The second year of a full-scale war has begun. Can it be the last Yes, if Ukraine launches a new powerful counteroffensive, it will almost certainly happen And if it is successful, everything is more difficult

The second year of the war in Ukraine began The reasons why the bloody fighting dragged on - and now there is no end in sight - are well researched.

However, there is no clear answer to the question of whether the second year could be the last Judging by the current dynamics of hostilities, it seems that the conflict should reach a stalemate and become frozen.

But, firstly, it is not a fact that the hopelessness of the situation will be realized by both or at least one of the parties Secondly, the situation can change radically in a year.

It is unlikely that any of the parties is able to achieve a complete victory, but both can count on a relatively successful end to the conflict for themselves: but the Kremlin is only theoretically, and Ukraine and the West - with good reason What in general can opponents consider a victory? It should be remembered that, in addition to the two direct participants in the war, the countries of the West play an important role in the conflict.

They are on the side of Ukraine, but they have their own ideas about how the war can (and should) end And these ideas, apparently, differ from Ukrainian ones.

Meanwhile, without strong support from the West, Ukraine's victory in the coming years is completely impossible due to the inability to provide itself with equipment and ammunition Russia Before the Russian army was defeated near Kiev, one could conclude from Vladimir Putin's speeches that the Kremlin would be satisfied only with the complete surrender of Ukraine.

Since March, Moscow's goals have become incomprehensible After the withdrawal of troops from the Ukrainian capital and until the autumn of 2022, only the “liberation of Donbass” was clearly spoken of, which could be interpreted as the withdrawal of the RF Armed Forces to the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The second goal is to preserve the corridor from Donbass to Crimea through the territory of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions After the “referendums” on the annexation of four southeastern regions of Ukraine, their preservation under the control of the RF Armed Forces, obviously, became the primary goal of the war.

Giving up these territories (which now requires a revision of the Russian Constitution) will clearly be considered a defeat in the war, which, as Putin stated on February 21, 2023, during a message to parliament, is “impossible ” His deputy in the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, specified that in order to avoid a "strategic defeat", Russia can use any weapon, including nuclear.

True, it is not entirely clear within what boundaries the Kremlin intends to protect the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions by any means - probably, the Russian leadership is ready to approach this issue flexibly At the same time, in the case of two regions of Donbass, it itself deprived itself of flexibility a year ago, just before the start of the invasion.

Then Moscow, after a short period of uncertainty, announced that it would recognize the “people's republics” within the borders in which they were proclaimed in 2014, that is, throughout the entire territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions In reality, even achieving a “victory” in this sense (in the event of a freezing of the conflict, when no one in the world recognizes the annexation) will mean the defeat of the Kremlin.

He will get a worse world for himself than he had before the war: the country fell into isolation, the basis of its well-being - energy exports to Europe - collapsed, the Russian army showed its weakness, Ukraine moved closer to the West both politically and militarily Finally, Russia will have an unresolved conflict with a highly hostile state near its borders.

Four Ukrainian regions and a corridor to Crimea is too little compensation for such political and economic losses But as a “damage fix” (i.

e stopping hostilities to avoid new losses), such a “victory” is theoretically the best the Kremlin can hope for in the coming months and years.

Moreover, the path even to such a result can be long: the Russian army has shown that it is able to squeeze Ukrainian troops out of the Donbas agglomerations, but very slowly and with losses that actually require the recruitment of a new army instead of the depleted old one The first episode of such a squeeze (with the capture of Severodonetsk, Lysichansk, almost the entire territory of the Lugansk region, as well as the city of Liman in the Donetsk region in the spring-summer of 2022) ended in the defeat of the RF Armed Forces in the Kharkov region and near Kherson in just a couple of months.

Judging by the dynamics of the advance and recorded losses, the second episode of the offensive in the Donbass, which we are witnessing now, is not much different from the first Other options for "victory" involve the defeat of the Ukrainian army.

