Is the aim of the United States and its allies simply to allow Ukraine to ensure its survival or is it to help it expel Russia from all its territory and to ensure the defeat of Russian President Vladimir Putin?
It’s an important question, because it makes us think about why Ukraine is fighting and why we’re supporting that fight. The question was part of a commentary yesterday by CNN analyst Stephen Collinson and for me the answer is almost a no-brainer: Ukraine could “survive” as a smaller nation, a gravely damaged nation, with both sides’ forces frozen in place where they are right now. But that would leave Russia in control of whatever territory it stole (and hasn’t lost back to the Ukrainians) when it invaded only three weeks short of a year ago. That would just be wrong. It would also leave Mr. Putin with the impression that he can get away with murder.
So the answer has to be defeat. Defeat for Putin’s ambitions, defeat for Russia’s army. And that leads to my own question: is defeat an attainable option?
True, the Ukrainians have fought fiercely and fearlessly.
They have surpassed every expectation. But the Russians still outnumber them and, so far at least— pending the delivery of a wide range of new weaponry from the West— the Russians still outgun them in the air and on the ground. Furthermore, although Ukraine fights with the intangible grit of an underdog, Russia has a weapon Ukraine hasn’t used: an absolute disregard for human life, not just the lives of Ukraine’s non-combatant civilians but the lives of its own conscripted troops.
How do you beat an enemy that aims missiles at civilian apartment buildings, an enemy that sends soldiers into firefights in human waves? As a Ukrainian commander said on television this week from Bakhmut, one of the eastern cities currently under siege, “They are just coming forward; they do not take cover, they are coming all-out.”
With the battles raging right now in that part of the country, new estimates— mainly based on satellite imagery and intercepted radio and email communications— put Russian casualties as high as almost 200,000.
But it’s important to note that more than eight million Soviet soldiers died in World War II, so for a nation steeped in a history of suffering, losing a few hundred thousand in Ukraine might not break Russia’s back. What’s more, Ukraine has a total population of about 44 million. Russia’s is 144 million, so it still has human cannon fodder in reserve.
There also are estimates of the number of new Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders for a Winter/Spring offensive. According to the secretary general of NATO, more than 200,000 fresh soldiers are positioning themselves for the next fight, “and potentially even more than that.”
Western strategists believe Russia’s goal in saturating the combat zone is to force Ukraine to redirect resources in one direction while it attacks from another. CIA director William Burns said this week, “The key is going to be on the battlefield in the next six months.” The head of Ukraine’s national security council predicted, “The main fights are yet to come.” President Zelensky said Thursday, “I think it has started.”
Which brings me back to the question, can we stop Russia? And the answer might be, not at the present pace.
That’s why former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul argues, we have to pick up the pace. He wrote this week in Foreign Affairs, “At this stage, incrementally expanding military and economic assistance is likely to only prolong the war indefinitely… It needs to be provided swiftly, so that Ukraine can win decisively on the battlefield this year. Without greater and immediate support, the war will settle into a stalemate, which is only to Putin’s advantage. In the end, the West will be judged by what happened during the last year of the war, not by what happened in the first.”
He’s talking about the artillery. He’s talking about the bombs. He’s talking about the missiles. He’s talking about the tanks.
Taking their cues from the United States, our allies have stepped up in their pledges to put more advanced weapons in Ukraine’s hands. McFaul’s point is, it isn’t happening fast enough. The Russians are about to throw all their resources at Ukraine and if we want to see them defeated, we have to step up the caliber of weapons and pace of deliveries even more.
And that includes airplanes. Ukraine is now also asking for F-16s to neutralize Russian artillery and provide cover for its troops on the ground. However, when President Biden was asked Monday if he’d be sending F-16s to the Ukrainian Air Force, he said “no.” What that means is no F-16s from the U.S., and because any other country with F-16s would need American approval to transfer them to Ukraine, none from the allies either.
But “no” might not be the final word. Ukraine’s defense minister, mindful of hard negotiations to finally get advanced weapons like Patriot missiles and Abrams tanks, says, “All types of help first passed through the ‘no’ stage.”
Putin is back to issuing veiled threats about using his nuclear option, saying at a ceremony Thursday marking a key Soviet victory in World War II over Germany, which is now sending its best tanks to Ukraine, “Those who expect to defeat Russia on the battlefield, apparently do not understand that a modern war with Russia will be completely different for them. We are not sending our tanks to their borders, but we have something to answer with. And it will not end with the use of armored vehicles.”
If this war is to end at all, it will end in one of three ways: Ukraine will win, with or without an accelerated delivery of weapons, and Russia will retreat. Or, Russia will win, with or without a nuclear weapon, and Ukraine will disappear. Or, a stalemate.
And that, according to Ambassador McFaul, would be tantamount to defeat. “If the war in Ukraine drags on for years, so many more people— Ukrainians first and foremost, but also Russians— will die. ‘Stalemate’ on the battlefield is a euphemism for continued death and destruction. This is the cost of incrementalism.”
With the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion coming up on February 24th, pouring more help into Ukraine now, McFaul writes, “is the best way to avoid being in the same place when February 24, 2024, rolls around.” Ukraine depends on it. Democracy depends on it. The free world depends on it.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Yes, the western response while robust to date needs to be accelerated and putin must be defeated. Thank you Greg