benefit in bankrolling a protracted conflict. Biden’s strategy of providing incremental aid will not prevent Ukraine’s eventual destruction, and it will keep United States bogged down in a war without a path to victory. It is also politically unsustainable: in the wake of decades of deeply unpopular “forever wars,” American leaders can no longer promise indefinite financial outlays and weapon supplies on the basis of a strategy with no prospect of success.
The United States is also taking larger strategic risks by restricting its support for Ukraine to incremental armament. Moscow can lean on its war economy and has no need to negotiate as long as it is confident that it can bleed Ukraine to a surrender and outlast Western support for Kyiv. And Ukraine cannot afford to negotiate from its current position of weakness, either, having lost territory and access to the Sea of Azov, a crucial waterway for its agricultural exports, and lacking the means to reverse either loss. This means the war will drag on—and the longer it does, the more time Russia has to create problems for Europe and the United States in other parts of the world. Moscow may expand its cooperation with North Korea by sharing satellite and ballistic missile technologies, devote more military forces to destabilize countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the wider Mediterranean region, and jam GPS signals across an increasingly large region in Europe. China, meanwhile, is building up its own military, and it could take advantage of persistent volatility in Europe to advance in the Pacific.
At the same time, Washington and its partners should not be overly worried about provoking Russia. Western fears of a Russian escalation have been exaggerated. Throughout his rule, Putin has been careful to avoid a direct clash with the West, conscious perhaps of Russia’s economic and military inferiority. Now, Moscow has an interest in containing the fight to Ukraine because it would have a hard time matching Western firepower and combined forces in an expanded war. Russia threatens to escalate but backs down when confronted with strength. Still, there are limits to what the United States and its allies should do; namely, they should not challenge the Russian army on the frontlines by sending their own troops to Ukraine.
DECISIVE ACTION
Instead of dragging out this war, the United States’ goal should be to end it quickly, helping Ukraine defeat Russia and in the process deterring Moscow from pursuing further imperial ambitions. Stabilizing Europe first would allow Washington to concentrate its efforts in the Asian theater, where it faces a looming threat from China, sequencing its strategy rather than risking confrontation with two revisionist powers at once.
The most plausible way to achieve this goal is to surge weapons to Ukraine and place no restrictions on their use. Ukraine needs artillery, armor, and airpower, and it must be able to strike military targets in Russia, such as airports, ammunition and fuel depots, and military factories. By lifting usage restrictions on Western weapons, especially medium-range missiles, Washington would give Kyiv the opportunity to degrade Russian forces and prevent large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Ukraine cannot defend itself from behind a trench and with a dwindling supply of expensive antiair capabilities.
This surge would give Ukraine one last chance at a tactical breakthrough to restore or approximate its pre-2022 territorial status. From this position, Ukrainian forces could continue to threaten the gains Russia made in its 2014 invasion, especially Crimea. Although Kyiv’s longing to reclaim the country’s pre-2014 borders is understandable, its horrific losses and national exhaustion make a less ambitious definition of military victory much more realistic.
By degrading and pushing Russian forces from the territory they took since early 2022, Kyiv would win itself political options. Such a military achievement could impose sufficient material and reputational costs to force Russia to the negotiating table. Even without negotiations, which in any case may not quell Moscow’s desire to restore its empire in Europe, a rapid and decisive battlefield victory would inflict enough damage on Russian forces to buy Ukraine time to rebuild its infrastructure and industry, regain fertile lands for agricultural production, and strengthen its military capacity to deter further Russian offensives.
The United States and its allies will have the resources to implement this strategy by the time the U.S. election in November has passed or a new president takes office. By early 2025, Western production capacity will have ramped up enough to supply Ukrainian forces with sufficient quantities of artillery shells. U.S. plants are on track to produce 80,000 shells per month by the end of 2024 and 100,000 shells per month sometime in 2025. Add that to the 100,000 or more shells per month that European industry is expected to produce by late 2025 and Ukraine could not just maintain its defensive positions, which requires an estimated 75,000 shells per month, but also initiate offensive action. The U.S. army also has plenty of excess equipment, including older models of tanks and other vehicles, sitting in storage. So far, the United States has sent only 31 tanks to Ukraine, mostly to force Berlin’s hand at providing tanks, but there are hundreds more in storage that could be refurbished and shipped. Ukraine clearly needs more than it has received, as losses quickly thin out its armor stock. A small number of Western fighter jets in the hands of Ukrainian pilots is also scheduled to join the fight in the next months, but there are scores more that European countries could offload to Kyiv. Greece, for example, is considering giving several dozen jets.
