Do you ever get tired of listening to this Ukraine sheet?

During the Vietnam War Nixon famously punctuated his failed efforts at bringing the war to a close under the narrative "peace through strength". Ergo, he finally gave up and we left our allies to fend of the wolves of Ho Chi Minn for themselves. So much for "strength".

The Ukraine is going to suffer the same fate. Putin long ago won this. He controls the entire Donbas with it's mineral assets which include oil, natural gas and Lithium. The area also provides a protective barrier along Russia's border.

He's never going to give that back. He knows that the US and its European allies will eventually give up as was the case many decades ago in Southeast Asia.

Ukraine Faces Bleak Winter as Russia Ramps Up Assaults, U.S. Support Trickles In

President Zelensky pleads for more arms and other assistance to help end the war on favorable terms, but Biden administration is skeptical

By James Marson, WSJ

Updated Oct. 14, 2024 12:02 am ET

KYIV, Ukraine—The war in Ukraine is barreling toward the end of its third year, with Russia pursuing relentless offensives despite heavy losses and Western leaders groping for a strategy to end the conflict.

With Western weapons deliveries limited and slow, Ukraine is facing a bleak winter. Its outnumbered and outgunned military is slowly but steadily losing ground on the main eastern front, trying to exact a heavy toll on Russia while minimizing its own losses.

Russian missile-and-drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are overwhelming the country’s air defenses, forcing rolling blackouts across the country that could worsen in winter.

Ukrainian troops are clinging to important strategic locations in the east, such as the high-lying city of Chasiv Yar, facing waves of Russian infantry and massive glide bombs that pulverize buildings. But in recent weeks, Russia has claimed the city of Vuhledar, advanced toward the logistics hub of Pokrovsk and prodded forward in other towns.

Paramedics prepare to take a Ukrainian soldier wounded in fighting in the Donetsk region to a hospital. Photo: roman pilipey/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

President Biden and other Western leaders have repeatedly said they want Ukraine to prevail, but are providing insufficient support to stop Russia and turn the tide, say Ukrainian officials and soldiers.

More worrying for Kyiv, former President Donald Trump has said that if he wins the November presidential election he would seek a quick peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has made clear he wants Ukraine’s capitulation. Russia, meanwhile, is planning to increase military spending by one-quarter next year, signaling its long-term commitment to overpowering its smaller neighbor.

On visits to European capitals and the U.S. in recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested more weapons and security guarantees as part of what he has dubbed a “victory plan” aimed at ending the war on terms favorable to Ukraine.

The Biden administration, which has drip-fed weapons to Ukraine for fear of provoking Russia, has given a tepid response.

U.S. officials have said that Zelensky’s plan repackages some earlier requests, and noted that members of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization are divided about whether to offer Ukraine a formal invitation to join.

Zelensky had intended to discuss his plan with Biden and other allies at a scheduled meeting in Germany last week, but the U.S. president canceled his trip because of Hurricane Milton in Florida.

“We’re going to have to sit down with the Ukrainians and kind of work through what can you actually do, versus what do you have on this list,” Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday.

A residential building damaged by shelling in the town of Kurakhove, near the front line, in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine. Photo: roman pilipey/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said the plan was a detailed strategy encompassing military, economic, political and diplomatic steps necessary to compel Russia to end its war.

Among them is a request for more long-range missiles, known as ATACMS and Storm Shadow, and permission to fire them at military targets deep inside Russia. Podolyak said that could change Putin’s calculus by increasing domestic pressure, as well as weakening Russia’s front-line forces.

The U.S. has so far declined to grant permission, fearing Russia would view it as a major escalation.

Without more support for Ukraine, Podolyak said, the war could drag on for years and end up eroding Western nations’ global standing. Forcing Ukraine to negotiate from a position of weakness wouldn’t end the conflict, he said, but embolden Putin to press on with his main goal of total control over Ukraine.

“Why should he stop? He can compete with the West only with fear—that you will be afraid and he will get what he wants,” Podolyak said.

How far ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles could reach into Russian territory

A map showing the range of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory with potential military and paramilitary targets including air bases. This also shows Russian forces in Ukraine and Kursk region and Ukraine forces in Russia as of Oct. 10.

Ukrainian forces in Russia

Kyiv has been striving to show it would put more support to good use. In August, Ukraine’s army launched a surprise assault on Russia’s Kursk region, quickly seizing around 100 towns and villages that it has largely held on to since.

Ukraine also has launched a series of long-range strikes in Russia and occupied Ukraine, destroying ammunition and fuel stores.

Ukrainian front-line units are struggling with a lack of basic equipment, including armored vehicles and artillery, and shortages of troops. Ukraine’s government isn’t mobilizing anyone under age 25 to prevent demographic collapse, and more social turmoil, while military draft officers have been checking papers and handing summonses on the street, including outside a recent concert in Kyiv by one of Ukraine’s most popular bands.

Podolyak said the situation is improving and Ukraine is managing to carry out some troop rotations and to increase the size of its reserves. The French government said last week it is training and equipping a Ukrainian brigade, with around 2,300 soldiers exercising in France since the start of September.

On the home front, Ukrainians are increasingly exhausted by the war, and polls show an incremental increase in the number prepared for negotiations. But that doesn’t mean they are ready for concessions. Fewer than one in 10 would be prepared to surrender any territory to Moscow to end the war, according to an August survey by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based think tank.

The war has touched most families in Ukraine, hardening attitudes. “They are not ready to turn the page,” said Kostyantyn Batozsky, an independent political analyst in Kyiv.

Ukrainian officials and military analysts note that Russia is also struggling. Moscow’s forces haven’t achieved a significant breakthrough, despite massive efforts.

Russian forces endured the deadliest month of the war in September, according to U.S. analysts. Western intelligence assessments put losses at 1,200 dead and injured a day. Military advances are achieved mainly through costly ground assaults by infantry units that are packed with convicts drawn from jails by the offer of a pardon and a salary of the equivalent of more than $2,000 a month. Russia is filling its ranks by measures including constantly raising bonuses and recruiting foreigners.

“Ukraine is continuing to inflict casualties on Russia that would be unsustainable in any country that is not an absolute autocracy,” said John Nagl, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who is now a professor of warfighting at the U.S. Army War College.

Nagl said that, given Trump’s pledge to resolve the conflict, “Putin’s hope for a relatively easy victory hinges on a Trump win.” Until then, he said, “Russia continues to be willing to absorb casualties that make no operational or strategic sense.”

Cpl. Oleksandr Solonko, a Ukrainian drone pilot fighting on the eastern front, said that any peace deal other than one achieved by defeating the Russians on the battlefield would only briefly freeze the conflict, allowing them to rearm.

“They will attack again,” he said, “and it will continue like that until our country disappears from the world map.”

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