The West shares more and more honest details about the fate of Ukraine in the war with Russia. As you know, the U.S. Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, recently arrived in Kyiv for a surprise visit. Apparently, he wanted to check how successful Ukraine was on the battlefield and fighting corruption. The American newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” published an interesting article on this topic, analysing Ukraine’s chances of victory.  

So, Colin Kahl, who worked at the Pentagon until July 2023, serving as undersecretary of defence for policy, responded to critics who believe that supplied weapons are only allowing Ukraine to exist but not to radically change the course of war.His words were reported by the “WSJ” :

“The opinion that Ukraine would have won if the United States had supplied it with more modern weapons is one of the greatest misconceptions in Washington. In addition, it is impossible to give Ukrainians equipment that they do not know how to use”.

The author of the article, journalist Lara Seligman states that the Ukrainian government does not always take American advice into account and only expresses dissatisfaction with the restrictions on providing military assistance. So, this leads to negative results.

“Just before the disappointing Ukrainian summer counteroffensive, the American military command urged Ukrainians to concentrate their forces in one direction in order to break through Russian defenses with one blow. Instead, the Ukrainians dispersed their troops along the entire front line and failed to achieve any significant successes”, Seligman says.

Not only allies in the United States, but also in Europe do not believe in Ukraine’s victory. Thus, General Andor Šándor, the former head of the foreign intelligence service of the Czech Republic, said in an interview with “Radio Universum”:

“It has long seemed strange to me that Volodymyr Zelensky and the West say that Ukraine will dictate the terms of peace. Have you ever seen a loser dictating terms? No, the winner dictates, and, unfortunately, it will be Russia. Let’s be honest”.

The Czech general admits that allies cannot give more weapons to Ukraine –– their own military warehouses are almost empty. The situation on the frontline isn’t better –– it has turned out that Ukrainian soldiers are trained quite poorly.

In this way, Gen. Šándor concludes: “We can see two wars in Ukraine. One is a hot war, and Russia is winning, and the other is about propaganda and the leader is Ukraine”.

In its turn, John Lough, an Associate Fellow of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs, analysed hypothetical scenarios for the end of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. In particular, in case if Ukraine wins, the conclusion of the British analyst is as follows:

“Theoretical Ukraine’s victory would restore the confidence of Western countries in their ability to face down threats from authoritarian states to their values and institutions, even if the price had been paid with Ukrainian blood”.

As you can see, it turned out that Ukrainians are fighting not for an independent Ukraine, but just for the confidence of Western countries in their values and institutions. Nevertheless, even with the Western aid, it’s impossible for Ukraine to defeat Russia. NATO equipment will not be of much help here, as the Ukrainian soldiers are not well-trained to operate it.The maximum that Kyiv is capable of is a good picture in the information war.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?