What 2023 can bring for Ukraine?
The leading expert of East European Council
Oleksander Gnydiuk
2022 has become a fateful year for Ukraine and all of Europe from the point of view of restraining Russia’s militaristic efforts and reformatting the geopolitical map of the world. Russia demonstrated its true “strength” and undermined its own influence at the EU level, which it had been building for the previous two decades against the background of the partial self-removal of the USA from the European space.
Last year demonstrated to the biggest sympathizers of Vladimir Putin in Europe that Moscow’s real maximum is the status of a more or less powerful regional player, like Iran with nuclear weapons. Russia is a technologically and mentally backward quasi-state entity that cannot impose a competitive game on the collective West or China by any of the indicators.
The Kremlin actually gave up the opportunity to be the junior partner of the US in Europe, but was never able to achieve a similar status from the Celestial side. After all, despite all the differences in American-Chinese relations and the confrontation in the Asian region, China is not ready to really support Russia and takes an absolutely neutral position regarding the Ukrainian-Russian war. Of course, it is beneficial for Beijing that Putin’s military adventure does not end in a complete fiasco for Russia, because it will strengthen the position of the US, but the Chinese are in no way interested in losing Ukraine, which is not bad for us.
Instead, for Ukraine, the year 2022 became perhaps the most important in the more than 300-year confrontation with Moscow for its own statehood. After all, the formation of a powerful Ukrainian state is the main existential threat to Russia, which, starting from the 18th century, has been building its concept of the state on the stolen Ukrainian history of the Kyiv Rus’ period, which in fact has nothing to do with it.
For centuries, Ukraine has been the mouthpiece or center of progress of the Russian Empire, and all of Moscow’s “assets” are connected precisely with control over Kyiv. Without control over Ukraine, Moscow loses even the ghostly possibility of reconstruction of the USSR 2.0, and Vladimir Putin will no longer be able to feed his deep-seated people with fairy tales about Russia “rising from its knees.” The Kremlin is afraid to allow a democratic Ukraine to become successful, because such a precedent calls into question the nature of the authoritarian regime in Moscow, which was built by Putin’s friends from the “Ozero cooperative” through monopoly access to all resources.
Instead, Ukraine faced very serious challenges, and the future of not only our country, but also Europe as a whole, will depend on the reaction to them. Everyone appreciated the readiness and, most importantly, the ability of Ukrainians to defend their own country, but the heroism of the people for the time being allowed to close only one basic task – the preservation of Ukrainian statehood. In this particular case, we are not even talking about borders, which can change significantly during such a war, but about the very fact that Ukrainian society aspires to have its own state and pays the highest price for it.
However, despite the successes at the front, the issue of full restoration of border control as of 1991 remains quite controversial and will largely depend primarily on the military assistance of the collective West. In such a configuration, various options for freezing the conflict are possible, and the issue of the status of Crimea, parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions can be put on hold, which will by no means stimulate the further development of Ukraine. In any case, the contours of the end of this war will be determined by the external situation in 2023, which will depend on the security situation in a number of potentially hot spots: Syria, the South Caucasus, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, the Balkans, and others.
Currently, only a few things remain more or less clear, which are highly likely to be implemented in 2023:
The story of the offensive from the territory of Belarus is rather an attempt to “play” with the political and military leadership of Ukraine, similar to the information campaign that was conducted by the official Kyiv on the eve of the sweep of the Kharkiv region, when, weeks before, there was a demonstration preparation for the attack on Kherson, where the Russian command transferred troops just in time after all, from the Luhansk and Kharkiv directions, and the real counteroffensive took place in a completely different place – the Kharkiv operation in September of last year. The Kremlin will play the Belarusian card to the end, but it is unlikely to lead to a real full-scale march on Kyiv from Belarus, by analogy with the events that took place at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine will de-occupy the south by military means by the end of May (not including Crimea) – we are talking about the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Thanks to this, the land corridor to Crimea will be destroyed and the main benefit of Russia’s military campaign after February 24 will be eliminated. It is difficult to assess how serious internal political upheavals this will cause in Russia itself, but in our opinion, the chances of this are minimal – the system is too stable and has total control over the media.
