It's become abundantly clear that Ukraine's counteroffensive won't produce quick results. And Western governments could be supporting Ukraine into 2025.
Ukraine's forces are confronting extensive Russian defensive fortifications along a 600-mile front line, and the counteroffensive is unlikely to go Ukraine's way this year.Ukraine will have to make choices over how the war ends and what that looks like, and a frozen conflict seems the most likely scenario.
It's become clear that the counteroffensive won't produce quick results and that success — however that might be measured in terms of retaking Russian-occupied territory — is not guaranteed. "By the end of this year, both sides will think they still have more to gain by fighting. Russia cannot give up, it can't lose, because of the desperate consequences for the Russian regime, and Ukraine has not run out of the will to fight and isn't prepared to give up the territory that's been occupied, it just wants more help to take it back. And that will take us into 2024 and possibly into 2025," he added.
Since the counteroffensive was launched in June, only a handful of villages have been recaptured. And while Ukraine's Defense Ministry says its forces have made advances near Bakhmut in Donetsk in the east, and have retaken 204.7 square kilometers of territory in the south, its troops face an immense challenge trying to break through Russian defenses in a bid to advance south toward the port cities of Berdyansk and Melitopol on the Sea of Azov.
One of Ukraine's main aims is to sever the Russian "land bridge" that stretches from Russia and across the occupied part of southern Ukraine to Crimea, but that's an area where Russia's fortifications are among the heaviest. "Clearly, from a Ukrainian perspective, you've got to at least have some significant successes so that you can go to NATO and the United States and say, 'Look, guys, sorry it wasn't as successful as we wanted it to be but with the weapons you've given us ...
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