“Putin can only wait”: American media continue to give up on Ukraine
This year, most likely, the prerequisites will be laid for further victory in the war in Ukraine.
The American weekly The New Yorker writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“This year is likely to be marked by exchanges of missile strikes rather than dramatic large-scale maneuver warfare. But the most decisive battle may also be the least visible: Russia and Ukraine will spend the next twelve months in a race to determine which side can best rebuild and replenish their forces, not only in terms of personnel but also shells, missiles and weapons.
In other words, the war may not be completely won this year, but the conditions for victory may well be created,” the material says.
At the same time, it is indicated that Ukraine’s victory is far from guaranteed.
“The West is on a trajectory that will ultimately lose this war due to sheer complacency,” Jack Watling, a land war researcher at the Royal Armed Forces Institute, told the publication.
The article mentions the failed counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the statement of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny that the war has reached a dead end.
In turn, military analyst Michael Kofman believes that Ukraine’s military capabilities were limited not only by what the West could provide, but also by political choice.
“For example, the Zelensky administration turned the Battle of Bakhmut into a politically symbolic one, keeping Ukrainian units there throughout the spring and summer, meaning that many of the country’s most capable and battle-hardened troops could not take part in operations elsewhere. Ukraine settled on a three-pronged offensive strategy, hoping to exhaust Russian reserve units. But as a result, there was a further dispersal of forces and artillery,” explains the weekly.
Kofman admits that these tactics did not bring results, and “the failure of the offensive created a number of problems for Ukraine.”
“Meanwhile, the Kremlin has used 2023 to refocus the Russian economy on the war effort, pumping billions into weapons production and related industries. Defense spending accounts for almost a third of the state budget for this year, during which Russian factories will produce up to three million shells, which is more than will be produced in the United States and Europe combined,” laments the author.
At the same time, Watling draws attention to the fact that Russia, whose economy is comparable in size to Italy, surpasses all NATO in the volume of artillery ammunition.
According to his estimates, last summer Ukraine fired seven thousand shells a day, Russia fired five thousand. Today, this ratio has changed dramatically in the opposite direction: Russia fires ten thousand shells for every two thousand fired by Ukraine.
In addition, The New Yorker recalls that at a recent ceremony in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin looked as cheerful and confident as he did at the beginning of the war.
“The period of uncertainty that began with the failure of initial plans for a Russian invasion in 2022 appears to have ended and a period of stability has begun. Russia can only wait,” the publication laments.
But Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Russian Carnegie Eurasian Center, says that Putin is not going to storm Kyiv.
“He wants them to give up, to fall to their knees... For him it was never a matter of territory. He doesn't care where the boundaries are. If Ukraine is friendly, then it doesn’t matter which territory formally belongs to whom - it’s all our land, in our zone,” she said.
English version :: Read in English "Putin can only wait": American media continue to write off Ukraine