It is possible only if Kyiv or the West (or both) refuses to resist Meanwhile, both Kyiv and the West are determined to win the war, although they understand this a little differently.

Kiev After the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kiev region at the end of March 2022, the Ukrainian authorities decided on their understanding of victory: it will be the full restoration of sovereignty over the entire territory within the internationally recognized borders of 1991 (that is, with the entire Donbass and Crimea) As for Crimea, at first there were doubts whether it was necessary to achieve its return by force or through negotiations (which, even if the Kremlin was defeated, promised to be long).

With the growth of Western aid in Kyiv, they decided: Crimea must be returned by the Ukrainian army This maximalist stance is reinforced both by the successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the battlefield (although their scale does not yet promise an easy path to such a victory) and by the support of the West.

It is not difficult to understand that such a difference in the understanding of a favorable outcome of the war excludes even talk of a compromise between Moscow and Kiev The West The West verbally agrees with Kiev that the country's sovereignty over its territory must be fully restored.

However, there is no unity on how to achieve this goal among politicians in the West There is a (apparent) consensus on one issue: Putin must not win; for unleashing an aggressive war, he must be punished (as a warning to other dictators).

The preservation of the role of the West - and above all the United States - in the future world depends on this Since Putin should not receive any reward for his adventure, the minimum condition for a victory sufficient for the West would be to push the Russian army beyond the line of contact that existed before the invasion; the issue of Crimea and the part of Donbas occupied until 2022 must be resolved “through negotiations”.

These goals were officially announced by the US and British authorities at the end of 2022 - that is, after the autumn offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine A more radical “punishment” for the Kremlin is contrary to the strategy of the West (and primarily the United States): a coalition of countries and politicians supporting Ukraine has been trying to control mutual tension since the beginning of the war.

The United States and allies themselves increase the level of escalation only in response to the actions of the Kremlin So, after the mobilization and formal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, the coalition did not immediately, but sharply increased the volume of military aid to Kyiv and expanded its range.

But the West does not want to unprovokedly move up the “escalation ladder”: this, according to the coalition, can lead to an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict At the same time, the West seems to be more afraid not that the Kremlin, as Putin hints and openly threatens Medvedev, will use tactical nuclear weapons, but that the Russian leadership, under the threat of total defeat, will expand the conflict beyond Ukraine.

As an option, it will hit the NATO logistics bases in Eastern Europe, from which the Armed Forces are supplied This in itself would bring the world to the brink of nuclear war and force the West to negotiate with Russia on an equal footing.

Washington apparently signaled to Ukraine that military aid would be cut, if Kyiv, without the consent of the allies, tries to cross the pre-war line of contact and return the Crimea and the Donbass occupied until 2022 What in the end It is easy to see that a year after the start of the invasion, the goals of the war for all participants were reduced to the control of territories.

The Kremlin seems to have been forced to abandon the ambitious idea of ​​destroying Ukraine as a state (although Moscow still does not announce the new goals of the war) In reality, the RF Armed Forces lack the strength and effective tactics to achieve even the “modest” goal of capturing the entire Donbas.

Kyiv does not leave ambitions to fully restore sovereignty, but at the moment it is not able to satisfy these ambitions because of the position of the West, on which it is completely dependent militarily The caution and slowness of the West leads to the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not yet have the resources to to liberate even the territory that Russia has captured over the past year.

All this, at first glance, promises the continuation of a protracted war of attrition, which will not end in the next year Still, there are chances that the war will end before February 2024.

What can lead to the end of the war in the next year? In the war of attrition that has been going on in Ukraine in recent months, there can be several outcomes: One of the opponents will find himself in a situation of a critical (relative to the other opponent) shortage of resources That is, either he himself exhausts the resources to such an extent that resistance becomes impossible, or the second side will gain access to a source of resources that significantly exceeds the reserves of the first.

In both cases, the losing side will either be forced to seek peace on compromise terms, or suffer a military defeat and accept the will of the victor If both opponents exhaust the resources to continue the war (or if they realize that further spending of resources will not pay off with potential military success), the conflict will be frozen.

