Politico: Biden admin isn’t fully convinced Ukraine can win, even with new aid

[Open Source Intelligence]

Depends on the definition of “win”. If by “win” they mean Ukraine regaining all occupied territory then obviously they all know this isn’t happening and simply lie to their audience about stuff like Crimea becoming Ukrainian again lol

The hope that I believe they might really have is about stopping things on the current line or retarding Russian advance as most as possible. The war cannot go forever though as human resources are naturally limited.

From Ukraine's perspective just holding current lines defensively is a loss though. I think that more or less is the endgame, but the political leadership is not there yet at least in public. It's why I'm more interested what's getting said privately.

The CORRECT path was ensuring a peace deal from the beginning in the invasion but I also believe the correct timing for this has long passed and Russia will never take this now that they have the upper hand and time and numbers (human capital) are in their favor.

You can't push peace when neither side wants it.

Ukraine were invaded and took valid actions to defend their country and homeland, they're just the war has aged, they're exhausting inventory and personnel, and are on the back foot. Back in 2014 and in early 2022 they lost sections of their territory equivalent in size to a country the size of Hungary, have held their lines mostly for the last 2 years to where the conflict resembled stalemate, have been unable to change operational reality on the front lines, their planned offensive against Russia did not achieve aims, and the Russians have started making marginal gains the past 6 months. Just yesterday the naturally Ukraine-friendly ISW said the Russians are busting out northwest of Avdiivka (we're talking 5 km but that's a large gain in context of most of the last 2 years) and the Ukrainians may need to withdraw to more defensible lines.

Ukraine is the Poland of this century that believed that it would be seen as equals by either of the sides when it’s seen as “lesser” by both. It’s now paying the price for their leader stupidity on the matter.

Fair.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Ukraine was never going to reclaim all its territory back. Even the land it did reclaim was Russia withdrawing to consolidate forces elsewhere.

Ukraine fought bravely, no doubt. The best case scenario is for President Biden to win re-election and for a negotiated settlement in Jan 2025 where Russia withdraws to Feb 2022 position.

I don't see that happening unless they're forced considering they've annexed the 4 oblasts already and are running them administratively.

I do see in my mind Biden if still in power pushing something to the public the equivalent of "Mission Accomplished" saying "WE WON!" because that's all American politics is now is managing public perception.

[Open Source Intelligence]

I don't see that happening unless they're forced considering they've annexed the 4 oblasts already and are running them administratively.

     Interestingly, negotiating a peace on terms that are clearly a loss for Russia (e.g. Feb 2022 borders) would drastically increase the chances of Putin being removed since in doing so he will have proven himself to be a weak leader. We should not pretend that he fails to realize this.

Right, there's no peace because it's not in either political leadership's interest to do so. We're either going to get complete victory for one side - which won't happen unless the scale of warfare increases a few levels from either side, or we're going to get a negotiated peace that both sides accept. We're not there yet, so war continues. If one side keeps fighting when they're running out of people and resources, they'll imitate Germany circa-1944/45.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Good thing this aid passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses, so Trump can't single-handedly put a stop to it is he wins in November!

If Trump wins and Congress passes aid over his veto threats, he will try to defy Congress and simply decline to send the authorized aid, or to deliberately do so much more slowly than intended (maybe he sends in in a few years after it is passed or something, after it is too late).

Trump attempted to freeze/delay/limit aid to Ukraine in his first term (related to his first impeachment, among other things) and will try to do so again. In a second term, he would also be less constrained and more able to simply ignore checks upon him that Congress or the courts try to impose.

Trump wins I think we'd get peace relatively quick (due to removal of aid) and it would serve Zelenskyy and the rest of NATO pretty well to blame him for the loss. Although realistically it's not that different from the fall of South Vietnam and the Afghan government in 2021 where ironically Biden said he did not want to leave that war to fight for another American President.

Biden wins everyone in the West would lose their scapegoat for the loss and any Ukrainian defeat or negotiated peace that leaves the Ukrainians a little bitter on what they have to accept from 2025-29 would be forced to find another host to blame. Think of it as a sports team in the final and they lose their star player right before due to injury. "Ah, well of course we were going to lose." If there's no injury and they lose anyway, it leads to more probing questions.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Good thing this aid passed with veto-proof majorities in both houses, so Trump can't single-handedly put a stop to it is he wins in November!

If Trump wins and Congress passes aid over his veto threats, he will try to defy Congress and simply decline to send the authorized aid, or to deliberately do so much more slowly than intended (maybe he sends in in a few years after it is passed or something, after it is too late).

