So, overall, Russia has significant military advantage over Ukraine in terms of manpower as well as weapons production, and a recent indication in this regard has also come from a report by the BBC’s Russian service in late June, citing an anonymous senior NATO official, of the US-led alliance having assed that Russia has enough resources to finance its war in Ukraine through at least 2027.
So, based on these battlefield advantages that Russia has over Ukraine, it does not appear that the Kremlin is going to move off of its demand anytime soon that Ukraine abandon the territories its armed forces hold in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.
Now, the risk here is that the Ukrainian military which is exhausted in terms of personnel and ammunition could eventually lose its ability to hold the front against the Russian armed forces who are making grinding advances on the ground every month with increasing pace.
The possibility that the Ukrainian armed forces are no longer able to replenish its troops and ammunition, and its defensive lines finally collapse, potentially within months, is very much real and stronger than ever before since the onset of this conflict in February 2022.
Quite simply, the Ukrainian army cannot realistically hope to persist in this war of attrition indefinitely, while it loses thousands of troops every month and struggles to recruit willing and good quality conscripts to make up for these loses, as well as relies on foreign assistance for arming its troops which may decline as the war drags on.
Prospects For US-brokered Peace Negotiations Between Russia And Ukraine
As the battlefield calculus starts to increasingly weigh against the Ukrainian side, prospects for a negotiated resolution to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war are also worsening.
The only thing working for Kyiv is the incredible fighting spirit of Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces, who, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, have managed to stall the Russian advances in several sectors in the eastern part of the country so far.
However, it is now time for the officials in Kyiv to make peace with the fact that there is only so much that they can rely on the fighting spirit of their brave Ukrainian soldiers, and it is better to focus on minimizing the country’s losses.
Then, the best-case scenario that the officials in Kyiv can hope for is that their Ukrainian soldiers are able to persist for another five to six months and stop the Russian’s from advancing in the Donetsk region, which could force the Russians into withdrawing their demand that Ukraine abandon its territories.
Another lever that Ukraine may have is the use of another large-scale offensive action like its ‘Operation Spider’s Web’ in June, as part of which its armed forces struck four Russian strategic airbases using over 100 attack drones smuggled inside Russia over the period of 18 months before this attack was executed on June 1st.
These drone strikes are known to have destroyed at least 6 Tu-95 strategic bombers, four Tu-22M aircraft and numerous A-50 airborne early warning planes, per the US officials cited by New York Times, while the Ukrainian sources have said that a total of 41 Russian aircraft were either destroyed or damaged in this attack, a claim also corroborated by an unnamed senior NATO official cited by The Moscow Times.
Such a massive attack deep inside Russia, that too with drones smuggled inside its territory by the covert Ukrainian operatives, exposed Russia’s vulnerabilities and demonstrated Ukraine’s resolve to not give into Russia’s maximalist demands.
Another such attack could really help to strengthen Ukraine’s position, as it may undermine Russia’s confidence in war’s long-term trajectory, forcing it to reconsider its maximalist demands as well as its decision to prolong this war further to accomplish its objectives on the ground if its demands are not conceded to, by Ukraine.
In that case, the conflict could be resolved with both sides retaining de-facto control over the portions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts that their respective armed forces hold, in addition to the Crimean Peninsula getting internationally recognized as Russian territory.
This is the possibility that even the US’ Trump administration appears to be betting on, going by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns on the sidelines of the NATO summit that was held in late June.
“Our sense of it is that the Russians are going to try to achieve in the battlefield what they’ve demanded in the negotiating table, which is certain territories [maintain] their administrative lines and the like,” Rubio said.
“We think it’s going to be a lot harder for them to achieve that than they think it’s going to be,” he added.
Basically, the US seems to have taken a wait and watch position until the hostilities in Ukraine result into the creation of new ground realities that force both sides to reconsider their positions, thereby giving impetus to the diplomatic track.
After all, even Russia does not have unlimited manpower and equipment to indefinitely fight the war, and longer this conflict stretches, the more dire Russia’s strategic situation will become, as it gets trapped between a more unified Europe and increasingly powerful China, especially considering how the Russian economy has been increasingly becoming dependent on trade with China to remain afloat since the onset of war in Ukraine in 2022 and ensuing Western sanctions against Russia.
This increasing dependence on trade with China has put Beijing in the position to dictate the terms of the overall Sino-Russian economic relations, which is causing growing frustration within the Russian business class over the difficulties of doing business with China.
So, considering the high likelihood of restoration of economic ties with the US under Trump administration and probably up to some extent the West in total, following the resolution of Ukraine crisis, this is the most convenient time for the Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring his war in Ukraine to a pause. With Trump being at the helm of US’ state of affairs, he can do so, on terms that are conducive to his geostrategic ambitions for Russia in the long run.
Another indication in this context could be President Trump’s remarks during Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrick Merz in June which compared the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war to a children’s brawl in a park.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
However, if the Russian armed forces manage to breakthrough the Ukrainian defensive lines, then all such bets are off, because then officials in Kremlin may start to eye a bigger prize, which is the expansion of Russian occupation in Ukraine all the way up to the Odessa Oblast, in order to cut off Ukraine’s access to sea and putting it at a grave disadvantage economically by forcing it to depend on Russia for trade and commerce.
In that case, it should not come as a surprise if cutting off Ukraine’s access to sea becomes more incentivizing for Kremlin than any economic incentives the US’ Trump administration has to offer to Russia to bring it to the negotiating table.
Tanmay Kadam is a geopolitical observer based in India. He has experience working as a Defense and International Affairs journalist for EurAsian Times. He can be contacted at tanmaykadam700@gmail.com
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