According to Matthew Saville, an analyst at the Royal London Research Institute (RUSI), there are no prospects for a counteroffensive by the Ukrainian military this year.
What analysts predict about further changes in the war in Ukraine
Saville notes that 2025 will most likely be very difficult for Ukraine.
He did not rule out that the Ukrainian military will have to cede even more territory before the front line is fully stabilized.
According to him, the Ukrainian authorities need to find a way to conduct a larger-scale mobilization campaign among the youth.
The average age of the Ukrainian army is 43 years, ... which means that Ukraine will have to mobilize more young people, — concludes Saville.
According to German military expert Carlo Masala in a comment to journalists of the Kleine Zeitung publication, the prospects for ending the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine look very bleak for Kyiv.
What I said in the winter of 2022 continues to apply: Putin relies on attrition, less at the front than in European societies. This strategy seems to be working. We see that resistance to further aid to Ukraine is growing, slowly but surely; how the voices that think that enough is enough are getting louder, the analyst emphasizes.
According to Masala, Putin is convinced that the US and Europe will not be willing or able to provide Ukraine with sufficient long-term support.
The political elites should be blamed for not clearly describing the consequences that a Russian victory would mean for democracy, freedom, security and prosperity in Europe. Defensive democracies emerge only when politicians speak frankly with their citizens, Masala emphasized.
The article of The Washington Post notes that receiving aid from the United States will allow the Ukrainian military to stop the offensive of the occupation army of the Russian Federation, but the Ukrainian military itself is unlikely to be able to launch its own counteroffensive at least until 2025.
The staffing situation is a growing problem. And if this is not corrected, then this aid package will not solve all the problems of Ukraine, — warned Rob Lee, a former US Marine and now an employee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
At the same time, one of the representatives of the White House, on the condition of anonymity, told the journalists of the publication that the administration of President Joe Biden is aware of the delicacy of his conversations with colleagues in Kyiv about the personnel shortage in the country.
Who are we to say, "You just need to recruit more people to fight." But at the same time it is a real problem. The laws they have passed in the last couple of weeks will help them, but they need to mobilize more forces and find a way to inspire more Ukrainian men to go to the front line, the official from the White House emphasizes.
A Ukrainian lawmaker, who spoke to WP on condition of anonymity, said they believed Zelensky's statement in February that 31,000 soldiers had been killed since 2022 significantly understated the true toll of the war.
According to the lawmaker, the number of casualties among the military, which Ukraine has long refused to reveal, probably had to be presented as an understatement in order not to interfere with the already difficult recruitment and mobilization campaign.
According to the deputy, the mobilization efforts were also partially hindered by fears about the unlimited terms of mobilization, dissatisfaction with the low pay and fears that the government of Ukraine will not properly care for the families of those killed or wounded.
What they say in Ukraine
Ivan Naumenko, the head of the Department of Strategic Initiatives "Return Alive", said on Radio NV that the Ukrainian military should be on the defensive in the coming year.
No matter how it sounds, in my opinion, we need to be on the defensive for a year or a half, demobilize, train people, dig in very well so that we are not pressed. Just sit on the defensive and accumulate a resource that can then be used, conditionally, in 2025, to carry out some offensive operations, the analyst explains.
According to him, offensive operations under the current circumstances would be a wrong strategy.
To simply "unwind" people and weapons in our situation is, in my opinion, a wrong strategy, Naumenko stressed.
