Russian Objectives 

After the disastrous initial Russian invasion phase of Ukraine, Putin has highly likely abandoned its original goal of capturing Kyiv and has now settled for occupying what has been assessed as its 2014 territorial objectives.

The 2014 territorial objectives were drafted according to what Russia sow as:

• A secure land corridor to Crimea
• Ukraine's major ports and industrial cities
• A potential pro-Russian population (based on Russian language and ethnic divisions and the 2010 electoral results)
• A naturally defendable territory (defendable by the Dnipro River and the Russian-controlled Sea of Azov)

So What? When analyzing the current state of the war, one must understand Russia's objectives to determine who is winning. Western media has reported that Ukraine is winning the war because Russia is retiring from the Kherson area and the Kharkiv regions. Additionally, the media has reported that Russia will not be able to deal with further sanctions and equipment and personnel losses and, therefore, is destined to lose.

In reality:

• Russia has already acquired most of its land objectives (except for the last parts of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia).
• The ruble is currently the world's best-performing currency.
• Even though high casualty estimates put Russian deaths at around 100,000 and Ukrainian at around the same (source from General Mark Milley), it is still a manageable number for Russia considering their number of unemployed potential conscripts. In contrast, it is not a manageable number for Ukraine.

Ukrainian Challenges to Come

Troop Movements 

During the successful 2022 Ukrainian southern counteroffensive, Kyiv likely redeployed troops from Jarkov and Dniepropetrovsk to Jerson y Zaporizhzhia. Additionally, the government is expected to prepare reserves to redeploy to its Belarussian border as Russia masses its forces at the request of its ally. This will spread Ukrainian forces around three fronts - south, northeast, and north - further difficulting any future massive offensive into Russian-controlled territory.

The Dnipro River

During the Kherson offensive, Ukraine destroyed or damaged most bridges in the Dnipro River to deny Russian forces the ability to resupply. Now that Russia has fully retreated from Kherson, they will fortify their side of their river.

River crossings and assaults are some of warfare's most dangerous and complex operations. They will thus likely represent an almost impossible obstacle for Ukraine in the immediate future, considering their massive losses after their counteroffensive.

Foreign Attention 

As the war drags on and winter comes, many western nations will continue to push Ukraine for a peace treaty/cease-fire. Such a treaty will allow Russia to fortify its gained territory above Ukraine's ability to recapture it. It will also allow Russia to slowly annex it by deporting none pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russianizing the land.

Even if Ukraine wants to continue the fight, it will eventually need to yield to the west as it is Europe and America who will pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the upkeep of its armed forces.

Additionally, equipment and monetary support will slowly decrease as the world shifts its focus to other conflicts. As the war drags on, Ukraine also exposes itself to an increasingly bad reputation that will only harm its war effort.

Examples of such include:

• Images of neo-nazism among its troops 
• Video and images of executions of Russian POWs as retaliation
• The public blamed for European economic losses and the increase in prices of gas and food
• Mass casualties due to poor field leadership
• Corruption and its role in the illegal commercialization of donated equipment into the black market 
• Friendly fire incidents (such as the recent missile hit in Poland)

What are Ukraine's Options?

Continued Investment

Some analysts suggest that if the west continues to support Ukraine economically throughout the conflict, the nation will eventually be able to win the war. For this to happen, the entire Ukrainian economy and infrastructure would need to be rebuilt and maintained by the west. As for its military, it would need to be paid and trained for the rest of the conflict and the short to medium term.

Foreign Intervention 

Foreign intervention on the side of Ukraine remains a possibility. Although NATO'a article 5 states that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all," it still allows nations to declare war without involving the rest of NATO. Such action will highly likely help Ukraine re-take its lost territory.

Commonwealth

The idea of Ukraine joining into a commonwealth has also crossed the headlines of some newspapers. Such a commonwealth will likely be similar to what the former southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth looked like. Yet, as things stand, this is the less likely outcome.

END OF REPORT

Image Credit: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons