It’s easy to forget how grim the future seemed on February 24, 2022. The unthinkable had happened — enormous Russian forces had crossed into Ukrainian territory, jets and helicopters were supporting efforts to seize a key airport just outside Kyiv, and special forces soldiers, Russian spies, and Ukrainian traitors were behind the lines with orders to stoke chaos and kill the young democracy’s leaders.
The analysts and strategists relied on by news media were taking a universally negative tone. As a CNBC assessment put it on March 8, almost two weeks after the full-scale invasion, the experts “believe it is only a matter of time before Ukraine is overwhelmed by Moscow’s military might.” Only the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security mentioned the possibility of Ukraine halting the Russian advance, while stating that such an outcome would be “a miracle.”
The pessimism was underpinned by a number of assumptions, which have continued to affect the analysis of the war. Here are five.
Assumption 1: Ukraine’s army would melt
Given the sheer scale of the mismatch between the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces, the idea of a Kremlin victory was not outlandish.
The forces used were Russia’s best, and included elite forces and other units totaling close to 200,000 men. The Russian Air Force completely outclassed its Ukrainian counterpart, and Kyiv’s only significant warship was scuttled to prevent it falling into enemy hands. The Black Sea coast was blockaded, and grain exports halted. Cities including Kherson were occupied, while it seemed Odesa and the capital Kyiv would soon follow.
It was even speculated that a rump Ukrainian state might be formed around the western city of Lviv.
But no one had told the under-equipped and (by conventional standards) under-trained and inferior Ukrainian forces. This isn’t the place to detail their extraordinary fightback, though this account of the Battle of Hostomel Airport gives some sense, as does the sinking of Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea flagship.
More than 1.2 million Russian casualties later, including an estimated 325,000 dead and the loss of more than 24,000 significant items of military hardware, the sheer scale of the bloodshed and destruction has outstripped all the Kremlin’s other post-1945 wars combined.
This was not the achievement of Ukraine’s allies, despite the estimated $500bn sent to aid its fight.
The US and its European allies did provide some support from the start, although the effort was far from consistent — when Britain delivered NLAW anti-tank missiles, for example, RAF flights were diverted around German airspace because Berlin worried they might compromise its arms laws.
US, Baltic and British special forces and marines were deployed to assist, and UK staff officers were sent to Ukraine’s army HQ in Kyiv — more than a dozen at one point in 2022, according to former commander in chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Western, especially US intelligence, was also made available to Kyiv.
But the fighting and the grit of the men and the women at the front was never the work of foreigners. Not only did Ukraine’s armed forces not melt, they became far and away the most capable military among Europe’s democracies — a superiority underlined when they beat NATO forces in an exercise last year. Russians may disparage and name-call when referring to the UAF, but they don’t sneer.
Assumption 2: European voters and politicians would tire of supporting Ukraine
This was predicted with as much confidence as the destruction of the Ukrainian armed forces. And was equally wrong.
There has been a blizzard of polling on the issue ever since the full-scale invasion, as experts look for cracks in public support. These are hard times after all, with debt levels uncomfortably high and growing cost-of-living pressures on ordinary people. Populist parties, often with Kremlin-friendly views, have advanced in many countries, and there is a constituency across Europe for ending or curtailing aid to Kyiv.
But it is smaller than the support for Ukraine in every major country. A YouGov poll in December found net support for further financial aid for Ukraine, based on subtracting those opposed from those in favor.
Governments have mostly been even keener to support Ukraine than electors, and policy has been fairly consistent as a result. When Kyiv was predicted to be on the verge of bankruptcy late last year, the European Union agreed on a €90bn ($106bn) loan. The wrangling around the issue, which continues courtesy of Hungary, isn’t pretty, but the result is likely to be positive.
Despite the near-complete withdrawal of US financial support by the Trump administration, surveys show Americans also back Ukraine. As the president celebrates the income from arms sales funded by Europe, and says he wants a peace deal, support for Ukraine remains popular among both Republicans and Democrats, transcending their bitter divisions.
A January poll showed 67% believe US arms should be sent to aid Kyiv, and 66% want security guarantees to be provided if Ukraine makes concessions for peace.
Assumption 3: Russia would go nuclear to win
The fear of Russia using nuclear weapons to compensate for its military ineptitude has shaped Western policy and public fears since tanks rolled across the border. Putin and his propaganda machine love to harp on about Moscow’s willingness to blast and irradiate not just Ukraine, but major US and European cities.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s National Security Advisor, has linked this threat to the US hesitation to provide Ukraine with greater support. When Ukrainian forces defeated Russia’s armies in the south and east of the country in late 2022, US assessments suggested a 50% chance the Kremlin would respond by using tactical nuclear weapons.
The result? Russia saved a 30,000-man combat force and its equipment as it retreated from Kherson. Ukraine had intended to destroy the force as it crossed the River Dnieper, which would have marked the worst defeat for Russian arms since World War II. Instead, Ukraine was pressured to hold off, and the army survived.
Moscow has time and again threatened or hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in response to Western offers of new military capabilities to Ukraine. It is, of course, possible that one day it might follow through, but a threat repeatedly made and not acted on lessens its deterrent force.
Assumption 4: Innovations like drones wouldn’t be that big a deal
Whatever the ultimate truth about the scale and depth of the drone revolution, it has clearly been very important indeed for the fighting in Ukraine.
That now looks like exceedingly poor judgment. As the Institute for the Study of War said in September, after a large-scale Russian attack against Poland: “NATO states must work to absorb and institutionalize this experience the way Ukraine has in order to properly respond to potential Russian kinetic aggression.”
Last year, a tiny group of experienced Ukrainian drone operators using the country’s Delta battle management system joined NATO’s Operation Hedgehog in Estonia. According to the Wall Street Journal, they helped direct swarms of drones against a British brigade and an Estonian division. The attackers quickly “eliminated” two entire battalions and rendered the NATO force incapable of battle. One senior commander who witnessed the exercise was reported to have responded: “We are f*****”.
Assumption 5: Ukraine is losing.
It very clearly isn’t.
The proof is in the peace talks that have been underway for a year. If President Zelenskyy and his government were really on the brink of defeat, it would take the offer of a foreign-mediated deal to save itself from catastrophe. But since the start of 2024, Russia’s maladroit armed forces have taken only 1.5% of Ukraine’s territory.
Instead, Zelenskyy and his people fight on. That’s despite perhaps 600,000 military casualties, including as many as 140,000 dead, nightly air raids, long power cuts through the midwinter, and perhaps $1 trillion of physical devastation.
They are fighting a patriotic war for their existence against an enemy that has sought to dominate and destroy them for centuries. And the theft of children and the daily indiscriminate killing of civilians are reminders of the brutality that would follow capitulation. For Ukraine, continuing the fight — that is not losing — is winning.
Francis Harris is Managing Editor of CEPA’s geopolitical website, Europe’s Edge.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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