The Crimean offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Defense Forces of Ukraine – the chances of this scenario being implemented have increased significantly in recent months, and there is no doubt that at least several plans for such an operation are already on the table of the head of the Ukrainian General Staff Valery Zaluzhny. Another matter is the pace of the West’s supply of heavy weapons and the political support for such a move in Washington and Brussels. Of course, the main thing in this component will be determined precisely by the availability of the necessary amount of weapons and ammunition, because during the course of this war, which has been going on for almost a year, the Ukrainian military-political leadership has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to conduct separate operations that did not arouse support on the other side of the Atlantic. This, of course, in no way diminishes the facts of the military, financial and political support of the White House, but demonstrates a certain subjectivity of Kyiv in the aspect of protecting its own strategic interests. In any case, as of now, the scenario of the deoccupation of Crimea is on the theoretical level, since it will not even directly depend on the results of the operation in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions (Russian troops will be ousted from these territories with a 90% probability in the coming months), but on the amount of resources spent on this by the Ukrainian side and the pace of their recovery, which will almost entirely depend on the conditional Ramstein.
As for the prospects for the liberation of Luhansk and Donetsk, this will likely be the last puzzle in this game, at least in our opinion. Of course, we cannot know about the plans of the military command of Ukraine, but the general dynamics allow us to conclude that the complete elimination of the Russian-controlled terrorist enclaves of L/DPR will take place at the final stage of the war. With a high probability, after the de-occupation of the south of mainland Ukraine and the start of possible military operations on the territory of Crimea, the Eastern Front of the Russians will begin to fall in a domino effect, without the expenditure of excessive military efforts, because at this moment the complete futility of the existence of these formations will become clear. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of conducting a large-scale counteroffensive operation in Luhansk region along the Svatovo-Kreminna line, where Ukrainian troops have been working hard for several months, before a conditional offensive on Melitopol or Berdyansk. Even the latest successes of the Russians in the Bakhmut-Soledar region do not change the operational situation in this region, since the scale of the resources spent does not in any way correspond to the strategic importance of these settlements.
So, what is difficult to expect from 2023 in the context of war?
First, the issue of entering the so-called borders by February 24 has actually been resolved – neither Ukraine nor the Ramstein countries (at least the most influential) will definitely agree to less, especially after the successful de-occupation of the Kharkiv region and the right bank, including Kherson, by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
Secondly, the situation with Crimea and Donbas will depend on internal political processes in the middle of Russia and Moscow’s readiness to “reduce appetite” and become a “more compliant” interlocutor with the West. Undoubtedly, the rhythm and scale of such turbulences will be determined by the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to their own successes on the battlefield and the liberation of new cities and villages of the state from Russian occupation. In any case, the real end of the war will not depend solely on the restoration of Kyiv’s control over all constitutional territories in accordance with the 1991 treaties, because the confrontation, even with the use of a force component, can continue along the legal Ukrainian-Russian border. Just as Moscow’s attacks on various scales and points can take place on a permanent basis, even after the de-occupation of the entire territory of Ukraine. These circumstances will most likely lead to the de facto stabilization of the contact line and a decrease in the intensity of hostilities, but it is unlikely that the situation will lead to the one-time signing of a peace treaty between Kyiv and Moscow. Rather, it will be about the transition of the confrontation into a long-term phase with the use of political, economic and military components.
Actually, in this vein, Washington and the EU need to think about the mechanisms of stabilizing the situation and creating real security guarantees for Ukraine right now, since the absence of this will certainly lead to another escalation in 5/10 or 15 years, when Russia will be able to restore lost resources. According to this logic, it is expedient to form a new NATO defense axis in Eastern Europe, where the main emphasis will be placed on two players – Poland and Ukraine, as new subregional leaders and a kind of shield from Moscow for the whole of Europe. In this case, Ukraine’s membership in NATO is a priority issue that should be resolved immediately after the actual end of the hot phase of the Ukrainian-Russian war. Such an alliance has repeatedly demonstrated its effectiveness in the past, and in fact, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in its heyday could effectively oppose Moscow in Eastern Europe.
It is a personal position of our expert. Position of editorial team can be different in some statements.