Trump attempted to freeze/delay/limit aid to Ukraine in his first term (related to his first impeachment, among other things) and will try to do so again. In a second term, he would also be less constrained and more able to simply ignore checks upon him that Congress or the courts try to impose.

Trump wins I think we'd get peace relatively quick and it (due to removal of aid) and it would serve Zelenskyy and the rest of NATO pretty well to blame him for the loss. Although realistically it's not that different from the fall of South Vietnam and the Afghan government in 2021 where ironically Biden said he did not want to leave that war to fight for another American President.

Biden wins everyone in the West would lose their scapegoat for the loss and any Ukrainian defeat or negotiated peace that leaves the Ukrainians a little bitter on what they have to accept from 2025-29 would be forced to find another host to blame.

Personally I feel that a Korea-like ceasefire is more likely than a formal peace agreement, since neither side would have to recognize the other's territorial claims.

That's so dumb though. I'll always argue in favor of recognized borders should reflect reality.

I could see a formal peace agreement happening that is on unfavorable terms for Ukraine if Trump wins. An agreement involving Ukraine formally losing territory, but surviving as an independent state. Similar to Finland in the Winter War.

Though, I'm not sure Russia would play ball. If they know Trump is cutting or ending US aid to Ukraine, why make a peace deal now when Russia could simply take more territory from a weakened Ukraine in the future? Agreeing to a peace deal or ceasefire in that situation would only allow Ukraine to build defenses and strengthen its military, making any future territorial gains more difficult.

That was why I was making the argument last fall of Ukraine and the West should seek peace then when Biden still had runway behind him where he could react in Ukraine's favor. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Trump, he more or less has a roughly 50% chance of winning in November where the vast majority of people voting do not give a damn about Ukraine. If you think Ukraine is doomed with Trump as President, 50% is a pretty damn high risk if you look at this decision-making from a risk perspective. "Here's the coinflip: heads we might be able to marginally take back sections of Donetsk and Zaporizhia, tails we lose the whole east up to the Dnipro".

[Open Source Intelligence]

I'm no.... miltiary expert, but can someone with knowledge in that area, tell us if Russia or Ukraine are winning ?

I mainly work on Russia-Ukraine issues for my job, so I have a relatively good view of the situation, but I do admit I am biased in favor of Ukraine. Take of that what you will.

Current sitrep, going by the general consensus in DC:
- Russia's initial goals for the war of overthrowing Zelensky and installing a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv are off the table. Russia lost. Ukraine will almost inevitably join both NATO and the EU when all is said and done.
- Russia's scaled-back goals of annexing and controlling Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts (plus Crimea) are still within reach, but only at a very high cost to Russia.
- Both Russia and Ukraine are struggling to maintain the necessary manpower and equipment to keep their various military campaigns going.
- Russia doesn't want to transition to a full wartime economy, and Putin sees doing so as risking significant political blowback, but does still have that option.
- Ukraine more or less has already transitioned to a wartime economy, and is relying on Western support to maintain its military viability for at least a period of a few more years when it might (but not necessarily) be able to build a domestic defense industry to rival Russia's non-wartime defense industry.
- Currently, Russia has the initiative in the war with Ukraine having to respond to Russia's operations, which is good news for Russia, but also an effect of the latest Western support mostly having not arrived yet.
- DC seems pretty confident the new aid package will stop Russia's advances and give Ukraine a chance at some new counter-offensive operations.

- Since the failure of Ukraine's summer offensive last year, Ukraine's strategy has focused less on regaining territory and more on destroying Russia's equipment and manpower and damaging Russia's economy (with things like drone strikes on oil refineries).
- Ukraine has seen some success in this, as evidenced by a sharp drop in Rusdia's oil production and dwindling levels of equipment in storage (i.e. Ukraine is destroying tanks faster than Russia can build new ones, but again, Russia is not operating on a wartime economy).

- But bottom line, this is now a war of political will with Putin thinking he can outlast Western willingness to provide support and Ukraine thinking they can hold the line until either Russia's economy collapses (not off the table, but something that has been predicted many times with only a little to show for it) or Putin faces some sort of serious internal challenge, like we saw last year with the Wagner insurrection.
- Ukraine is also calculating that any resolution to the conflict that does not leave Russia in a worse position to where it was in February 2022 will inevitably be only temporary, since Russia's incentive will be to just rebuild its list tanks, recruit and train new soldiers, and try for Kyiv again knowing what didn't work last time. This calculus might be changed if Ukraine joins NATO, but Ukraine will not be able to join NATO with active combat on its territory.

