What About Ukraine?

Over the past six months, I've gradually moved toward the conservative position on the Ukraine war. I've recognized that Ukraine hawks are basically neoconservatives, and neoconservative policies haven't played well since Reagan. Still, I was inclined to buy Zelensky's talking point last year that supporting Ukraine was a cheap way to dismantle the Russian empire. Whether dismantling the Russian empire was a goal worth pursuing is a separate question, and I more or less lost sight of the fact that whatever else, it's a neoconservative certainty that this must be done.

The problem is that here we are in the middle of 2023. A predicted Ukrainian winter counteroffensive never took place. There was lots of anticipation for a spring counteroffensive that was supposed to happen, maybe in April, but this keeps getting pushed back. Here's Reuters on April 28:

Ukraine is wrapping up preparations for a counteroffensive against Russian forces and is largely ready for it to go ahead, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.

"As soon as there is God's will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it," he told an online news briefing.

He gave no date for when the counteroffensive would start but said: "Globally speaking, we are to a high percentage ready."

And nothng has happened since. I don't know if God is still on spring break or what. But as of last week, according to AP:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in remarks broadcast Thursday that Kyiv is delaying its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia’s occupying forces because Ukraine lacks enough Western weapons to succeed without suffering too many casualties.

. . . A Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia’s more than 14-month-old invasion has been expected since warmer weather improved battlefield conditions, and Zelenskyy said it’s possible that “we can go forward and be successful,” the BBC reported.

“But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable,” he was quoted as saying in the interview, conducted in Kyiv with public service broadcasters who are members of Eurovision News, including the BBC.

“So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying. “In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet.”

This is not the Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Churchill whose wartime rhetoric I admired last year. Nor do we hear his last year's argument that arming Ukraine was the cheapest way to dismantle the Russian empire. My guess is that Zelensky is under domestic pressure to minimize casualties and isn't going to press forward as he'd done last year. The Russians have adapted to battlefield conditions, and there's likely no longer the possibility of dramatic breakthroughs or general retreats we saw last summer and fall.

In fact, the US assessment of Ukraine's abilities has been pessimistic since early this year:

“I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all –– every inch of Ukraine and occupied –– or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” he said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Jan. 20. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.”

. . . The issue of retaking Crimea has been a contentious one for months, as American and European officials insist the peninsula is legally part of Ukraine, while often stopping short of fully equipping Kyiv to push into the area.

One person familiar with the thinking in Kyiv said the Zelenskyy administration was “furious” with Milley’s remarks, as Ukraine prepares for major offensives this spring. Ukrainians also note that U.S. intelligence about their military abilities have consistently missed the mark throughout the nearly year-long war.

But the one factor that would prove that US assessments were off the mark would be a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in Crimea, which as far as we can tell is now on indefinite hold, likely because Zelensky doesn't think he can afford the casualties this would generate. But let's recall that this was his selling point to NATO last year: you provide the weapons, we provide the bodies. But on second thought, now we can't afford the bodies.

This is the current context of Trump's remarks at the CNN town hall last week:

“I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying,” Trump said at CNN’s town hall moderated by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins. “And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

Trump, who would not say whether he wants Ukraine to successfully deter Russia when pressed by Collins, told the audience gathered at Saint Anselm College that he doesn’t “think in terms of winning and losing.”

What he's sayhing is that the war is stalemated, and for whatever reason, Ukraine hasn't been in a position to resume the successful counteroffensives of last year. It looks like for now, both Ukraine and Russia have fought each other to exhaustion, while the West is depleting its stocks of ammunition with smaller and smaller returns. So it's time to face reality and negotiate a settlement for however long it lasts, because under last year's deal Zelensky offered, a quick and cheap dismantling of the Russian empire with Ukraine making all the sacrifices isn't going to happen.

I was skeptical of Trump on Ukraine last year. I'm starting to think he's been right all along.