Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is no longer comfortable with Joe Biden. The American head of state needs a leader who will accept a deal with the Russians
A consensus is emerging in Joe Biden’s administration that Ukraine is barely gaining ground in its war against Russia and that some negotiated settlement of the conflict will be necessary, strategic and technological security expert Dr. Stephen Bryan commented in an analysis cited by Epicenter. BG.
While this has been described as President Biden’s “long-standing” policy, the truth is that it’s quite the opposite — the Biden administration has blocked all attempts to reach a peace deal with Russia, he added.
Biden and company embraced Zelensky for the same reason – Zelensky, who more than a year ago was ready to make a deal with the Russians, obeyed the US president’s national security team and even got the Verkhovna Rada – the parliament of Ukraine – to pass a law that declared illegal any negotiations with the Russians, recalled the expert, who was director of the Middle East subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and deputy secretary of defense for policy. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute.
The United States and its NATO allies poured massive amounts of military equipment and ammunition into Ukraine, provided the backbone of Ukrainian strategic intelligence, trained Ukrainian troops, and sent advisers to the ground, some of whom were killed in action. If reports of a Russian Iskander strike against Kherson on December 27 are true, four UK Patriot operators were killed along with 60 other soldiers and police when Russian missiles hit the town’s train depot, Dr Bryan wrote.
According to him, the Ukrainian army is suffering defeats on the battlefield. Failures are seen almost everywhere along the line of contact. The Russians have forced the Ukrainians to leave Mariyinka, a strategic village in the Donbass, and are clearing villages around Bakhmut, Avdeevka, Zaporizhia and elsewhere, he stressed.
Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, expects the town of Avdeevka to fall within the next few months. In fact, the Ukrainians will either have to withdraw early or find themselves on a suicide mission trying to resist devastating attacks, the American analyst commented.
“On the political front, the cracks are getting bigger. Yulia Tymoshenko has served twice as Prime Minister of Ukraine and is now a member of the Ukrainian Parliament under the banner of her political party Batkivshchyna (Fatherland). She is a supporter of Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO. Tymoshenko says the country is at a dead end and facing defeat,” he recalled.
Politicians who say such things in Ukraine are most often arrested or sent into exile or, as in the case of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, stopped at the border by Ukraine’s secret services. It gets even worse if they cross Zelensky’s path. Politician Alexander Dubinsky has recently been charged with treason, and he is not the only one.
According to Dr. Brian, Ukraine is facing a huge manpower problem as it loses more and more casualties on the battlefield. This week, a war of words broke out between Zaluzhny and Zelensky over who exactly ordered the conscription of 500,000 more soldiers. Zaluzhny says he never suggested that. Zelensky claims that the armed forces have asked him for an additional 500,000 men.
In fact, the number is irrelevant. The important thing is that in order to recruit new soldiers, Ukraine must use violent tactics – abducting men from the street or from apartments, from cars, from clubs, at border posts and anywhere else they can be found.
The conscription age is now between 18 and 60, and a Christmas video of Ukrainian soldiers gathered together for a festive meal shows mainly middle-aged and older men, with very few young people. As Zaluzhny and others have noted, older soldiers cannot perform all necessary tasks because they lack the stamina of younger soldiers. Even worse, many of the soldiers do not want to serve.
The conscription had negative political consequences for Ukraine’s leadership (which is why Zelensky was trying to blame Zaluzhny). This has ramifications beyond Ukraine, as many men of legal age from Ukraine are now in Europe. Kyiv wants their forced return.
Estonian Interior Minister Lauri Laanemets said Estonia could “turn over” healthy Ukrainian men. Other European countries are also considering similar actions.
Ukraine says there will be tough penalties for draft dodgers with fines and prison sentences of up to 8 years.
Other than ill health, there are no exemptions available to eligible recruits. Practically, this means that teachers, scientists, doctors, engineers and everyone else can be drafted into the army. As the noose tightens and the measures tighten, support for Zelensky is bound to plummet, especially in key cities such as Kyiv, Odessa and Kharkiv.
Even with the new mobilization, it would take months to train the mostly reluctant recruits and put them on the battlefield. By then, Ukraine will have lost even more ground.
Russia also has important military and political decisions to make soon. They may come after the presidential election in mid-March. Putin, who is again running for re-election, faces discontent at home over the war. He opposes further troop mobilization on the grounds that there are sufficient volunteers to carry out the current tasks, Dr. Bryan writes.
So far, Putin has not decided on a full-scale Russian offensive to exploit the Ukrainian military’s growing inability to stop Russian attacks. Russian military operations are aimed at establishing and strengthening its territorial holdings in Ukraine. Moscow has not recently attempted to go beyond that task or renew attacks aimed at actually defeating Ukraine’s military and forcing political change in Kiev.
There are three reasons for this. First, Russia knows that launching a large-scale offensive would be costly in terms of casualties and lost equipment. Second, Putin does not want to risk internal unrest that could damage his political power in the country. Third, Russia wants to maintain enough forces to protect Russia from a wider war with NATO.
Russian leaders are aware that if the United States becomes desperate over the collapse of Ukraine, Washington may demand that NATO actually enter the war, using abundant air power and other resources to support the Ukrainian regime, the American expert commented.
As a result, Russian planning is careful to try to limit the war to Ukrainian territory and gradually push the Ukrainians back, hoping for a negotiated settlement and avoiding direct confrontation with NATO troops.
Even in the context of the above restrictions, the Ukrainians are pushed back and the Ukrainian army could collapse at any moment in the near future. Russia is unlikely to accept a ceasefire without a political settlement, as Putin would lose ground at home. Zelensky does not want to conclude a political agreement with Russia.
Washington will watch the situation unfold in the coming days and weeks and worry that the entire war landscape could turn deadly negative for Washington and NATO, commented Dr. Stephen Bryan.
Since Washington’s efforts to try to arrange a cease-fire under the table have borne no fruit, the only choice is either to enter the conflict (which means war in Europe) or make a deal, he explained.
If Washington really wants a political deal, Zelensky cannot negotiate it. He will have to go.
Washington may decide that the only way out is a coup d’état in Ukraine, replacing Zelensky with a political or military leader willing to sit down at the negotiating table with the Russians.
2023-12-30 20:20:28
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