For what it's worth from my perspective, I think the running assumption in DC is that the war will inevitably last for another year or two and potentially into the 2030s. I was surprised recently hearing from one group of analysts that, even if Russia continues to make territorial gains, it won't be able to support its forces for more than another ~18 months. I've also heard people say it's entirely down to who wins the US election in November. Which is not entirely a campaign pitch on my part, but is mostly just to underscore that, from my perspective, DC is still mostly "in it to win it" for Ukraine and, I think contrary to what sometimes is claimed, would rather Ukraine defeat Russia than degrade Russia in a bloody, hot stalemate.

To the 1st bolded, I dispute this considering we're more than 2 years into this conflict and Ukraine is just now instituting a draft after reports of manpower shortages on the front lines for about 6 months.

To the 2nd bolded, what kind of timeline we talking about? The Ukrainians per the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War are expecting a Russian summer offensive.

To the 3rd bolded, that implies Ukraine has written off the territory they've lost or don't believe they'll ever take it back without external actors. When combined with your last statement of "they'll never be allowed in NATO with active combat on their territory" (which is the correct take), perhaps they willingly cede the territory in exchange. I don't think territory though is the Russian goal and the NATO part is more the real one. Russia's goal in my opinion is to do a version of what the U.S. did to Mexico in the Mexican-American War of Mexico at the end were still allowed to exist, but were completely dismantled from ever being allowed to form a challenge to American hegemony in the region.

To the 4th bolded, I think back to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts for precedent. First canary on this front is not in November, it's the EU Parliament elections in June. They're elections that most are agnostic about and have been used in some areas to be purely a vote to punish people. And all signs are the establishment parties will decrease to where the Parliament's center-left/center-right/liberal grand coalition that has governed forever might not have the votes to guarantee a majority. As far as the U.S., Biden if he wins could easily turn himself into Lyndon Johnson I feel if this drags on a few years if he lives, and if he doesn't live who really knows what Kamala Harris thinks and who her National Security Advisor/State Secretary/Defense Secretary will be. Putin's old if you want to look at "maybe he'll die", but he's still younger than both Biden and Trump. I'd like a better plan however to deal with Russia that's not "cross our fingers, maybe there's a coup".

To the final bolded, how does Ukraine at this point defeat Russia without foreign troops deployed or declaration of war on our part against the Russian Federation? There's hope and then there's realism. Victory at this point has been defined PUBLICLY as Russian withdrawal from all occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. If it's privately defined as something else by either the Biden or Zelensky administrations, that needs to start becoming public. Right now the Ukrainians have a 1000-mile front line with not enough men to defend the whole thing all at once, and they just now passed a draft. What the hell? Those are not the actions of a state planning on taking back Donbass and Crimea, which tells you that victory as currently defined publicly is not realistic. Meanwhile open source satellite images tell you the Russians have made multiple defensive line fortifications for the areas they've taken over.

[Open Source Intelligence]

It probably won’t be de jure joining NATO but you can bet the US will provide informal security guarantees

That’s a bad idea. The Russians would call bullsh-t on that and attack Ukraine again. They can’t have any wiggle room for another “military special operation.”

Then it’s World War Three. We aren’t blinking this time.

Then why make it informal? Why not have Ukraine formally join NATO, or sign a formal mutual defense treaty?

It's kind of Taiwan logic.

"Don't recognize them."

"Okay, we won't." - then proceed to have all the hallmarks of recognition without it being official

[Open Source Intelligence]

I'm no.... miltiary expert, but can someone with knowledge in that area, tell us if Russia or Ukraine are winning ?

- Ukraine more or less has already transitioned to a wartime economy, and is relying on Western support to maintain its military viability for at least a period of a few more years when it might (but not necessarily) be able to build a domestic defense industry to rival Russia's non-wartime defense industry.

To the 1st bolded, I dispute this considering we're more than 2 years into this conflict and Ukraine is just now instituting a draft after reports of manpower shortages on the front lines for about 6 months.

That's not really what happened. Ukraine already instituted mass mobilization just a few days into the war back in 2022 as part of Zelensky's martial law declaration, which has since been re-upped roughly every 90 days. What the recent mobilization law did was decrease the minimum age at which one could be drafted from 27 down to 25, and called up an additional unspecified number (likely in the hundreds of thousands) for service. The reason this was so controversial was (in part) because there are just so few Ukrainian men in their 20s, and there are worries this might cause a demographic nightmare going forward.

