When a trial ballon was posted on the NBCnews website (Nov. 3rd. 2023), it is indirectly testing the public reaction to the upcoming U.S. and NATO acknowledgment of their defeat in Ukraine, whence U.S. and European officials have had initiated quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.
This comes during the same week which saw a Time piece about Zelenski's unwillingness to consider the real situation on Ukraine about admitting defeat. He was quoted “Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME, (Oct 30, 2023) in Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight.
Further, that same week the Economist interviewed General Zaluzny (his aide: Hennadiy Chastyakov was later killed due to “mishandling of a grenade”) who had optimistically spokeof a stalemate at the military front even while his army is on the cusp of disintegration.
If taken together, these three pieces might well be part of a concealed U.S. administration campaign to concede its defeat in Ukraine while blaming its Ukrainian proxy forces for the disastrous debacle.
That NBC piece: The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
In a sense, these discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and European governance.
It has dawned among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate. It is also about whether to, and the feasible ability, to continue providing aid to Ukraine, these officials admitted.
On one aspect, the Biden administration is also worrying whether that Ukraine is running out of forces, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply, officials said. Ukraine is also struggling with recruiting, and has recently seen public protests about some of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s open-ended conscription requirements.
The problem of the Ukrainian army is an obvious one. It is running out of men and has few it can still recruit. It is difficult to assess the real losses the Ukrainian military beared, but a figure of up to about 300,000 dead and some 500,000+ wounded - many of whom will now be disabled - were often scripted with indepth commentaries in the net.
Finally, as the concerns about Ukraine's manpower are beginning to be acknowledged:
POTUS Joe Biden has been intensely focused on Ukraine’s depleting military forces, according to two people familiar with the matter.
"Manpower is at the top of the administration’s concerns right now,” one said. The U.S. and its allies can provide Ukraine with weaponry, this person said, “but if they don’t have competent forces to use them it doesn’t do a lot of good”.
The last sentence seems to be taken from the Time article which has written:
In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”
Ukraine itself is destroying its own brigades faster than it can generate new ones:
During the last few days, it seemed that tanks from the 47th brigade (Leo 2) and 10th mountain brigade (T-64BM/BV) have been seen, and were destroyed, near Avdiivka. Both brigades had only recently been mauled during their hopeless attacks at the southern front. It does not make sense to throw what is left of them into another battle without reconstituting them. The whole experience and knowledge these brigades had gained will be lost with them.
Indeed, it seems that the whole professional middle-block of the army, the sergeants and young officers, have mostly been killed or wounded. Without them it is impossible to constitute new forces.
Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, commenting on the article by Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, for The Economist, has said that the military should not bring to the public what is happening at the front..... Zhovkva also stated that "one of the heads of the leaders' offices" called him after the mentioned article was published.
"And they simply ask me in a panic, ‘What should I report to my leader? Are we really at a stalemate?’. Are we trying to achieve this effect with this article?", the President’s Office representative said.
These dire situations can only be better analysed if one returns to the NBC posting which sets a time frame to Ukraine to admit that it is over:
Officials also have privately said Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin. U.S. officials have shared their views on such a timeline with European allies, officials said.
Russia will likely agree to peace talks, but more probably it will demand more than Ukraine is willing to give. At a minimum, the Russian would like to take the full control over the five oblast it has annexed, including Crimea, and that there shall be no NATO relations with Ukraine. The current Ukrainian parliament will probably reject those requests which will then lead to further Russian demands.
Kiev has yet to face reality. The Ukrainian state has been bleeding out - financially as well as physically. Its masters have found that their aim at the start of the war - to weaken Russia - has led to the opposite. Russia now has a bigger and better armed military with more real war experience than any of its possible opponents.
Russia has won.
As posted in another essay, For Ukraine: Peace is Possible where according to the Daily Telegraph Ukraine and the West are facing a devastating defeat, a growing realisation emerging that it would be an inevitable probability, "Zelensky’s army no longer has any chance of a victory”, Seymour Hersh in modern diplomacy, 23/09/2023.
The war cannot be won as the Russian army has that asymmetrical dominance, (RAND 2017; and the military situation Ukraine SitRep, as at September 2023 is deteriorating fast; far more than ever, according to antiwar 2023, the Ukraine military landscape is worsening. Indeed, Ukraine will emerge from this war maimed, crippled, and much reduced in both territory and population, as maintained by Chas Freeman.
To complete this special military operations, Russia would most likely demand the followings:
1) Existing annexations confirmed, including Crimea. This would include the entirety of any oblast territory still under Ukrainian control (Zaporozhie, Kherson);
2) Referendums with joint monitoring in a number of oblasts including Odessa, Kharkov, Dnipropetrovsk and Nicolaev to join the 5 oblasts in Russia;
3) Alternately to referendums in #2, that these 4 oblasts would be a permanent demilitarized zone, though can still be a contentious issue because of the West's pride and past treachery such as the failure to complete the Minsk II compliance;
4)Insertion of a neutrality clause into the Ukraine constitution;
5) Outlawing of far right parties including Pravy Sektor, Svoboda;
6) Limits on Ukraine's military including prevention of US, EU basing of troops or equipment especially "anti missile" installations are some of these post-crossborder special military operations considerations.
EPILOGUE
On 7th November, RT reported that
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was supposed to land in Tel Aviv on Tuesday but changed his mind due to a media leak over the weekend.
The Times of Israel also reported on this event stating that Zelensky was “very disappointed” about the leaks, and had wanted the trip to only become public once he set foot on Israeli soil.
As Zelensky tried to canvass his political relevance - not unlike Netanyahu's Israel lost cause (thehill), the coming winter months shall see if Ukrainian elections are needed or not - whether the marionette controller US wants Zelensky to be truly replaced, now that there is another widening MENA war front that is only diminishing US global hegemonic stranglehold; read empire building in hegemonic hubris.
There has been calls (Washington Post) to hold elections despite the continuing war:
Despite Russia’s war in Ukraine and a nationwide state of martial law, some Western politicians are pushing the government in Kyiv to hold parliamentary and presidential elections
The proposal — initially floated by Tiny Kox, the Dutch head of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly — was also pressed by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), during a visit to Kyiv last month with Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The Ukrainian constitution prohibits parliament elections under martial law, but not presidential ones. Presidential elections are prohibited under martial law only by that law itself. A simple majority in parliament could change it.
It was known that “Zelenski had planned for elections to appease his western supporters”, but after a clash with his presidential ex-adviser Alexey Zaluzhnyi and Arestovich, both plausible candidates, it seems that Zelenski has got cold feets but to call the dual elections off.
To Russia, it will still be an Irreplaceable Russia: Fortresses and Bridges of the “Russian Idea” as articulated by Andrei P. Tsygankov; the outside world will still need Russia in the foreseeable future in order to update the ideas of dialogue and global interaction, Russia Global Affairs, Oct/Dec 2023.
Related Ukraine Readings in
csloh.substack: China's "strategic neutrality" on Ukraine;
China-Russia relationship since Ukraine;
Publications posted TWTW:
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4]IMF squeezing poorer nations
5] Smiley commodity chain in Asia semiconductor industry