Ben Hodges, a retired former commander of the army in Europe, has an optimistic view of the Ukrainian eventual victory over the Russians if the West does not lose the political will to support Ukraine in its war effort.
Hodges says that Russia has approximately the GDP of Italy and compared to Europe’s GDP, Russia’s GDP is small. Include the U.S. GDP and Russia’s GDP pales in comparison. So, from an economic point of view, the West can far outstrip the Russian ability to finance the war effort.
Recently, Ukraine has been quite successfully targeting Russian oil refineries with long-range drones and Russia has stopped exporting gasoline and diesel because it desperately needs these products for internal use and for the war effort in Ukraine.
Up to March 17, 2024, 12 oil refineries were hit in Russia with more to come. Russian oil production may eventually be stopped because of a lack of spare parts which used to be provided by Exxon, BP, and Shell.
Russia has also lost about a third of its warships in the Black Sea and Russia's commander there was recently replaced.
So, it seems Russia is more seriously considering the damage done by Ukrainian air and sea drones. The Black Sea is vital for Ukrainian grain exports out of Odessa and lately, all the grain ships have remained untouched by Russia. Of course, Ukraine is mostly using the western Black Sea which is in the territorial waters of friendly nations so this is another reason why grain shipments have not been greatly impaired.
According to wilsoncenter.org:
Russia may have gained control of 18 percent of Ukraine, but doing so has cost nearly eighteen years of military modernization and has exposed serious institutional weaknesses. If Ukraine maintains its determination and retains external support, it can win a war of attrition.
Ukraine has largely been successful in the war of attrition due to an abundance of relatively cheap thousand-dollar short-range FPV drones that easily take out million-dollar tanks, military vehicles, and artillery which Russia is losing at a much faster clip than Ukraine. Russia is also losing soldiers at a faster clip than Ukraine despite its numerical superiority on the trench warfare front lines. Soon Russia will probably need a third unpopular soldier mobilization and Ukraine will probably need a second unpopular soldier mobilization.
You may be wondering why this is going to be a long drawn-out war of attrition. The major reason why is that neither side has adequately trained soldiers and not enough military hardware to launch decisive bold aggressive strategic moves which make progress in a relatively short time. Thus, the scenario is a lengthy bloody boring war that never seems to end for spectators but bloody hell for the soldiers in the trenches.
Perhaps the greatest difference between Russia and Ukraine is that Ukraine values the lives of its troops and Russia very often doesn’t value the lives of its troops.
Trench warfare is hell on earth but Ukrainians value their troop's lives by retrieving the dead and wounded from the battlefield and giving the wounded decent medical attention. Russia, on the other, hand tricks and coerces the conscripts to fight on the front lines and seldom retrieves the dead and severely wounded from the battlefield.
Medical attention is seldom given and if given it is of the poorest quality. In effect, the morale of Ukraine’s soldiers is superior to that of the Russian soldiers.
With continued timely Western economic and military aid Ukraine will eventually win the war of attrition and diabolical tyrannical lying Putin will lose the war on Ukrainian terms or the complete withdrawal from annexed Ukrainian territory. All that it will take is continuing Western political will to win by the Western political leadership.
Image: Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0