Daniel R. DePetris
Outside of a Ukrainian offensive in Russia's Kursk region that began over the summer, surprised the Kremlin, and forced the Russian army's high-command to scramble a defense inside its own territory, Moscow now holds the advantage in the nearly three-year long war. Russian troops continue to maul Ukrainian defensive positions in Donetsk, with the critical transportation hub of Pokrovsk increasingly under threat of encirclement. The Kursk operation, which the Ukrainian government hoped would re-allocate Russian forces away from the east, has instead devolved into another attritional grind, with Ukrainians at the front increasingly questioning whether the offensive was a smart play.
Support for a full Ukrainian military victory, meanwhile, is getting more precarious in Europe with every passing day. According to a poll released in late December, backing for a negotiated end to the war has risen in Sweden, Denmark, the U.K., Germany, Spain, France, and Italy over the last 12 months. All of this, combined with Donald Trump's return to the White House on Jan. 20, is having an impact on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's calculations. The same man who once insisted that nothing short of total victory over Russia was acceptable is now talking about forging a settlement that would allow Moscow to retain the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine it now occupies, albeit temporarily.
Just because Ukraine is struggling doesn't mean Russia is close to victory. Despite what Russian President Vladimir Putin may tell the Russian public during his monotonous press conferences and New Years Day speeches, everything isn't going well in the motherland.
There's no disputing that militarily, the Russians are on the upswing. Russia captured approximately 1,500 miles of territory in 2024, seven times more than 2023, the year when Putin had to fight back an internal rebellion from Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner mercenary group as well as a Western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive. But gains on the ground have come at an extremely high cost. While assessing casualties during wartime is more art than science, it's safe to say that hundreds of thousands of Russians have been lost to death or injury since the war began in February 2022. In October, the U.S. intelligence community stated that Russia sustained at least 600,000 casualties; Kyiv says the Russians have lost more than 430,000 over the last 12 months alone.
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