One of the opponents will come up with a strategy that will allow him to spend resources much more efficient than the counterpart does Or find a way to just as effectively destroy enemy resources.

Then this side will stop the war of attrition, moving on to crushing the enemy Judging by the stalemate on the fronts, the resources at the disposal of Russia and Ukraine are now approximately equal, and it seems that the conflict is slowly moving towards a “freeze”.

However, the parties - with all the resource and political restrictions - have the opportunity to move on to crushing the enemy this year The level of these opportunities is different.

Russia Having mobilized, the Russian Armed Forces got rid of the main problem of the first year of the war - they reduced the numerical gap with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which basically completed the first stage of mobilization by mid-summer Obviously, it will now be difficult for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack as they did in September and October in the Kharkiv region and in the Liman region - then, after breaking through the first line of defense, which was occupied by extremely weakened units of the Russian Armed Forces, Ukrainian troops were able to advance tens of kilometers to Svatovo and Kremennaya, almost unopposed.

But immediately after the mobilization, new problems arose: the New Army, dominated by the mobilized, created instead of the pre-war contract, exhausted by months of fighting, is clearly not yet in a position to conduct offensive military operations This was clearly seen during the failed February offensive near Ugledar of the brigades of the marines and motorized riflemen of the Eastern Military District, who received reinforcements from among the mobilized.

In defense, the units from the mobilized showed themselves better But despite the general success in the defense near Svatovo and Kremennaya in late autumn and early winter, there are doubts that such units will be able to withstand a more powerful blow from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (and they had many local failures near Svatovo and Kremennaya).

The RF Armed Forces lost their main tool warfare, which she has used since the spring of 2022, both offensively and defensively - artillery fire with a huge consumption of ammunition Increasingly, in the discussions of the participants in the war from the Russian side, military bloggers and military correspondents, “shell hunger” is mentioned, caused by too active expenditure of ammunition in 2022, insufficient production and strikes of long-range ukrainian missiles on warehouses.

The scale of the crisis is not clear (since there is no accurate data on the growth in the production of shells and on their remaining stocks) It is unlikely that Russian artillery will be left without shells at all.

However, it is clear that the Russian army will no longer be able to fight in the old way, firing tens of thousands of shells a day against several thousand Ukrainian ones Artillery is the basis of Russian defense: it stopped the Ukrainian offensive in the Kherson region and helped to avoid the collapse of the front near Svatovo in the fall.

But even more important is the artillery (and the high consumption of shells) for the Russian offensive Thus, sources in the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fighting near Bakhmut note that the tactics of the Wagner PMC assault groups are based on artillery fire to suppress the Ukrainian defense.

The military who took part in the storming of Vugledar point to insufficient projectile release rates as the reason for the failure of the offensive PMCs are actively "wasting" another resource - personnel, which is used as assault groups to push through the Ukrainian defense.

This tactic cannot be scaled to the entire Russian army In addition, there are serious doubts that such an expenditure of human resources is worth the modest success that PMCs have achieved (even in the event of the probable capture of Bakhmut).

The only resource that the Russian Armed Forces are not currently using to the full extent, but theoretically could change the situation in favor of the Russian army, is aviation The Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) still have several hundred modern aircraft that proved effective during the war in Syria, where they could strike from medium altitudes.

But the Islamists from the Islamic State and al-qaeda groups opposing them did not have adequate air defense, and Ukraine still has it, despite all attempts to destroy it at the beginning of the war Starting from March 2022 (after the first heavy losses in aircraft), Russian aviation at medium altitudes is rarely used, even more rarely behind the front line in the near Ukrainian rear.

This makes it possible for the Ukrainian command to freely supply troops and transfer reinforcements to areas where a breakthrough of Russian troops is planned It is with this, in the first place, that the inability of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to conduct offensive operations with a breakthrough of the front is connected.

