As of today, we’re encouraging friends who sympathize and support Ukraine. However, it’s the other side that must concern. The Russia-Ukraine negotiation started today on the Pripyat River of Belarus somewhere at the side of Ukraine’s border. It is still not possible to make progress immediately. But there is still a long way from a victory for Ukraine. Its main reason is that Ukraine’s current combat mode relies on urban defense.
After the Russian army entered the city, it dispersed into small teams, and the Ukrainian military knocked them out one by one. But to repel Russia’s troops and make them complete the retreat in their current position, the Ukrainian army must organize an effective counter-offensive. The counter-offensive requires heavy equipment, aerial firepower (fighters, helicopters), main battle tanks, and heavy artillery, and these tools are lacking in Ukraine.
Even if the Western countries can provide Ukraine with some heavy equipment, it’s unlike shoulder-mounted individual missiles, which could be on hand in a short training. The heavy weapons require a long period of training to be proficient in operation, even if the West can provide volunteers in this area: tank drivers, then Pilots also need to run in with Ukrainian personnel to form combat effectiveness.
Therefore, a small-scale tactical counter-offensive can be done by driving the Russian squad out of the urban area. The Ukrainian army is currently unable to launch a counteroffensive that will cause the Russian army to rout across the board, and it will take time. Therefore, the scene that many friends expect the Russian army to get out of Ukraine tomorrow is quite unlikely to happen.
The prediction is that unless there is political unrest in Russia and Putin gets out of control, the war will remain a stalemate for some time. Even if it won’t be as long as one or two years, everyone still needs to be prepared for a few months. Now that the battle has started, we will rely on the results on the battlefield to speak, and there will be no substantive results in the negotiations until it is unclear.
The first round of contact is usually just to recite the position face to face, just to show that the door is not closed, that’s all. Russia’s goal is still the so-called “demilitarization” of Ukraine, which is to disarm Ukraine and not be allowed to join NATO. Then Ukraine is only in the form of independence, under the threat of Russian bayonet at any time, so it is impossible to violate the law. Any order from the Kremlin.
Of course, Ukraine is unacceptable, so the Ukrainian side has stated that it will never accept the alliance under the city. The Russian army should ceasefire and withdraw from the territory of Ukraine before there can be negotiations. Therefore, the first round can only be negotiated without negotiation, and there will be no results. In the follow-up, as the battlefield progresses and the situation changes, there will be more specific results. Maybe Russia and Ukraine will first establish some humanitarian issues and maintain the door of negotiations.
Let’s look at this map of the situation as of February 28. Russia’s army is still in an offensive posture, but it is losing momentum and its momentum has been blocked.
Putin’s strategy is now relatively clear to us. His main attack direction at the beginning was to take Belarus from the north of Ukraine and attack from the northeast. If he wanted to quickly take down Kyiv, he would rely on Crimea in the east and south of Ukraine to contain it. direction, and prevent the Ukrainian troops in these two directions from returning to the capital.
The main attack direction goes in parallel, bypassing the densely populated cities in Ukraine, and winning the capital first. Then send in a puppet to establish a pro-Russian government and order the Ukrainian army elsewhere to stop resisting.
Putin also has such cards in his hands. For example, the pro-Russian President of Ukraine Yanukovych before 2014 fled to Russia after the Color Revolution. He has served as prime minister of Ukraine for two terms since 2002, and as president again in 2010. He has a certain foundation and has a bureaucratic staff. Putin has a black traitor in his hands, but this attempt has been unable to achieve.
Therefore, since February 26, Putin has strengthened the offensive against Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and has obviously adjusted the strategy. Increase the war paint of the Ukrainian people, forcing Zelensky to negotiate. In addition, the Russian army is also destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure. It is reported that the natural gas pipeline was damaged, which is also increased Ukraine’s losses and forced Zelensky to negotiate. Putin now appears to have given up on subverting the current Ukrainian government and directly planting puppets and has turned to promote peace.
The advantage of Ukraine’s side is that after these days, people on earth have understood that the Russian army is nothing but an army of the information age. It is still not an army in the information age. So Ukraine’s vast west, and the passage to the European hinterland, remain open.
Putin has not given up his plan to encircle Kyiv. He wants to cut off the road west of Kyiv, but it has not been successful so far. Then the military aid, living materials, and energy of European countries will be continuously shipped in, and they will have the conditions to fight for a long time. Given time, it is possible to launch a counter-offensive within a period of time. So the speculation is that there will be a stalemate between Russia and Ukraine for a period of time outside the big cities in Ukraine.
If conditions permit, the best thing Ukraine should do is to establish a new military unit on the border with Poland in the west, train a new army, receive Western equipment from Poland, step up training, and then fight back eastward to counter-attack Russia’s army.
In conclusion, Russia’s army has withdrawn in an orderly manner to Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, where the Russians have a majority population, and they can gain a firm foothold. There will be no such thing as being shot in the cold elsewhere in Ukraine, or a bounce missile flying out of some window and blowing up an armored car, not in these two main states. Therefore, Putin has not been reduced to the point where he has only bottom pants and no cards to play. It is also possible that Ukraine will eventually have to accept the fact that the two ethnic Russian-majority states are split from Ukraine.
