Article Summary: As the Ukraine war enters its third year, the path to victory hinges on how success is defined and whether the West fully commits to supporting Kyiv. While Russia relies on sheer manpower, Ukraine’s victory requires enhanced sanctions on Moscow, increased military aid, and advanced precision weapons for deterrence.
Key Point # 1 – President Zelensky’s five-point plan emphasizes NATO membership, improved air defense, and strategic strikes to weaken Russia’s war machine.
Key Point #2 – Despite Ukraine’s significant victories, such as crippling Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Western hesitation persists. Experts argue that if Ukraine is fully supplied and allowed to strike Russian targets, the war could end sooner.
That 1 Thing: How Do You Define Victory for Ukraine?
Can Ukraine Defeat Russia? The Key Factors That Could Decide the War
As the Ukraine War enters its third year, the world is asking if there is a path for the Ukrainian military to achieve some measure of victory over Russia.
Much on this point depends on how victory might be defined.
However, it also depends as much, if not more, on how Ukraine’s supporters define what objectives in pursuit of victory are even practical or possible.
The last point is becoming of paramount importance in the present.
There is a narrative that keeps being repeated that Russia can eventually triumph as it has many more people to throw against Ukrainian positions in what is called “meat assaults.”
Casualties are high, but the argument is that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he can keep leading his soldiers to the slaughter for far longer than the West is willing to keep supporting Ukraine.
Opinions on how sustainable this strategy is vary, but regardless of that calculation, the war will be won not on the battlefield alone but by what is done outside of Ukraine.
By the admission of retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, sanctions are only at a six on a scale of one to ten, but implementation of them is only at a three.
A dramatic increase in their enforcement would create economic pressures sure to begin breaking Putin’s already creaking war machine.
Victory Plan for Ukriane
Last year, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented a five-point plan to the Ukraine parliament.
The Victory Plan consisted of five geopolitical, two military, economic, and security-related points and was supplemented by three secret annexes.
Not surprisingly, the first of the five points is to secure the invitation promised in 2008 for Ukraine to join NATO.
Some of the other points in the plan involve Ukraine with the military hardware it needs to defend its cities and infrastructure properly.
These run a gambit from supplying Kyiv with the air defense capacities that it still needs to delivering more offensive systems that can attack Russian forces both in the occupied areas of Ukraine and areas of Russia on Ukraine’s border, as has been done in the Kursk region.
Lastly, Ukraine needs to be supplied with a non-nuclear deterrent force. These would be precision strike weapons that would be able to hit targets in Russia that would cause enough disruption to Russia’s economy that attacking Ukraine again would not be worth the cost.
ATACMS firing back in 2006. Image Credit: U.S. Army.
The deterrence package would be comprehensively devastating to the point that Russia would either be “going into diplomacy or going to lose its war machine.
Peace through strength,” Zelenskiy emphasized.
What The West Forgets
There is a constant drumbeat that Ukraine just has to give up tremendous tracts of its territory.
Even some defense industry officials I have met with and retired former senior officers will say Ukraine will just have to settle the war to stop the fighting and “it is just too bad.”
Given the horrific war crimes of the Russians, the murder of innocent civilians, and the destruction of entire cities, such positions seem morally indefensible.
Then there is the kidnapping of some 20,000 Ukrainian children who are taken back to Russia and brainwashed into believing the idea of an independent Ukraine is evil, and they are raised as Russians.
The world also has no memory of the rather remarkable victories Ukraine has achieved thus far.
Without having any proper naval vessels of its own, Ukraine has destroyed a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, mainly through the use of drones produced locally and anti-ship missiles designed and built in Ukraine.
The rest of the fleet has left the Russian naval base in Sevastopol and deployed to other, safer ports further from the Crimean peninsula.
In addition to many other unfulfilled Russian objectives, Putin’s army has failed over three winters to destroy the power and water infrastructure, the strategic aim of Pokrovsk has not been taken, and Ukrainian forces invaded and took territory in the Kursk region of Russia.
HIMARS Training: Credit – Wisconsin National Guard / Sgt. Sean Huolihan. Wisconsin National Guard / Sgt. Sean Huolihan
These and other scenarios all demonstrate that if Ukraine is adequately supplied, properly supported with targeting and intelligence information, and given leave to use its weapons on Russian territory, the tables begin to turn.
As a Ukrainian colleague who moves back and forth between the front regularly told me recently, “it is time for the West to stop talking about what we won’t do.”
Give Ukraine what it needs and make the Russians start guessing about how far we will be allowed to go, and this war will be over sooner rather than later.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