In autumn, the Russian command made a new attempt to suppress the air defense of Ukraine To do this, the new command, headed by General Sergei Surovikin, began "strategic bombing" of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

The idea was that Ukraine could not afford not to protect critical facilities; air defense forces will be distributed throughout the country - to the detriment of the front and front-line areas Air defense installations will be forced to spend scarce ammunition.

In addition, during operation (that is, with the included radars), they can be attacked by anti-radar missiles If successful, that is, the exhaustion of Ukrainian air defense resources, such a strategy could return Russian aviation to the battlefield.

The West responded to this threat with the supply of its air defense systems But, since NATO itself is experiencing a shortage of such systems (assigning air defense functions to aviation), the Russian army had a chance to win this part of the war of attrition.

In 2023, the intensity of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure has decreased It is unclear whether this is due to the fact that the Russian Armed Forces are experiencing a shortage of missiles and drones to continue the bombing, or whether the military leadership has become disillusioned with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bdisabling Ukraine's air defense.

General Surovikin himself was demoted from the commander of a "special military operation" (as the Kremlin officially calls the war) to a deputy One way or another, the Russian army has not shown that it is able to attack effectively in the face of a relative shortage of ammunition.

The current offensive attempts may only hurt her: by expending resources without much success, she may come weakened to the moment, when the Armed Forces go on the offensive again However, Russia will always have a resource in which it surpasses Ukraine.

The mobilization reserves of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (that is, the number of citizens who can be drafted into the army) exceed the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by several times Due to the inability of the Russian army to crush the enemy at the front, this resource is likely to be in demand again, which means a high probability of a new wave of mobilization in 2023.

But this advantage does not at all guarantee the Kremlin's victory due to the lack of other resources - trained officers, production facilities for modern equipment and ammunition, and, finally, money in the budget Ukraine and the West The Ukrainian command is apparently going to repeat what it did in the summer and fall of 2022 - to force the Russian forces to wear out on the offensive in order to attack them later with the help of prepared reserves.

This is evidenced by the fact that even in the important battle for Bakhmut, the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not use all available forces (most of the brigades participating in the battle are far from complete; there are rumors about the formation of new formations in the rear) Such a strategy carries serious risks: last summer, while waiting for the Russian offensive in Donbass to fizzle out, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost the Severodonetsk-Lysichansk agglomeration, as well as the city of Liman.

They later managed to return Liman, but Lisichansk remains under the control of the RF Armed Forces and serves as an important rear base for the offensive on Bakhmut Now Bakhmut himself can lose the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The most important fortified area in Ugledar, on which the entire defense to the west of Donetsk rests, also remains under threat There is a risk that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be pushed back from Kremennaya and lose most of the bridgehead on the Oskol and Seversky Donets rivers, from which they planned to advance deep into the Lugansk region.

However, the risk may be justified if the Ukrainian army manages to break the stalemate and defeat the Russian troops in Zaporozhye In autumn, the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted two very different operations: In August, Ukrainian troops launched a pre-announced offensive against the Russian foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper near Kherson and Beryslav.

An important component of this offensive was the attacks on the crossings across the Dnieper, which began in July Due to the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not try to hide the preparation of the offensive, the Russian command was able to prepare for it.

combat-ready landing regiments and brigades were transferred to the right bank At the very beginning of the offensive, they immediately stopped the Ukrainian breakthrough.

Parts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses from Russian artillery fire and bombing of the Russian Aerospace Forces A more successful breakthrough in the northern part of the bridgehead in October (when the Russian troops were already suffering from a lack of supplies) was also stopped by artillery and minefields with heavy losses of the APU.

There was no crushing, but the bet on strangulation worked: without the necessary supplies, the presence of Russian troops in the bridgehead became more and more risky In November, the RF Armed Forces left the right bank of the Dnieper with Kherson (the only regional center captured during this war).

