Is it the Beginning of the End in Ukraine?
Conventional wisdom has it that the two combatants in Ukraine are locked into a frozen conflict with largely static front lines, the kind of war that could last for years. However over the last few months the United States has been sending signals that its ability to bankroll Ukraine is not unlimited.
General Mark Milley. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on February 14:
"It is also very, very difficult for Ukraine this year to kick the Russians out of every inch of Russian-occupied Ukraine. It's not to say that it can't happen… But it's extraordinarily difficult. And it would require essentially the collapse of the Russian military."
From the article General Milley: Russia-Ukraine war will end with negotiations.
Now the US Secretary of State is reiterating the same point.
“I think there's going to be territory in Ukraine that the Ukrainians are determined to fight for on the ground; there may be territory that they decide that they'll have to try to get back in other ways."
US Secretary of State suggests that Ukraine will not regain all territories by military means
I don’t think it’s any mystery why the Biden Administration would prefer that the Ukraine problem went away. There is every indication that the margins in the 2024 election will be as razor thin as in 2016 and 2020. The war in Ukraine is not only a huge expense on US balance sheets but it is a major source of global uncertainty in a period when the world has stubbornly refused to return to normal. A negotiated settlement would be a huge feather in Biden’s cap and a significant boon to his re-election prospects.
Of course, a negotiated settlement that sees Ukraine surrendering territory runs counter to Zelenskyy’s stated goal of retaking all of the ground that it has lost to Russia, including Crimea. What does he make of all this?
“Our society will feel tired [if Bakhmut falls]. Our society will push me to have compromise with them.”
That is a perilous position to take when discussing a city surrounded on three sides by Russian forces that has seen Ukrainian forces forced to retreat again and again, to the point where they now occupy only 30% of the city. If Zelenskyy was prepared to fight to the finish, no matter what, wouldn’t an alternative statement be preferable? For example: “It is true that we have suffered setbacks in Bakhmut but they are irrelevant. The will of the Ukrainian people can never be defeated. We will never surrender to Russia and we will fight on and on and on, because that is what liberty and justice and freedom demands.”
Contrast that to what was actually said and one is struck by the difference in tone: Zelenskyy’s sounds almost resigned. And he has preemptively laid the groundwork to defend himself from charges of early capitulation since it is not his decision to negotiate, or Washington’s—rather it is because “society” or the Ukrainian populace at large has tired of war and wishes no more of it.
Of course if the end is in sight why shovel more meat into the grinder at Bakhmut? The great and mighty will shake hands after the treaty and move on while the common people weep at the graves.