Although Washington and its allies cannot send their own soldiers to Ukraine, they can provide additional military training for Ukrainian troops. Manpower is a growing problem for Kyiv. Conscription-age Ukrainians who have emigrated abroad should be called on to come home and join the fight. In the European countries where many of them now reside, governments could form Ukrainian military units and train the new recruits before sending them back to Ukraine.
The decisive factor would be the speed and quantity of lethal aid. If Ukraine can manage a breakthrough on the frontline and force a return to the territorial status quo ante February 2022, it could deal Russia a clear defeat. Crimea would remain under Russian occupation, but it would also remain a weak spot that the Ukrainian military can target to deter Moscow from resuming a large-scale war. The port of Sevastopol, several Russian military bases, and the Kerch Strait Bridge (which connects the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland) have already proven to be vulnerable to Ukrainian sea drones and, in the case of the bridge, a truck bomb. Ukraine should be given more capabilities—such as U.S. ballistic missiles and British, French, and German cruise missiles—to strike these places now and keep them under threat in the event of a cease-fire. By internationally recognized law, they are part of Ukraine’s own territory, so military operations there would not carry the same escalation risks as hitting targets in Russia proper. Only Moscow (and a handful of minor powers) considers Crimea to be part of Russia, and when Ukraine has attacked it in the past two years, Russia’s response has not been any different than its response to Ukrainian attacks on the frontlines.
Even in the best-case scenario, there is no reason to expect a defeat of Russia so dramatic as to fundamentally alter Moscow’s strategic outlook. Russia will remain a powerful nuclear state, nurturing deep aspirations to restore its imperial greatness. But to achieve that goal, it needs Ukraine, which would give it the ability to threaten the rest of Europe and hold sway over European politics. Without Ukraine, Russia is only an Asian power, swiftly losing ground to China. Kyiv cannot change Moscow’s strategic imperatives with victories on the battlefield, but it can deny Russia control of its lands. A rapid and significant supply of Western arms would give Ukraine its best chance to push back Russian forces and create the space and the time it needs to rebuild, refit, and deter another Russian advance. There is no strategic rationale for Washington to prolong the conflict with drop-by-drop delivery of supplies; policies designed primarily to avoid escalation will not save Ukraine or stabilize Europe’s eastern frontier. Instead, it is time for the next U.S. president to take decisive action.
The Right Way to Quickly End the War in Ukraine
Instead of abandoning Kyiv, Washington should give it the tools to win.
And, now that Russia is repeatedly violating NATO airspace, issue the edict that Russian air targets 50 miles inside the Russian border are now Fair Game for NATO assets. Tell Vlad to f*** off, and if he doesn't like it, stop shooting missiles inside NATO airspace and at civilian targets.
And hit the Russians HARD in their own territory w/ NATO forces.
Like Herb Brooks said: "We Shut Them Down Because We CAN. Screw Them!!!".
Use NATO assets to cut off Russian supply lines. 100%. This is over before Halloween.
Kiev Mayor Klitschko Speculated That Zelensky Might Agree To Territorial Compromises With Russia
Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko, who’s emerged as one of Zelensky’s top rivals over the past year, speculated in an interview with Italy’s Corriere Della Serra over the weekend that the Ukrainian leader might agree to territorial compromises with Russia. In his words, “Will he…consider a territorial compromise with Putin?...Zelensky will probably have to resort to a referendum. I don't think he can reach such painful and important agreements on his own without popular legitimacy.”
Klitschko also echoed Atlantic Council senior fellow Adrian Karatnycky’s demand from mid-December for Zelensky to create a “government of national unity” by suggesting that this could help disperse responsibility for unpopular decisions like mobilization and thus ease their implementation. His interview couldn’t have been more perfectly timed since it coincided with the signals that Ukraine sent over the past week about its newfound semi-seriousness in reviving peace talks with Russia as explained here.
To summarize for the reader’s convenience, the US’ political uncertainty, the Ukrainian Conflict’s military-strategic dynamics continuing to favor Russia, and the growing attractiveness of China as a mediator combined to influence Zelensky to send his top diplomat to Beijing. This will be Kuleba’s first trip there since 2022, which followed the first such trip to Kiev by the Vatican’s top diplomat during this same period, thus advancing the scenario of China and the EU (via the Vatican) jointly hosting peace talks.
