One Last Push?

The Battle for Pokrovsk continues

Ukrainian troops defending Pokrovsk (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When will the Russo-Ukraine War end? The only honest answer is we don’t know. Neither side is on its last legs. The longer the war has gone on the more invested they have both become in an eventual victory yet neither seems to have a sure route to achieving one. I have argued from the day after the full-scale invasion that Russia cannot win this war. It then lacked the capacity to subjugate Ukraine and that is even more so now. Nonetheless, while Ukraine has agreed in principle to a ceasefire, Putin has shown no interest in a negotiated way out of the war, other than on his totally unrealistic terms.

Ukraine has continued with the fight, blunting Russian offensives and finding reservoirs of resilience that have enabled it to cope with drone and missile attacks against its cities. Perhaps, as Putin hopes, it will succumb to an abrupt loss of will or territory. For now it is coping. And if it continues to cope then only a decision by Putin can end this war soon. What will that take? A sudden military shock or the cumulative effect of a series of setbacks, perhaps combined with the deterioration of the Russian economy? Hard to tell. As we have very little insight into internal Kremlin deliberations then we can do little more than speculate. It is highly unlikely that we will be given advance notice of a major shift in Russia’s position. The only recent signal was the removal of one of the few supposed doves from Putin’s inner circle - Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak - who had the Ukraine portfolio prior to 2022. That suggests no change.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask about Russian strategy and whether it is working. The Russians are not simply trying to outlast Ukraine. They are trying to win. Otherwise the effort put into the constant and costly offensives is inexplicable. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Putin told the Americans that ‘he would take Donbas in two to three months, maximum four months.’ This was in part to convince Donald Trump that the best for Ukraine was to get them to abandon in negotiations what they could not hold in war. But it also essentially set a deadline for achieving his most important territorial objective by the end of the year.

Russian forces are pressed for time, because of worsening weather as well as the Kremlin’s political imperatives. Fighting is underway in several sectors, but the bulk of reported activity in recent weeks concerns Pokrovsk a city the Russians must take if they are to have a chance of occupying the rest of Donetsk. I dealt with this battle in a post a month ago, and it still continues. They have been targeting it for well over a year. Even if they can’t meet Putin’s ambitious timetable, capturing Pokrovsk would give them something to show for the year’s effort.

Hence the sense of ‘one last push,’ that is starting to surround their efforts in this area, with reports suggesting that troops, and even armour, are being amassed for yet another offensive. If this is the case then we might be on the verge of some of the toughest fighting of the war. If the big push succeeds Putin will feel vindicated and there will be no thoughts of concessions to cut a quick deal. Alternatively, if Russian forces struggle to generate momentum and Pokrovsk stays in Ukrainian hands then there might even be a reappraisal in Moscow. The stakes are high.