Russia's war in Ukraine: Will 2023 bring the turning point?

Created: 12/23/2022, 3:14 p.m

By: Christiane Kühl, Anna-Katharina Ahnefeld

Ten months after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, there is no end in sight to the hostilities.

Will that change in 2023?

Kyiv/Moscow – If you believe Vladimir Putin, there is no shortage in Russia.

Not in fresh soldiers and especially not in financial support for the army.

The Russian ruler claimed this at the end-of-year meeting of the military leadership broadcast live on the “special military operation”, as the invasion war in Ukraine is called in the Kremlin.

Putin promised to increase the army to 1.5 million soldiers.

That would mean about 350,000 additional recruits.

"The country and the government are providing everything the army asks for," said the head of state.

The message is clear: in 2023, too, Russia will wage full-force war against Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin swore the representatives of the Ministry of Defense to victory: "I'm sure

At the same time, the Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyj made the first known foreign visit to the USA since the beginning of the war.

At the meeting with President Joe Biden shortly before Christmas, the Ukrainian was also confident of victory.

In his speech before both chambers of the US Congress, he expressed his conviction that Ukraine's "war of independence" would end in "absolute victory".

Zelenskyy and his close civilian and military associates have always made it clear what that means: a return to the borders of 2014, i.e. before the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the hostilities in Donbass.

Politicians in Kyiv have repeatedly emphasized that there will be a turning point in the war in 2023.

Russia's war in Ukraine: Will 2023 bring the turning point?

Successful trip to the USA for Selenskyj

"This is the beginning of the end of the war," said Volodymyr Zelenskyj, when he got an idea of ​​the situation on site shortly after the liberation of the city of Kherson.

Meanwhile, the President was able to return home from his trip to the USA with well-filled pockets.

Joe Biden pledged Ukraine's state-of-the-art Patriot missile defense system and added a billion-dollar cash injection.

Washington will support Kyiv "as long as it is necessary," emphasized the US President on Wednesday local time.

Russia's war in Ukraine enters its second year: will 2023 bring a change?

© Bulent Kilic/afp

But how long will it take?

Is an end to the war in 2023 realistic?

That depends on many factors - on military successes and the stamina of the Ukrainians as well as on the political situation around Putin and the continued willingness of the West to provide Ukraine with military aid.

Negotiations between the warring parties seem unrealistic as long as Putin denies Ukraine's right to exist.

Virtually all military experts assume that Russia would only use a ceasefire to calmly reinforce its troops and then strike again.

That's one of the reasons why Zelenskyy rejects talks with Putin.

Russia will only be an option for him to talk to after the end of Putin's presidency.

Confidence in Russia's president is also at an all-time low in Washington and most European capitals.

As long as Russia keeps trying to conquer Ukraine or parts of it, the war will go on.

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How long Russia can hold out depends in turn on how badly this first winter in the Ukraine war affects the Russian troops.

While Ukrainian troops were able to reclaim territory in the fall, Russia's military is facing equipment and supply problems.

There is said to be a lack of winter equipment and clothing as well as morale.

Even if Vladimir Putin claims otherwise.

But in the end it is Putin who decides - and Russia's president does not sound like giving up his "special operation".

Speculations have even gotten louder recently that Putin might dare to attack Kyiv again in the new year.

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But at least in Ukraine, some see Russia as dead.

"If you count large-scale attacks, they have two or three at most, maybe they can scrape together missiles for four," National Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov told 

on December 19 .

Again, information like this is difficult to verify.

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However, in a recent interview with the British

, Zelenskyy and his two commanders-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny and General Oleksandr Syrsky, agreed that the next few months will decide the outcome of the Ukraine war.

They were convinced that Russia was preparing a new major offensive that could begin as early as January.

The generals warned against underestimating the Russian army.

"You are not weak.

And they have a very large pool of people," Syrsky said.

"Somewhere beyond the Ural Mountains they are preparing new resources," the general continued.

Just like the Soviet Union did in World War II when the Nazis invaded.

The question is how Ukraine will deal with this threat: will they counterattack, let the Russians come and then defeat them on the spot?

Understandably, the strategists do not talk about this.

And the question looms over everything: How many weapons will they have at their disposal for this?

At least the Ukrainian online newspaper

is confident: “The war starts in 2023, with Ukraine having a slight advantage over the severely depleted Russian military, mainly thanks to extensive Western military aid.

There is a high probability that the next few months of the winter and spring of 2023 will be decisive for the overall outcome of the war.”

Will 2023 bring the end of the war in Ukraine?

"Peace is not just the absence of fighting"

Most wars in history have eventually ended in negotiations and a truce.

Mostly because one party collapsed, sometimes because the war stalled in a deadly standstill.

So far, none of these conditions has been achieved in Ukraine.

"Peace is not just the absence of fighting," Zelenskyy's chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote in a op-ed piece for The

in mid-December .

"Therefore, the view of some Western politicians that in order for peace to prevail in Ukraine, one must first sit down at a negotiating table is a fundamental error."

First of all, conditions would have to be met, including the restoration of the original borders, security guarantees for Ukraine by the West, protection of the Ukrainian infrastructure, an end to the nuclear threat or an exchange of all prisoners, including, according to Yermak, the almost three million Ukrainians who were held in the Russian-occupied areas had been deported.

It is unlikely that these conditions will be met in a few months.