I get that, but they have 2 choices as far as I can tell if foreign states are not going to deploy troops into combat roles inside Ukraine: draft/mobilize more men, or run at a larger manpower deficit that the Russians will continue to gradually exploit as they've done so far this calendar year. So you're in between Scylla and Charybdis: either the country's demographic future goes to sh*t or you lose the war to Russia. And if you're not willing to risk the former to stop the latter, that's not a country fully committed to winning the war. This is a hard decision to make and it's not easy, but hard decisions are what is necessary. Dithering on it for months is no different than what Congress did with the aid.

(Frankly, I think all of eastern Europe's demographic future is going to be sh*t, whether they're at war or not.)

[Open Source Intelligence]

Russia pressing in the Donbas is one thing but actually doing a summer co into the Kharkiv area is really risky that could easily blow up in their face and speed up the dreaded “run out of storage tanks and ivf” clock that Kofman loves to talk about

It smells to me like wanting to stretch Ukrainian lines thinner. Kharkiv is not currently a front. If the Ukrainians are forced to defend against the threat of a Kharkiv operation, those troops are not helping defend somewhere else on the front line.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Coming back after much delay to finish my responses here.

- Since the failure of Ukraine's summer offensive last year, Ukraine's strategy has focused less on regaining territory and more on destroying Russia's equipment and manpower and damaging Russia's economy (with things like drone strikes on oil refineries).

To the 3rd bolded, that implies Ukraine has written off the territory they've lost or don't believe they'll ever take it back without external actors. When combined with your last statement of "they'll never be allowed in NATO with active combat on their territory" (which is the correct take), perhaps they willingly cede the territory in exchange. I don't think territory though is the Russian goal and the NATO part is more the real one. Russia's goal in my opinion is to do a version of what the U.S. did to Mexico in the Mexican-American War of Mexico at the end were still allowed to exist, but were completely dismantled from ever being allowed to form a challenge to American hegemony in the region.

I didn't mean to say Ukraine had given up on capturing territory permanently, just that they recognized they weren't in a position to take territory after the end of their last counter-offensive and before the new equipment/mobilized soldiers arrived. It's an operation shift, not a shift in strategic objectives. I disagree that Russia's goal is to keep Ukraine neutralized over territorial gains, though. This is definitely a common take in the West, but I personally have never seen any indication that Putin has decided that this is a war over alliances more than a war over territory and culture. He even famously ignored the question of NATO expansion in his interview with Tucker, even when given the most leading possible questions on it. Russia had pretty minimal reaction to Finland joining NATO, which in theory poses pretty much the same strategic threats and constraints on Russia as Ukraine joining. This is different from Georgia, where I think you're right that it was about keeping the country out of NATO, and even Ukraine 2014, which was about trying to keep Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence and out of NATO and the EU. But if you read the most pro-war voices in Russia, they never put this conflict in terms of "keeping Ukraine neutral" or out of NATO. It's 100% "These are Russians who have lost their way, and until Russia marches on Kyiv and forces their submission, they will forever be under Ukronazi oppression."

- But bottom line, this is now a war of political will with Putin thinking he can outlast Western willingness to provide support and Ukraine thinking they can hold the line until either Russia's economy collapses (not off the table, but something that has been predicted many times with only a little to show for it) or Putin faces some sort of serious internal challenge, like we saw last year with the Wagner insurrection.

To the 4th bolded, I think back to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts for precedent. First canary on this front is not in November, it's the EU Parliament elections in June. They're elections that most are agnostic about and have been used in some areas to be purely a vote to punish people. And all signs are the establishment parties will decrease to where the Parliament's center-left/center-right/liberal grand coalition that has governed forever might not have the votes to guarantee a majority. As far as the U.S., Biden if he wins could easily turn himself into Lyndon Johnson I feel if this drags on a few years if he lives, and if he doesn't live who really knows what Kamala Harris thinks and who her National Security Advisor/State Secretary/Defense Secretary will be. Putin's old if you want to look at "maybe he'll die", but he's still younger than both Biden and Trump. I'd like a better plan however to deal with Russia that's not "cross our fingers, maybe there's a coup".

I agree with all of this with two caveats: Putin is younger than Biden or Trump, but still a full seven years beyond the life expectancy for a man in Russia. Granted, he doesn't drink and has access to the best healthcare, but that's the equivalent of either Biden or Trump being 86, so it does behoove us to have plans in place for Putin's death and not take him continuing to live for a while as a given. Also, I think all signs point to a significant power struggle after Putin's death. That's not to say there will be a coup or a civil war, but even the recent reshuffle of Belousov replacing Shoigu replacing Patrushev had the effect of leveling the playing field in a hypothetical power struggle, rather than Putin making a hand-picked successor clear. He may still do this, but there are a lot of people in Russia with troops who answer to them that may want to challenge his decision after he's gone.

from my perspective, DC is still mostly "in it to win it" for Ukraine and, I think contrary to what sometimes is claimed, would rather Ukraine defeat Russia than degrade Russia in a bloody, hot stalemate.

