We can see that the direction of Ukrainian military operations has placed serious doubts in the minds of many of the front-line regular troops, and especially over the past year or so their uncertainty has increased and their morale has diminished.
It is impossible for the Ukraine military to successfully fight on a front which covers not only the whole east of the country, but is now also expanding in the north, an entire front whose length exceeds 1,000 km from the east and may include another 500+ km of Ukraine’s northern border or more if Belarus becomes involved. The Ukrainian forces are already too stretched in the east and cannot re-position enough troops up north. They do not have the manpower capacity for that task. But even though this has been obvious for the last two years and the Russians have gained territory, the Ukrainians have shown great resolve and courage and have kept up the defensive lines and prevented them from completely breaking.
However, now their forces are so stretched and strained and worn down that they are at a breaking point.
During this war of attrition and especially at this latter stage, the Ukrainian armies have been seriously depleted and replacements are lacking, so forced conscription has been enacted. Meanwhile Russia is voluntarily enlisting many thousands of new troops at a favorable salary.
Whenever the Russians break through a Ukrainian first line, the front crumbles in that sector and all-too-often the Ukrainians have to retreat because their second and third lines are much weaker and under-manned.
The only reason the Ukrainians have been able to fight for so long is due to the courage and tenacity of their front-line officers and soldiers, fresh re-supplies of munitions, and a lot of technical help from US and NATO weapons systems operators as well as foreign mercenaries.
The Ukrainian high command has not drawn the obvious conclusion that this war has become unwinnable, and has continued to send formations and re-enforcements to positions which are being tentatively held and to battles which cannot be won but usually result in high casualties. This waste and senseless loss of life has brought Ukraine to the edge of the abyss where they find themselves today.
Furthermore, all those more competent Ukrainian generals who are trying to avoid this disastrous situation find themselves tied hand and foot as they have no freedom to command and lead their troops independently. Instead, they can only limit themselves to carrying out impossible orders from Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky and his closest inner circle of military high command. As if that were not enough, after failing to carry out one of these orders, they are dishonorably discharged as if they were incapable officers, when in fact those who are thus discharged are in fact the most capable ones.
So, in this way the Ukrainian military is further weakened by weeding out competence in favor of compliance and unrealistic objectives carried out at all cost and often ending in failure. With only one or two very minor exceptions in the east-central region, all of Ukraine’s serious, planned counterattacks in the last 1-2 years have failed and been repelled.
The Ukrainian military is desperately in need of a rest and replenishment both in terms of manpower and firepower. Therefore, Zelensky and the EU are pushing for a ceasefire to be able to recuperate, rather than the lasting peace and permanent end to the conflict which Moscow insists on according to its terms. But the US administration agrees to only some of Russia’s terms while the Zelensky regime agrees to none of them. So, Russia says it is pushing forward until all the “root causes” of the conflict have been resolved and it has met all its national security aims.