This is precisely what Orban proposed in his peace mission report for the EU, but since he’s considered by the Eurocrats to be too toxic to associate with, they’d prefer relying on the Vatican as their backchannel for exploring Kiev’s interest in this possibility instead. Zelensky knows that China doesn’t support his maximalist objectives in this conflict, but it’s also not in favor of Russia’s either, so his decision to dispatch Kuleba to Beijing hints at an emerging interest to have it broker a compromise.
Accordingly, this could take the form of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact (LOC), but without rescinding Kiev’s claims to Russian-controlled territory within Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders. He couldn’t realistically agree to this though without a referendum after the enormous costs that his country already paid. Klitschko sensed that something of the sort might soon be afoot even before Kuleba’s trip to Beijing was announced (his interview’s publication narrowly preceded it) and that’s why he shared what he did.
Nobody should have any false expectations about this happening anytime soon, let alone assuming that Russia would agree to it after President Putin said last month that no cessation of hostilities is possible without Ukraine first withdrawing from all the territory that Moscow now claims as its own. Even in the event that Kiev voluntarily complied, which is unlikely, then the Kremlin would likely also want other aspects of its national security interests to be ensured as well such as demilitarization and the like.
In any case, it could form a starting point for resuming dialogue with Russia, even if it’s only initially conducted via mediators like China and/or the EU (albeit via the Vatican instead of Orban). Zelensky knows that he won’t reconquer his country’s lost territory no matter what he says for the purpose of keeping morale high, hence the need to informally explore a compromise for ending the conflict in the most politically “face-saving” way possible, thus explaining Klitschko’s referendum speculation.
That's discouraging to read, but believeable.A Ukrainian Brigade Collapsed—And Now Hundreds Of Soldiers Are Surrounded Near Prohres
Two battalions face a hard choice: fight their way out or hope for rescue
We revel at reading Russian casualties, but there are likely instances like this where Ukrainian losses are significant.
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I have mixed emotions about someone dumb enough to keep pushing buttons on an exploding boat
"An unmanned jet ski, apparently loaded with explosives and belonging to Ukrainian forces, has been discovered on the Çatalca coast in Istanbul, Turkey."
"An unmanned jet ski, apparently loaded with explosives and belonging to Ukrainian forces, has been discovered on the Çatalca coast in Istanbul, Turkey."
The problem for outside observers that aren't in the "know" is getting an accurate read on the situation.
If Ukraine is in a very difficult situation on the front it'd be good to amplify that to perhaps light a fire to get more weapons to the Ukrainian's faster.
Weren't you the guy who on a daily basis warned us about the Russians using nukes if we got too frisky with them? Now you want us to be allowing the Ukrainians to be hammering Rostov?
Im glad you have come around. Hopefully Biden begins to warm to this idea, too.
Biden is in the passenger seat now,.. his decision days are over.
Yes, but that was around 2 years ago Lucas. I’ve come around…maybe the administration should follow suit.
I supported the administration’s policy at the beginning of avoiding escalation. I believe you did too…
I hope Biden will finally send the good stuff to Ukraine. Sorry to go through this again but..
Sent 31 of over 10,000 Abrams tanks. Think how many we could have modified the armor on and sent by now, plus trained crews and maintenance personnel for if only we had wanted to.
0 of 2,231 F16s that were ordered, US may be operating 841 currently. (those that Ukraine will someday receive (not holding my breath) come from other countries as far as I know.
Still insignificant amounts of ATACMS and those that do come, have bans on using them in many places where they might be most effective.
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Now, intercept them over Russia's airspace.
They want to violate NATO airspace, that's the price.
I do too, but I also wonder how much stuff we have stockpiled that we could immediately give away. I assume we have piles of 155 mm shells, even though the war showed our manufacturing base had dwindled to an unacceptably low level. But, how many kick ass cruise missiles do we really have, especially if we have to keep China and North Korea honest? From the few articles. I have seen it's going to take 2-3 years unless we went to a war time footing to ramp up production of some of the high end weapons. You tell me, but I don't think the F-16 has a large capability for launching long range missiles. So, what are we giving them that can reach into Russian areas, and what platforms can they use? Certainly we need to let them have HIMARS and ATACMS, but how many do we need to keep? I have a belief that Biden is going to unload everything he can if Harris loses in November that is stockpiled in Europe, hopefully he doesn't wait until then to green light expanded usage.
We have a ton of stuff we could give that we would never use with our own troops. It should be handed over immediately.
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I haven't been following this thread for quite a while and I don't refer much to Twitter, so excuse my ignorance. What's the latest on the Abrams tanks? Are the Ukrainians still having trouble with them? Are they being used properly?
