Big Serge explains why Ukraine has already lost its war:
Ukraine’s overarching strategic concept would appear to be pulling in two directions. Verbally, Zelensky has tied the prospects for negotiations to a de-escalation of the war on Russia’s part (while excluding categorically any negotiations relevant to Russia’s own war aims), but Ukraine’s own actions – attempting to double down on both long range strikes and a ground incursion into Russia – are escalatory, as are the various demands made of NATO in the peace plan. There’s a certain measure of strategic schizophrenia here, which all stems from the fact that Ukraine’s own concept of victory is far beyond its military means. Western observers have suggested that a prerequisite for negotiations ought to be the stabilization of Ukraine’s defenses in the Donbas – which in substance means containing and freezing the conflict – but the Ukrainian effort to expand and unlock the front with the Kursk incursion runs directly contrary to this.
The result is that Ukraine is now waging war as if – as if NATO intervention can eventually be provoked, as if Russia will crack and walk away from vast territories that it already controls, and as if western assistance can provide a panacea for Ukraine’s deteriorating state on the ground. It all adds up to a blind plunge forward in the abyss, hoping that by escalating and radicalizing the conflict either Russia will break or NATO will step in. In either scenario, however, Ukraine is counting on powers external to it, trusting that NATO will provide a sort of deus ex machina that rescues Ukraine from ruination.
Ukraine stands today as a stark example of strategic dissipation. Having opted to eschew anything less than the most maximalist sort of victory – full re-attainment of the 1991 borders, NATO membership, and the total defeat of Russia – it now proceeds full speed ahead, with a material base and a gloomy picture on the ground that is utterly unmoored from its own conception of victory. The “victory plan”, such as it exists, is little more than a plea for rescue. It is a country trapped by the two myths that animate its being – on the one hand, the notion of total western military supremacy, and on the other the theory of Russia as a giant with feet of clay, primed to collapse internally from the strain of a war that it is winning…
Taken as a whole, the events of 2024 are immensely positive for Russia and frightening for Ukraine. The AFU began the year trying to weather the storm in Avdiivka. In the intervening time, the front has moved from the doorstep of Donetsk, where the AFU still held its chain of prewar fortresses, all the way to the doorstep of Pokrovsk. Cities like Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, which previously functioned as rear area operational hubs, are now frontline positions, with the latter likely to be captured by years end. Ukraine’s great gambit to unlock the front by attacking Kursk was defeated in the opening days of the operation, with AFU mechanized elements jammed up at Korenevo.
None of this is even remotely a surprise. The Western media’s coverage of the war has been execrable, ignorant, and misleading, to such an extent that even some experienced military observers were, at least for a time, misled with regards to Ukraine’s chances.
The only real surprise has been how long Ukraine’s foreign rulers have been permitted to sacrifice the people of Ukraine in the interests of Clown World. It’s truly astonishing that the hatred for Russia is apparently so great that the now-openly illegitimate Kiev regime has been able to avoid being overthrown by the Ukrainians.
But the end is coming. Probably not before the end of this year, almost certainly before the end of 2025.