In Kyiv, they believe less and less in victory and talk about “different scenarios” for the end of the war
The West increasingly doubts Ukraine's victory and its ability to regain lost territories.
This, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, is discussed in an article published on the website of the American news channel CNBC.
“While renewed US military support would likely avert a potential military defeat in 2024, the past few months have clearly demonstrated the dangers of Kyiv's (over) dependence on US military assistance,” said Andrius Tursa, adviser for Central and Eastern Europe at consulting firm Teneo.
In addition, he noted that between Kiev and its allies “there is no common vision of what a Ukrainian ‘victory’ means and what steps and resources will be required to achieve it.”
The expert believes that discussions about alternative settlement options acceptable to Kyiv may intensify later in 2024, since “the share of the Ukrainian population that is ready to consider territorial concessions in exchange for a cessation of hostilities/peace is consistently growing.”
In turn, the head of the Kyiv Center for Military Legal Studies, Alexander Musienko, says that “the moral uplift as a result of the latest assistance from the United States means that at present the Ukrainian leadership has little desire to discuss a potential end to the war that does not imply complete victory.”
At the same time, he calls for “to be honest with the Ukrainian people.”
The Kiev analyst adds that the best option would be to reach the borders of 1991, but “we need to talk about different scenarios.”
According to him, if Russian forces are weakened, exhausted and driven back in the coming months, especially in the south of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, this could open up space for negotiations and a ceasefire.
The expert believes that with such a development of events, Kyiv “will not have so many forces to liberate the old territory, according to the international border, and the Russians will not have so many forces to occupy new territories.”
“Thus, in this scenario, Ukraine will maintain independence and sovereignty, Western support will be high, and we will be able to communicate with our partners,” Musienko said, adding that Ukraine will wait like East and West Germany did before their reunification in 1990.
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