In the Kharkov region, intelligence found a weak section of the front It was not possible to completely hide the preparation of an attack on it by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

However, the Russian command, occupied with the defense near Kherson, no longer had reserves to counter the new threat Ukrainian brigades (probably there were more than ten of them) broke through the front north of Balakleya and rushed to the flank and rear of a large Russian group that had been trying to attack the Donbass from the Izyum region all summer.

Under the threat of encirclement, the group withdrew across the Oskol River, abandoning a significant part of its equipment The Russian command again did not have reserves to stop the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the turn of the Oskol and Seversky Donets rivers, and therefore the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured the city of Liman and advanced towards the cities of Svatovo and Kremennaya in the Lugansk region.

Only then did significant Russian reserves begin to arrive at this sector of the front, including those formed at the expense of mobilized citizens who received almost no training Probably, after the completion of the Russian mobilization of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it will be much more difficult to find a weakened sector of the front.

Moreover, such a site is unlikely to be found in the Zaporozhye region, where the Russian command gathered large reserves and built a reserve line of defense with concrete structures, trenches and minefields The situation in Zaporozhye now resembles not what had developed by autumn in the Kharkiv region, but what it was in August on the right bank of the Dnieper: the RF Armed Forces are preparing for defense, the terrain - the bare steppe - favors this defense, the Russian army has an advantage in artillery and aviation.

However, the Ukrainian army in the spring will be stronger than it was at the end of last summer At the beginning of 2023, the West decided to supply hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles and tanks to Kyiv (although not all of the latter will arrive in Ukraine by spring).

Judging by the range and quantities of the promised equipment, Kyiv, together with the coalition supporting it, plans to create several strike maneuver formations At the same time, even despite the “projectile hunger” in the RF Armed Forces, it will not be possible to intercept the advantage in the firepower of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which means that the new maneuverable forces will have to attack in the conditions of superiority of the RF Armed Forces in artillery.

The military in the West, according to media reports, believe that the Armed Forces of Ukraine should generally abandon the use of Soviet-style artillery (as it continues to be used by the Russian Armed Forces) - to temporarily suppress enemy defenses and with a large consumption of ammunition Fire must be directed at specific targets (with extensive use of precision-guided munitions), troops must rely not on salvo power, but on maneuver, as NATO armies do.

In general, the Ukrainian army, in their opinion, should better implement what it did not succeed in similar conditions near Kherson in early autumn The problem is, that in the armies of NATO, most of the targets during the offensive should be destroyed by aviation, which in the case of Ukraine is even more behind the Russian one than artillery.

The West is not yet in a hurry to present combat aircraft to Ukraine - again, fearing to provoke an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict on the part of Russia However, Ukraine still has one more proven strategy - strikes at the vulnerabilities of the logistics of the Russian army.

In the case of the Zaporizhzhya Front, these are the Crimean Isthmuses, along which there are routes connecting the front with rear bases, as well as warehouses in Mariupol, through which the highway from the Rostov region passes The Crimean Isthmus near Chongar (about 120 kilometers from the front line) is now outside the range of Ukrainian rocket artillery.

However, the United States is preparing to transfer to Kyiv more long-range ammunition for HIMARS - Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) with a range of up to 160 kilometers What follows from this? In all likelihood, in the spring the Armed Forces of Ukraine will apply a combined strategy: strangle the logistics centers and warehouses of the Russian group with the help of remote strikes, try to make deep breakthroughs using new mechanized formations armed with Western equipment.

fall, according to Western military experts But this offensive is necessary if Kyiv and the coalition that supports it do not want to wait until the Kremlin has accumulated resources - equipment and ammunition - for a new wave of mobilization.

This can drag out the war even more - while maintaining all the risks of an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict, which the West is so afraid of The task of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could be facilitated by a more daring approach of the West to assisting Ukraine - for example, the fastest possible transfer of combat aircraft (although in any case it will not be in time for either the spring offensive or the summer due to the long training of pilots).

It will depend on the decisiveness of the Western countries how far in the second year of the war its direct participants will be able to advance and what conditions they will dictate to each other .