The Ukraine war is strategically terminated. There is nothing that the Ukrainians can do strategically to control any aspect of the war. Without control over any aspect of the war, Ukraine’s defense becomes nothing more than a mere attempt at procrastination. It is a procrastination of the inevitable.

In July, 2024 Russians advanced at a pace of 5 square kilometers per day. In mid-August, the pace picked up to 11 square kilometers a day. The latest pace is at 28 kilometers per day. The Donbas is effectively routed. Ukraine’s inability to seize the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant resulted in the failure of the Kursk operation.

The fact that the war continues is merely political. The U.S.-led NATO proxy force is beginning to collapse. The Russians are advancing along all five of their axes of advance. The Ukrainians continue to withdraw from village after village in nearly all of the directions. Ukraine has neither manpower nor the material to launch a new counteroffensive, especially in the Pokrovsk direction. The Ukrainians brigades deployed to Kursk are composed primarily of units from the Pokrovsk direction. Should these units be redeployed to Pokrovsk, the affect on morale is expected to be extremely negative. These redeployed soldiers can only be expected to withdraw. The deployment of the Kara-Dag brigade to Pokrovsk as a symbolic gesture proves it lacks manpower for a new counteroffensive in the Donbas.

There is no reason to believe Ukraine can hold its lines in the Kursk region for much longer than the duration of the initial phase of the operation. The initial phase of the operation is over. The Ukrainians are therefore no longer in a position to launch counteroffensives against the Russians to widen these lines. The lines continue to shrink there.

Ukraine’s military options have dwindled to a point of no return now. By military options, the war has reached a point at which there are few to no options for its execution as an instrument as policy. In the Financial Times, for instance, news that the Kursk operation ‘rattled’ Russia’s ruling elite outlined the fact that members of Putin’s inner circle began “to question the war.” The objective of war as an instrument of policy is to achieve a definitive political result. Merely ‘questioning,’ which is a part of discussion in general, is insufficient; it is not a result anyone can hail as success. In terms of Putin’s regime, the Kursk operation has not only failed but has allowed for Putin’s regime to rely serendipitously upon the occasion to strengthen its ties with the Global South by way of a display of affection for Islam in the heart of Chechnya at the very time that Chechen fighters under a vocal Chechen warlord are taking charge of the effort to repel Ukrainians from Russia’s borders.

In other words, NATO’s Kursk incursion revealed within Clausewitz’s holy trinity of the people, the government and the army a pinnacle of its unification in Putin’s kiss on the cover of the Quran at the Mosque of Jesus. As points of attraction from which real war suspends in the balance, adopting the timely qualities of each to determine its particular characteristics, the unification of Clausewitz’s holy trinity contrasts sharply with the disorientation of U.S.-led NATO’s failed exploitation of the Ukrainian proxy force in the midsts of the Kursk crisis. Alongside Russia’s advances in Pokrovsk, the Kursk operation actually leads to a situation opposite its intended aim.

Moreover, Ukraine’s incessant reliance upon the shipment of new silver bullets underscores the lack of a political outcome for Kursk. Neither the supply or increased production of more artillery shells[1] nor weapons, weapons systems, or fighter jets have any affect on the current balance of power on the battlefield territorially, politically, or in terms of combat. Since the Ukraine war is at a strategic terminus, the Ukraine war is over militarily. There is nothing Ukraine can do militarily to effectuate a change of state on the battlefield, except procrastinate.

References

[1] – [“Pennsylvania ammo plant boosts production of key artillery shell in Ukraine’s fight against Russia,” Associated Press, August 28th, 2024]