Ukraine's Top Five Challenges Are Unsolvable

Ukraine's Top Five Challenges Are Unsolvable

Andrew Korybko

It’s beginning to dawn on most Westerners that the US’ long-delayed aid to Ukraine isn’t all that it was hyped up to be and will only at most temporarily slow down the pace of Russia’s increasingly rapid advances. The conflict’s tempo has gradually intensified as Russia exploited Ukraine’s disastrous counteroffensive to regain the military-strategic initiative. Ukraine’s problems are immense and multifaceted, but they’re all connected one way or another to the five following factors:

1. Russia’s Military-Industrial Complex Continues Outproducing NATO’s

Russia won the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO long ago and that’s why it continued gaining ground over the past 18 months. The sanctions failed to bankrupt the Kremlin, required resources for production remain readily available, and sabotage had no impact on the assembly lines. Not only has NATO been unable to stop Russia’s military-industrial complex, but it couldn’t ramp up its own during this time either, thus creating an unbridgeable gap that weakens Ukraine more by the week.

2. Ukraine Is Struggling To Replenish Its Depleted Military Ranks

NATO’s loss in the abovementioned military-industrial competition with Russia, the consequent failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and Russia’s subsequent on-the-ground gains combined to scare Ukrainian men away from joining the armed forces and helping to replenish their depleted ranks. Without enough soldiers, Ukraine can’t confidently hold off Russia’s advances, thus risking an impending collapse along the front. At the end of the day, it’s just a numbers game, and Ukraine’s continue trending downward.

3. Less Equipment & Troops Mean More Difficulty Building New Defenses

The pace with which Russia has recently gained ground in Donbass is stressing Ukraine’s existing defensive lines like never before, thus compelling it to build newer ones further behind the front lines. Although Zelensky demanded this be done late last year, little progress has been made due to the lack of equipment and troops for holding off the Russian advance while simultaneously accomplishing this task. The breakthrough that the Ukrainian Intelligence Committee warned about is now more likely than ever.

4. Political Instability Is Still A Damocles’ Sword Hanging Over Ukraine

The Committee also warned in their same message from February that political unrest might explode next month around the time that Zelensky’s term expires on 21 May. They of course claimed that Russia would be behind it, which he also preconditioned his partners to falsely believe late last year, but this would actually be a genuine response to growing problems. Authoritarianism, corruption, forcible conscription, serious economic troubles, and the lack of a realistic endgame all enrage Ukrainians.

5. Ukraine Continues Thinking That It Knows Better Than The US

The Washington Post’s two-part post-mortem report on last summer’s failed counteroffensive revealed that one of the reasons why it flopped was because Ukraine refused to listen to the US’ advice. This problem is attributable to Zelensky and most recently took the form of him ordering his forces to attack Russian energy infrastructure in defiance of the US at the expense of more tactically significant targets. It’s actually the US’ own fault, though, since their media convinced him that he was a “god among men”.

These unsolvable challenges have converged to create a full-fledged crisis for Ukraine that Commander-in-Chief Syrsky is unable to resolve,which is why he candidly informed Ukraine’s partners that “the difficult operational and strategic situation…has a tendency to get worse.” Unless Ukraine agrees to demilitarize the regions still under its control east of the Dnieper and turn them into a buffer zone, the front might collapse by summertime, which could either lead to capitulation or a NATO intervention.