After six months of war in Ukraine, the conditions for the end of the struggle have been tightened. Zelensky wants the Russians driven out of all Ukrainian regions. Putin will certainly not be satisfied with the current gains in territory. 'What we see as the end of the war,' Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday, on the 31st Ukrainian Independence Day. 'We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory.' Vladimir Putin said a week earlier at a military-patriotic amusement park - where Russian children can storm a replica of the Reichstag - that 'the special operation' will end once the security of 'Russia, our citizens and the residents of the Donbas' is guaranteed. After six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe's largest ground war since 1945 appears to have only just begun. The tens of thousands of deaths between February 24 and August 24, 2022, will likely go down in the history books as the victims of the first battles. The 14 thousand deaths of the past eight years in eastern Ukraine have already been forgotten. Some commentators saw in the agreement on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports a prelude to a cease-fire agreement or even peace. But where in the first weeks Zelensky and Putin were still sending negotiating teams in each other's directions, they now give the impression that the war, can only be ended in one place, and that is on the battlefield.
'We are not going to seek agreement with terrorists,' Zelensky said. 'Having gone through so much, we don't have the right to not go through to the end.' Reducing the Russian army to the positions of February 24 is no longer enough for Ukraine. Zelensky only wants to speak of victory when all 25 Ukrainian regions have been cleansed of Russian soldiers, including Crimea and the parts of the Donbas that Russia took in 2014. Without concessions or compromises, because "those words were destroyed with missiles," said Zelensky, who as recently as spring said that only diplomacy alone could end the war. Military experts consider recapture of Crimea completely unrealistic. But Zelensky wants to convey that Ukraine is ready for a war of attrition. Recent attacks by Ukraine on Crimea should bolster his ambitions. Oleksi Danilov, chairman of the Ukrainian Security Council, called the attacks part of "a step-by-step demilitarization of the peninsula with subsequent liberation.
Ukraine must first prove that it is not only capable of holding Russia back, as it is now succeeding almost everywhere along the front, but also of driving Russia back. The only major area recapture, in the north of the country, dates from April. A counteroffensive toward the southern port city of Cherson has yielded little yet. Russia has moved weapons and troops south in anticipation of a heavier Ukrainian counterattack. Western allies say the Ukrainian military is keeping its plans strictly to itself. This was already true leading up to the war: the U.S. said it knew more about Russian invasion plans than Ukrainian defense plans. Like Zelensky, Western leaders say they are ready for a war that will last for years. Aid to Ukraine will continue "for as long as it takes," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday on Ukraine's Independence Day. The U.S. gave the Ukrainian military a birthday gift of 3 billion euros in weapons. In addition to sending supplies, the U.S. government has now placed orders with arms manufacturers to provide Ukraine with long-term weapons. Included in a short-term delivery are 40 vehicles to clear minefields, intended to give Ukraine a better chance of recapturing territory.
Russia is also preparing for a long war now that the blitzkrieg has failed. Using terms like "denazification" and "demilitarization" of Ukraine, Putin has vaguely defined Russia's goals to be able to declare victory at any time. But now that even the only concretely formulated goal - taking the Donbas - has not been achieved, Putin will not be satisfied with the current gains in territory. He also apparently considers it too early for annexations of occupied territory, possibly because he first wants to conquer the Donetsk province. Russian stamina will be put to the test. The Russian military in Ukraine was at its limit in recent months, the conclusion seems to be since hardly any territory has been conquered since early July. Defense Minister Sergei Shoygoe this week, after six months of war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population, came up with a most implausible explanation: the Russian military would operate more slowly due to measures to avoid civilian casualties.
Putin has put domestic industry in war mode. Russia's defense industry is many times larger than that of Ukraine, but it is under pressure. Western sanctions are making it difficult to produce modern weapons systems that work with foreign chips. Last month, Putin signed a law that is being used to allow arms manufacturers to ramp up production through night shifts and longer work weeks. For a revolt by his own people, Putin does not seem to have to fear. But the further the losses mount (Western governments estimate that Moscow has lost more soldiers in the past six months than it did during the ten-year Soviet operation in Afghanistan), the more difficulty he has in justifying his operation. Even for Russians, "the special operation" is beginning to look suspiciously like a war.
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