The future of Ukraine’s battle against Russia has become more “ambiguous”

After nearly three years of war with Russia, the future of Ukraine’s battle against the forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin has become more uncertain than ever. US President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the US presidential race, on the back of promises to end the war in Eastern Europe within 24 hours – even if that means forcing Kiev to cede territory to Russia – appears to mean the end of the West’s long-standing policy of Help Ukraine completely defeat Russian forces. Negotiations with Russia – after years of silence – are back on the agenda, and this would cause great pressure in the Ukrainian parliament, says Ukrainian opposition leader Kira Rudik.

Others in Kiev cautiously hope that Trump will quickly realize that Putin will not be convinced to stop the war, and that the next US president will then respond by dramatically increasing US support for Ukraine, beyond what President Joe Biden’s administration was willing to accept.

Former American and British officials discussed with The Independent how the negotiations might proceed, but in the meantime, the great solution proposed by Trump to “end the fighting” remains a mystery to everyone, perhaps even to the president-elect himself.

While the world waits to see what happens, Ukraine is already facing a host of problems. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the country’s army currently lacks the strength to recover about 20% of Ukraine’s territory occupied by Russia in the south and east.

Some of this can be blamed on the US and Europe’s hesitant approach to supporting Ukraine, which has seen a lot of rhetoric but has been measured by a desire to avoid pushing Russia into escalating the war. The use of missiles provided by the West deep into Russia is one of the major decisions that came in recent months, but Zelensky called for the provision of more weapons, ammunition and air defense systems, and their rapid arrival.

The Ukrainian military establishment also faces its own problems centered around difficulties related to recruitment, retention, rotation, and communication between its generals and the fighting army. Simply put, Ukraine needs more soldiers, better training for new forces, and more realistic expectations of their capabilities from senior military commanders in Kiev.

Sources indicate that Kiev needs to recruit 160,000 soldiers to equip the current level of brigades with an employment rate of 85%, according to Emil Castelhelme, who follows the war in Ukraine for Blackbird, a war monitoring group. The United States is reportedly trying to convince Zelensky to lower the conscription age from 25 to 18 to address this issue, a step that the Ukrainian president is resisting in the hope of preserving the country’s future generations, but Castelhelme says that “the situation is more complicated.”

Conditions on the front are difficult, with many soldiers fighting for years without rotation and with limited weapons, facing the slow but steady advance of Russian forces, especially in eastern Ukraine. This is a major “disincentive” to registration. He adds that desertions from the front lines and training centers are a big issue, as is the fact that about 20% of the 4.3 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe are male.

Military recruits are extremely unpopular. Videos in October showed men screaming as officers dragged them away after they raided restaurants and bars looking for those who had not registered. “There are many ways people try to avoid going to the front,” Casthelme said. He added: “If the system is not working, it will not matter if they lower the conscription age.”

Another military commander in Ukraine, Valery Zaloghny, raised this issue publicly for the first time in December last year, and was then removed from his post under suspicious circumstances. However, the recruitment problem still exists.

The gradual Russian advance into Donetsk was, in part, a result of this manpower issue. Progress may be measured in hundreds of square miles in a country with hundreds of thousands of square miles, but it is worrying nonetheless. Since capturing the strategic city of Avdiivka in Donetsk in February after months of heavy fighting, Russian forces have captured more than 400 square miles and advanced as far as 30 miles towards the next city of Pokrovsk, a key defensive position protecting the rest of the region. Russian forces are now located a few miles from the outskirts of the city. About “The Independent”

. Conditions on the front are difficult, with many soldiers fighting for years without rotation and with limited weapons.