To the final bolded, how does Ukraine at this point defeat Russia without foreign troops deployed or declaration of war on our part against the Russian Federation? There's hope and then there's realism. Victory at this point has been defined PUBLICLY as Russian withdrawal from all occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. If it's privately defined as something else by either the Biden or Zelensky administrations, that needs to start becoming public. Right now the Ukrainians have a 1000-mile front line with not enough men to defend the whole thing all at once, and they just now passed a draft. What the hell? Those are not the actions of a state planning on taking back Donbass and Crimea, which tells you that victory as currently defined publicly is not realistic. Meanwhile open source satellite images tell you the Russians have made multiple defensive line fortifications for the areas they've taken over.

You'll get different answers to what victory means depending on who you ask, but victory in my mind, and in the mind of most people I work with on this, means degrading Russia's ability to fight to the point that it is dissuaded from any further military operations against Ukraine or its other neighbors. What this looks like is hard to say, but it does not look like Ukraine marching on Moscow, and Ukraine forcibly taking all the territory it has lost since 2013 is basically a 1:million best case scenario for them. If you want me to name one concrete scenario of what this might look like, it would be something like Ukraine having very successful counter-offensives that cut the Crimean landbridge, trying to cut off all access to Crimea by train, car, boat, and plane over the span of several years, and then negotiating an exchange of Russian withdrawal from all or most of the Donbas in exchange for ending the Crimean blockade, recognizing Russian control over Crimea, and an end to most international sanctions against Russia. Will that happen? Probably not, but that's one "Ukraine victorious" scenario that doesn't involve a return to 2013 borders or military capabilities well above what we've seen Ukraine manage in the past. And unfortunately, you're not going to get public declarations of specific acceptable scenarios from leadership because, as Trump likes to say but not practice, you don't want to tell your enemies exactly what you're planning and what your terms are before you try to cut a deal. If Russia senses the West or Ukraine is scaling back their goals, it will show him the attrition is working and he just needs to fight another year or two before we totally give up on Ukraine.


Also, just want to say these are all great points you brought up, and just because I have different views doesn't mean I don't respect your argument or that I don't think you could end up being right. Like I said, this is stuff I just have to think about every day, and I want to be able to articulate my views as best as possible.

First, I appreciate your responses.

You'll get different answers to what victory means depending on who you ask, but victory in my mind, and in the mind of most people I work with on this, means degrading Russia's ability to fight to the point that it is dissuaded from any further military operations against Ukraine or its other neighbors.

That's a recipe for when this is all done and over with, the Ukrainians will hate us. If Ukraine in the end lose Crimea and the majority of 4 oblasts (that's the current status quo, as of end of April per Militaryland: all of Crimea, 72% of Kherson, 98% of Luhansk, 58% of Donetsk, 72% of Zaporizhzhia, 2% of Kharkiv, 0.5% of Mykolaiv, which comes out to 17% of the whole country), have hundreds of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands displaced, perform this massive infrastructure rebuilding effort that spitballing should take 20 years, and then have a West that says "hey, we won, Russian military capacity has been curtailed", I'd be pissed too. I've had an armchair analysis sense of the Italians and Germans post-World War I for Ukraine for some time now.

And unfortunately, you're not going to get public declarations of specific acceptable scenarios from leadership because, as Trump likes to say but not practice, you don't want to tell your enemies exactly what you're planning and what your terms are before you try to cut a deal.

I understand that, but our government is spending a lot of money on the basis of false promises.

Also, I think all signs point to a significant power struggle after Putin's death. That's not to say there will be a coup or a civil war, but even the recent reshuffle of Belousov replacing Shoigu replacing Patrushev had the effect of leveling the playing field in a hypothetical power struggle, rather than Putin making a hand-picked successor clear. He may still do this, but there are a lot of people in Russia with troops who answer to them that may want to challenge his decision after he's gone.

Post-Putin is a great topic that I feel like no one really discusses. I imagine some Kremlinologist think tanks in Washington are, but it does not get out in public.

I read Michael Every of Rabobank some, he's an economist and he always focuses on geopolitical issues. His take on the Belousov appointment was it was to get a person in charge of defense with an economic grounding to improve Russia's industrial capabilities for wartime, i.e. they're not preparing for peace. Every then takes that and other geopolitical issues (e.g. Trump's and Biden's team are now both pro-tariffs) to show the world is changing meanwhile all the markets are paying attention to are rate cuts.