Ukraine is succeeding and deserves continued American support

Much of the debate about military aid to Ukraine presupposes that the war is deadlocked and perhaps even hopeless. Russia is spending an enormous amount to convince people in the West that this is true.

But nothing could be further from the truth. The Ukrainians’ bravery, determination and ingenuity have already paid off in dramatic fashion. The more aid we supply, the closer to victory they will be.

Russian made significant territorial gains at the beginning of its all-out invasion. Ukraine was not fully prepared, believing until the last minute Russia’s assurances that it would abide by its international commitments and not invade. But Russia has failed to make any strategic gains since the early months of the war.

Ukraine, however, achieved three massive territorial victories: expelling Russians first from the Kyiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv provinces in the north; then from Kharkiv province in the east; and then from the northern half of Kherson province in the south.

To the extent that Ukraine hasn’t changed the map even more, it’s been largely by design. Because their goal is the complete liberation of their country, Ukraine has prioritized destroying Russian forces and preserving its own over transitory insignificant movements in the front lines.

Putin became so obsessed with the strategically meaningless city of Bakhmut that he sent tens of thousands of soldiers to their deaths to take it. Valuing their soldiers’ lives far more, Ukrainians were happy to retreat gradually and accept this wasteful sacrifice. Russia’s eventual control of Bakhmut bought it absolutely nothing.

To save face for Putin, Russia has been trying to repeat this formula in the southeastern city of Andriivka since October. So far, Russia has taken a few empty fields — at the cost of hundreds of broken tanks and other fighting vehicles, and many thousands of soldiers. To distract from its bogged-down Andriivka offensive, Russia launched a New Years blitz of rocket and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities reminiscent of what London endured during the Blitz.

Ukrainians, on the other hand, have crossed the mighty Dnieper River and are steadily expanding a bridgehead in southern Ukraine that Russia has been incapable of removing. The Dnieper is much wider at this point than the Rhine River was when it blocked Allied advances during World War II.

The Ukrainian military’s most remarkable achievements, however, have not been on land. Although Ukraine has no navy, it has largely chased the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol with missile, drone and commando attacks. Securing exclusive control of Sevastopol was one of Putin’s main motives for invading Crimea in 2014; a commitment to keeping its fleet there is often cited as a reason Russia would never relinquish Crimea. Yet Sevastopol no longer serves that purpose: Russia relocated its fleet to eastern Crimea — only to have Ukrainian missiles destroy one of its largest remaining ships and damage two others.

Relatedly, Ukraine — again, with no navy — has broken the Russian blockade of its ports and resumed shipping grain and other produce.

Ukraine has skillfully used western precision munitions to chase Russian attack helicopters and combat support jets away from bases that give ready access to the frontlines. Ukraine’s proficiency with air defense has made Russian jets leery of approaching the frontlines — and cost them dearly when they have. Russian jets all but disappeared from Ukrainian skies after Ukrainians downed five jets in three days last month.  

Most fundamentally, Ukraine has worn down the huge Russian military with unsustainable losses in artillery, tanks and personnel. From Russia’s overwhelming artillery superiority at the beginning of the war — the key to its military doctrine — Ukraine has achieved rough parity along most of the frontlines with accurate counter-battery fire and drone swarms. Russia now depends heavily on North Korean shells, which often fail to detonate on target — and sometimes explode in the barrels of Russian tanks.

The Russian military is large and its reserves were once deep, but we have already reached the point at which it has few well-trained professional units to send to the front — and we are approaching the time when it will lack crucial military equipment. Recent attacks in the east have relied largely on “meat wave” tactics (using many paroled prisoners) because of the scarcity of tanks and armored personnel carriers — and because of Russia’s pessimism about those vehicles’ survival if brought close to the frontlines.

Putin’s personal identification with the war, and his sensitivity to political embarrassments before Russia’s sham presidential elections in March, mean that Russia will continue to attack as long as it possibly can. We will not see an obvious wasting away: Russia has already mortgaged its future by sending training units into combat and lost disproportionate numbers of the junior officers needed to direct its increasingly untrained mobs of mobilized soldiers.

Russia has already lost 350,000 soldiers, far more than its total initial invasion force. With no room for internal dissent, Putin will continue to order short-sighted sacrifices as long as he has resources at his disposal. 

Russia’s resources are huge, but they are not unlimited. Its ultimate collapse will not resemble Germany’s in World War II — getting slowly beaten back to its own borders — but rather the sudden systemic collapses that knocked out first Russia, then Turkey, then Austria and finally Germany during World War I.

The question for America is at what cost will Russia’s defeat be achieved. Our advanced weapons can save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers. When we sent longer-range missiles that could hit more remote airbases, Ukrainian deaths from Russian attack helicopters plummeted. Having western infantry fighting vehicles has gotten Ukrainians out of old Soviet deathtrap tanks. Western fighter jets can sharply reduce Ukrainian deaths from gliding bombs.

Few people in recent decades have shown a deeper commitment to freedom and democracy than the Ukrainians. Helping them repel Russia’s terrible attack more quickly and with less loss of life is the least we can do for our common ideals.

David A. Super is a professor of law at Georgetown Law. He also served for several years as the general counsel for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Follow him @DavidASuper1.