Otherwise RU would just press its relative advantage as far as it can. Hoping in meantime to undermine fully moral inside&outside Ukraine to force its maximalist terms of settlement.

End of thread 🧵

Thus war dynamics&correlation of forces for foreseeable future unfortunately exclude any quick settlement based on mutual compromises as Marco Rubio hints all along. First UA hand needs to be strengthened to force a major strategic reassessment among RU leadership.

In general RU leadership proceed from assumption that RU can sustain current casualty intensive military strategy for at least 1-1,5 years. Which translates into RU maximalist pol demands which equal to UA surrender. RU is so overconfident that it doesn’t hide desire to crush UA.

With exception of UA Kursk offensive RU has possessed overall battlefield initiative since Oct 2023. In 2024 despite staggering loses RU managed to occupy 3,6K square km of UA territory exploiting UA C2&personnel problems, gap in US aid&by some tactical&technological adjustments.

Thus far war&strategic dynamics is far cry from situation when both sides are so exhausted to be ready for compromise deal given no one ability to advance further quickly and in major scale. Quite the opposite - RU operates on the assumption that it can improve its bargaining power.

That’s things we need to accept and in 2024 campaign plan bring into balance political&military considerations while looking technological&tactical solutions which finally change offensive-defensive balance back in offensive favour as gen Zaluzhniy suggested.

That’s why in June 2023 UA faced a kind of strat zugzwang. As it happened doing a classic offensive people expected out of UA proved to be a challenge. At the same time it’s hard to imagine that UA would dare to say “We are not going to do offensive as we deem it too risky”.

So West basically expected things UA Defense Forces would find it hard to deliver with all the negative consequences for sustaining long term military aid for UA.

There is another problem - trap of West expectations UA got into. As partners finally decided in Jan 2023 to establish offensive specific grouping of forces&provided weaponry RU created defense in depth+obstacles which only reinforced defense-offensive balance in defence favour.

This tension between political&military dimension is one of themes in gen Zaluzhniy piece for The Economist. UA Commander in Chief admitted that politically UA needs to advance. But militarily it’s a challenge with number&sophistication of technology UA Forces currently possess.

But militarily offensive in this war is a challenge with “offensive-defensive balance” favouring defense. It’s much easier to detect&strike opponent concentration of forces than creating such concentration and applying it which is required for successful offensive action.

In 2023 campaign politically UA had to do classic offensive operation to liberate its people&territories. Staying just defensive was no more enough. Cause if it’s only defensive mode it means pressure on UA to freeze frontline with first hints on freezing out of US in Nov 2022.

In 2022 UA campaign there was kind of perfect match between political goals, mil capabilities&combat performance. Politically strat defense with counterattacks was just fine. And for this UA had proper capabilities&combat performance. Front dynamics in 2022 reflected this match.

The major problem for UA mil strategy that in 2023 campaign (unlike in 2022 campaign) political goals, military capabilities and combat performance have not been in balance. Moreover there was a tension between political&military dimension. Let’s see this contrast in detail.