Military Outlook For Ukraine

With the new administration in Washington and it being unclear at the time of this writing how much continuing support Ukraine will continue to receive (my guess is enough to keep them viable as a fighting force while negotiations are ongoing), the military situation that Ukraine finds itself it is a somewhat more precarious situation than many would like to admit. Just as Russia has massively underperformed what analysts thought would happen when the war began, Ukraine has massively exceeded expectations that were there at the outset. Most folks thought that Russia was just going to sweep aside the Ukrainian military, which did not happen. The West, and likely many Ukrainians themselves, saw their incredible battlefield performance as being due to their military prowess, which some of it was. The Ukrainians have been innovative, expanded the use of drones, found ways to strike infrastructure within Russia, and without a navy have manage to force Russia out of parts of the Black Sea and keep their port of Odessa open as an export channel (which has been critical).

However, a not insubstantial part of Ukraine’s success, especially in first eight months when Russia was forced to abandon its drive on Kiev, and then Ukraine launched an offensive in Kharkiv which broke through the lines and retook a substantial amount of territory, was due to Russian ineptness. First, Russia entered Ukraine with not nearly sufficient forces. They advanced largely along 5 different routes, none of which were close enough to another one to provide reinforcing support. It was clear that Russian forces were not competent in the logistical aspects of running a major armored offensive. And with Kharkiv, the Russians were only lightly defending this front. And when the Ukrainian breakthrough came, the front just collapsed. A more competent general plan, along with logistically adept Russian forces would have resulted in much less Ukrainian success.

However, the front lines have not shifted a lot since the successful Kharkiv offensive 2-and-a-half years ago. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive in spring/summer of 2023 was a failure, and the war has been largely a stalemate since then. From the Ukrainian perspective, this can be thought of as a success. While Ukrainians have dreamed of recovering Donbass and Crimea, this is unrealistic. If the front lines could be frozen at roughly their current location with a ceasefire that left them in control of 80% of their original territory as well as the port of Odessa, they could consider that they won the war in that the Ukrainian state will have survived and has remained economically viable.

The question is whether or not they can hold the front lines.

While much has rightly focused on continued U.S. support, without which Ukrainian likely cannot continue the war for an extended period of time, it is not clear that they can maintain these lines even with continuing U.S. support. The fact is that this war is currently a war of attrition, a scenario that favors the side with the larger population. And that is not Ukraine in this case. This doesn’t take away from the fact that Ukraine has done a good job in being innovative, which is one reason that they are still in the fight. They have successfully deployed anti-air and anti-missile capability, which has given them some ability to defend critical sites and has denied the Russians the type of air superiority that would allow a large Russian break-through of the lines to possibly end the war. They have developed a home-made drone industry that appears to be able to at least match, if not exceed Russian production at certain times. Drones are changing the face of the modern battlefield. The necessary development of drone capabilities and counter-drone capabilities is happening at an extremely fast pace, and Ukrainian developers seem able to keep up and even exceed what Russian developers have done. Although it is difficult to say, Ukrainian drones appear to have damaged some Russian oil infrastructure and enabled Ukraine to strike at airfields deep inside Russia. There have been some reports that possibly 10% of Russia’s oil refining capacity has been knocked by drone strikes. If true, this is an incredibly significant accomplishment, especially for a country that does not have a massive air force.

While the damaging of the infrastructure is good news for the Ukrainians and will reduce the flow of cash to Vladimir Putin, it simply doesn’t change the math on the battlefield. Ukraine is in contact with Russian forces along a line that is several hundred miles long. Although high Russian casualty figures get touted in the western press (and these are important), information on Ukrainian casualty figures is less ubiquitous. And the figures are provided from Russian sources are likely not accurate. However, it is gradually becoming more apparent that Ukraine has a manpower problem. Despite all of the technological advances that have been made over the last hundreds of years in war fighting, an army still needs men with weapons to hold a specific piece of ground. And despite the various successes that Ukraine has had, including holding out for the last 3 years which is not a small accomplishment, it isn’t going to matter if Ukraine runs out of soldiers

.

So, what is the prospect that Ukraine’s manpower is depleted to the point that it is unable to maintain the front line?

Such a prediction is hard to say as the Ukrainians have been understandably tight-lipped about it. While much has understandably been made of Russia’s high casualty/low rate of advance, sometimes a breakthrough of a thin line can occur causing the entire line to collapse, which would be catastrophic. The positive factor from Ukraine’s perspective is that Russian forces don’t appear to be sophisticated enough to quickly exploit such a break-through should one occur. If the line breaks, one would think that there would still be enough manpower, even unskilled, to throw into the line and plug the break even if it were a costly process.

The fact is that both sides have a morale problem and there now appear to be few who are ending up at the front without serious positive economic inducement or some form of coercion. From the Ukrainian perspective, the military situation has not improved and is on a downward trajectory. Generating manpower for a war that doesn’t appear to have an end (leaving aside current negotiations) is always going to be a problem for any side. People don’t want to sign up for the prospect of spending a decade on the front lines, if one isn’t killed first. Apart from what US aid will continue to be forthcoming, Ukraine’s manpower issue and the ability to generate sufficient combat power is what will determine Ukraine’s ability to hold the front line and successfully keep Russia out of the 80% of Ukrainian territory that they do not currently have.

Whether they can hold out long enough until either high Russian casualties and/or economic pressure forces Putin politically to reach some sort of peace agreement is the key question that will determine the remaining course of this war.