UKRAINE: CURRENT FACTORS, SOUGHT DOMINANCE AND POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

 

Currently, as of mid-May 2023 the situation in Ukraine is approximately, and in brief, as follows:

The Russian military has taken a broad swathe of territory in the Donbass directly by the Russian border. The safeguarding of the Donbass region’s population from attack by Kiev forces, which it has been since Spring 2014 is a primary goal of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Approximately 70% of this goal has been accomplished with approximately 60% of the territory falling into the Russian military’s hands relatively easily within the first 6 months of the campaign. In approximately the last 8 months however, progress has been far slower as resistance from the deeply embedded Ukrainian forces has required a much more sustained campaign, including the targeting of many diverse areas of those structures (energy, fuel and transport) that underpin the forward military structures including manpower and weaponry.

The present situation sees the Russian forces (both Wagner and regular Russian army along with the Russian air force) fighting a war of attrition where the gaining of territory is secondary to the reduction of Ukrainian manpower and its potentiality to fight. Ukrainian forces are generally defending, however, in recent weeks a counteroffensive by them has been expected and some signs indicate that it may now be underway in one form or another, currently in tentative and exploratory form in most cases, along the battlefront.

It is clear that the collective west, the USA, UK and their allies in Europe are working to the maximum to support the Kiev regime in its efforts to fight the Russian forces who have been making incremental gains in the Donbass, to refuse to give ground, and ultimately to push the Russian forces back beyond the borders of Ukraine as they were before February 24th 2022 when Russia’s military operation began. And subsequently demand the return of the Crimean peninsula within the borders of Ukraine.

The Russian operation has been categorised by an incremental increasing level of force while seeking at each stage to encourage the Kiev regime to negotiate a settlement, reflecting as its basis the agreements made by the regime in the process of the Minsk Accords of 2015. Pressure is now building within the Russian population for their leaders to take a much more forceful approach by waging a full scale war aganst the regime in Kiev rather than continue in the limited campaign seen to date.

The Kiev regime continue to refuse negotiations, only demanding that Russia withdraw and effectively surrender all gains, a position which the Russian authorities naturally reject. The western powers continue to back the regime in this stance of rejecting meaningful negotiations and continue to advocate a military solution whereby Ukraine makes sufficient gains to provide it with as strong a negotiating position as possible for the negotiations which must inevitably end the conflict at some future date. The western powers continue to supply ever more powerful weapons to the regime, including missiles from the United Kingdom capable of hitting targets with the borders of the Russian Federation.

Having covered the present, what of the future?  

Scenario 1 - A complete Ukrainian victory.

In this scenario the Ukrainian forces mount an effective counteroffensive which ends with Russia losing its access to the southern regions of the Donbass in the neighbourhood of the Crimean peninsula and there is every sign that they will not be able to regain control on any acceptable basis regarding manpower or timescale. At the suggestion of Kiev, negotiations begin which eventuate in Russia giving up all the territory it has taken since February 24th 2022 along with its claim to the Crimean peninsula.

Scenario 2 - A complete Russian victory.

In this scenario the Russian forces succeed in taking all remaining cities, towns and villages in the Donbass region. This comes about through a general collapse within the Ukrainian military and within the regime itself. This results in the general capitulation of the Kiev regime. Following this collapse it is recognised that the remaining territory left to Ukraine cannot sustain itself in any viable form and must be divided into protectorates. These protectorates will be governed by authorities in Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, ostensibly on a temporary basis until a viable Ukrainian state can once again sustain itself. Russia proceeds to rebuild its new territories and provide the new Russian citizens there with all Russian health, education, pension and all other benefits due to Russian citizens.

In this scenario Russia can then decide whether to conclude its campaign with the retention in perpetuity of the four republics, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhia or, of taking all the largely undefended and undefendable land up to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, splitting the country formally known as Ukraine virtually in two.

Scenario 3 - A partial Ukrainian victory.

In this scenario the Ukrainian military achieves the outcome delineated in Scenario 1 but without the subsequent negotiations providing the regime with a result that conforms to its absolutist aim of driving Russia from all the territories it has taken plus Crimea.

Sub-scenarios:

Russia responds to the loss of land through the Ukrainian counteroffensive by regrouping and then taking the fight once more to the entrenched Ukrainian forces. A campaign is fought to retake the lost lands, the end result of which depends on the comparative strengths of the two armies.

If Ukraine, backed by the western powers, manages to resist all Russian attempts to retake the territory lost to it during the Ukrainian counteroffensive then negotiations would then likely be initiated. In this scenario however, Russia insists upon retaining all other territory gained and held since February 24th 2022. Ukraine then has two choices, accept this or abandon negotiations and renew its attempts to push Russia out of all its areas of control within the boundaries of Ukraine as they were in 2014.  

If Russia manages to retake the land lost to Ukraine during its counteroffensive, pushing its forces back to their position before its offensive and perhaps further still then the prospects for Ukraine to achieve even a partial victory at that point appear exceptionally slim. Having suffered undoubtedly severe losses during its counteroffensive and with the western powers finding themselves unable to any longer replenish Ukrainian losses in terms of weaponry it is hard to see how the regime could continue to resist Russian demands that it capitulate.

Scenario 4 - A partial Russian victory.

In this scenario the Russian forces repel the Ukrainian counteroffensive inflicting losses on its forces but in less degree that would undermine the Kiev regime’s ability to sustain its resistance. The conflict continues on the same basis as now with Russia making incremental territorial gains while steadily reducing the manpower and weaponry of the Ukrainian forces. Meanwhile the western powers upgrade and escalate their involvement, delivering additional support to Kiev which delivers effects upon Russia that are powerful enough to allow Ukraine to negotiate effectively. At the subsequent negotiations Russia concedes certain territories while Ukraine does the same. For example only, Russia then retains control only of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions plus Crimea while giving up control of the Kherson and Zaporozhia regions.

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Last thoughts...

The above scenarios all depend on several major factors for their potential unfolding. The most major of these are the use of ever more powerful weapons and the extent to which they hit targets not engaged to any degree to date.

If Ukraine receives the F16 fighter jets it has repeatedly asked for and uses them (or other lethal weaponry) to cause havoc within the borders of the Russian Federation and if Russia responds in kind then major shifts in the above scenarios will inevitably take place. Escalation of any kind rather than movements toward negotiations will move the outcome of these scenarios in one direction or another, culminating in the final destructive nature of the conflicts end when some negotiated settlement becomes unavoidable.