As long as Volodymyr Zelensky is President of Ukraine, trying to reach a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine will be a waste of time and effort. Zelensky is frozen in an unshakable position because his domestic support and survival are tied to vehement Ukrainian nationalists who oppose any concessions to Russia. They want to fight to the last man (and woman), writes Stephen Bryenformer Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and leading expert on security strategy and technology.
If a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine is impossible, is there a solution to end the bloody war in Ukraine?
The facts are simple. The first, now abundantly clear, is that Ukraine cannot win its war against Russia. It lacks the manpower and firepower necessary to push the Russians out of Ukrainian territory. The recent Ukrainian counter-offensive, which lasted four months, produced almost no positive results, except the sacrifice of enormous quantities of war materials and almost 20,000 soldiers killed and wounded.
It is now reported, at the request of the United States, that Ukraine will launch a new offensive operation crossing the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, hoping to cut off Russia’s land access to Crimea. This offensive would also include an attack on the huge Zaphorize nuclear power plant (Zaporiz’ka atomna elektrostantsiia) in order to create a nuclear incident that Ukrainian propaganda would blame on Russia.
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, consisting of two cooling towers (one largely obscured by the other) on the left and 6 VVER reactor buildings.
There is little time left for a new offensive as seasonal rains and cold will soon fall on Ukraine. But this tactic appears to rely on the idea that Ukrainian infantry can follow paved roads and survive in the face of Russian artillery concentrations.
Russia will still retain its air dominance on the battlefield, although reports indicate that the UK is transferring Typhoon Eurofighter jets to Poland, which could be seconded to Ukraine. (The promised F-16s will not arrive in Ukraine on time.)
Ukrainian pilots are not trained on Typhoons and cannot fly them, suggesting they should be flown by British pilots and based outside Ukraine.
The story of the Typhoon is closely linked to a proposal by the relatively new British Defense Minister, Grant Shapps, to send British troops to Ukraine to better train Ukrainian troops there and to help the Ukrainians prepare and execute their offensive current and the new planned on the Dnieper. river and Zaphorize.
The British Defense Minister also proposed taking an active naval role in the Black Sea against Russia. Britain is already considering sending ships from the British fleet to clear mines in the Black Sea laid by the Russians.
The introduction of uniformed British troops into Ukraine would almost certainly be seen by the Russians as a casus belli and would mean the expansion of the war in Ukraine to Europe. Apparently, this message reached British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who returned to Shapps’ proposal to send uniformed troops to Ukraine. Sunak has not yet discussed possible Typhoon deployments or British naval support for Ukraine in the Black Sea..
Meanwhile, things are starting to change in Washington. In response to U.S. and European efforts to shift defense production to Ukraine, Russia carried out at least five separate strikes on October 1, destroying Ukrainian military depots, modernization and maintenance sites, and industrial complexes. Successful attacks included targets in Cherkasy, Kryvyi Rih, Zaphorize (including the Motor Sich engine manufacturing enterprise), Kostiantynivka and Kharkiv.
In Washington, discontent is growing over support for Ukraine, with enough opposition to exclude Ukrainian aid from the just-passed continuing resolution to keep the U.S. government in office.
Part of the opposition is worried about endemic corruption in Ukraine. However, the biggest problem in Ukraine is a political struggle highlighted by the fact that the current commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Valerii Zaluzhny, opposes Zelensky’s plans for a Dnieper offensive. and Washington. Beyond that, in August and September, Ukraine was far from being able to conscript enough men and women into the army due to growing resistance. So the dismissal of the recruiters was not due to corruption (although there probably was some), but to poor recruitment figures.
