On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation against Ukraine. At that time, there were many predictions that the regime of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine might not last long, so the war should end quickly.
However, facts have proved that Ukraine's will to resist is far stronger than all parties imagined. The Russian army could only choose to transfer to the Donbass for the second phase of operations under the dilemma of fruitless negotiations and ineffective siege.
Then, with NATO's military aid and intelligence investigation system actually entering the field, Russia's offensive was not as expected, and Ukraine launched several major counter-offensives, successfully regaining some lost ground such as Kharkov and the capital of Kherson.
Russia now occupies about 20% of Ukraine's territory, and is trying its best to consolidate the fait accompli that the four lands have invested in Russia, and has even launched mobilization and military expansion for this purpose; long struggle.
So far, the Russo-Ukraine war has not only been a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but also a general war between Russia and the United States and its vassal groups, which has caused collective suffering on a global scale.
The first is the issue of energy.
According to the forecast of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the world is experiencing the most serious energy crisis since 1970, and inflation has risen to an unprecedented high level in decades. The global economic growth rate may drop to 2.2% in 2023, and Asia may become The core driving economic growth in 2023, while economic growth in Europe, North America and South America is likely to remain sluggish.
Then there is food security.
In addition to the impact of the war on the Russian-Ukrainian food supply chain, the ban on Russian natural gas has also caused a sharp drop in the production of nitrogen fertilizers in Europe, leading to a severe shortage of chemical fertilizers and soaring prices in the United States, and the cost of agricultural production has also risen. The total cost increased by 32%.
In addition, the United Nations World Food Program estimates that the number of people facing food security threats has increased from 282 million at the end of 2021 to 345 million in 2022, and 50 million people will be on the verge of starvation in 2023.
With the development of the situation so far, this war is not only a suffering for the people of Russia and Ukraine, but also a disaster for the people at the bottom of the world.
Looking forward to 2023, whether Putin can lead the country to end the Russia-Ukraine war will be the focus of observation by all parties.
On December 22, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended a press conference.
(Reuters)
Structures Obstructing a Ceasefire
Since the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out in 2022, with the ups and downs of the war and the intertwined rumors, many analysts have shouted that "the time for peace talks has come", but they have all been defeated by the iron fist of reality without exception.
The root cause of the misjudgment is the underestimation of the political inertia of all parties.
First of all, of course there are internal forces in the United States to promote talks. For example, according to the New York Times in November, Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated in an internal meeting that Ukraine’s military achievements before the onset of winter had reached The reasonable expectation of the United States should be to negotiate with Russia to consolidate gains.
However, judging from the results, Milley’s proposition was not adopted by the Joe Biden administration. The United States not only continued to provide military assistance to Ukraine, but also raised the level of assistance. Even the Patriot system has been determined to end. Bloodletting Russia is obviously better than just seeing it. receive.
But such a situation is actually repeating the dilemma of the United States in Vietnam and the Middle East.
That is to say, there have long been voices in the United States to withdraw, but the government is worried about the backlash of political correctness, secondly, it does not know how to explain to its allies, and thirdly, it cannot persuade hardliners. The moment of decision comes.
If there are no election considerations or major changes in the battlefield situation, it is basically difficult for the United States to change course in the short term.
On the eve of the mid-term elections in November 2022, some US media released rumors that the Biden administration intends to promote talks. In fact, it was more to cushion the damage of the war to the Democratic Party's election situation, rather than the Biden administration had already made a decision.
And Russia is also facing the dilemma of riding a tiger.
At the beginning of the war, Moscow had no doubts about the "quick victory", so it sent a delegation to Belarus three days after the conflict to negotiate with Ukraine.
However, Kyiv is tougher than Russia imagined. Not only did it not accept Russia's "Finnishization"-related conditions, but it also insisted on the bottom line that "Russian troops must withdraw from Ukraine".
On January 18, in Brovaly, Ukraine, residents placed flowers near the accident site to mourn the dead.
(Reuters)
For Putin, a protracted war will bring uncertain risks to internal affairs. Of course, he also wants to end the war through negotiations with Ukraine. However, although the initial goal of militarization and de-Nazification is already difficult to come by, at least it must be kept. Occupying part of Ukrainian territory is a fait accompli, so Kyiv's so-called "Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine" is basically impossible to be accepted by Putin, because it means that the special military operation has completely failed, not only failing to make Ukraine a Russian vassal, but also If the situation goes back to before the Russian armed forces occupied Crimea in 2014, the end result of the Putin regime is bound to end.
Therefore, until Ukraine changes the bottom line of negotiations, Russia will only continue to increase its size, sending countless manpower and materials to the front line under the highest goal of consolidating Russia's occupation of land.
As a battlefield, Ukraine is very miserable.
Under the frequent Russian military attacks on civilian targets, its front and rear are riddled with holes. Under the flames of war, 14.3 million Ukrainians have fled their homes, severely damaging its economic productivity. 30.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
With the war entering 2023, Ukraine's GDP will continue to decline, inflation will continue to rise, and the number of people living below the poverty line will also increase.
However, according to the survey data released by the independent poll agency Rating Group in late November 2022, as many as 97% of Ukrainians firmly believe that Kyiv will be able to defeat Moscow, 90% of the people are optimistic about 2023, and only 6% expressed pessimism.
In other words, even though Ukraine has suffered heavy losses, its overall military and civilian will is still strong, and it will wage a protracted war with Russia at any cost.
This mentality is also reflected in high-level decision-making in Ukraine.
Most of the Ukrainian political elites firmly believe that with continuous assistance from the West, as long as the Ukrainian army continues to launch counter-offensives and prolong the war, Russia will be forced to negotiate a ceasefire due to internal political pressure, and Ukraine will have the opportunity to restore the complete territory before 2014.
However, in order to win stability and assistance from the West, it has to prove that it is "worth the investment" with the results of the counter-offensive. Therefore, despite the fierce Russian artillery fire, the Ukrainian army still organized troops to carry out many costly major counter-offensives, and it did not stop at "Russian troops withdrew from Ukraine." "The bottom line of this negotiation is to back down.
On January 18, in Brovaly, Ukraine, a boy watched the wreckage on the ground.
(Getty Images)
how the war will end
To sum up, the United States is not without the voice of accepting what is good, but its internal disagreement and political correctness are still in its ears, so it has to continue to increase the scale before Ukraine collapses; Russia does not want to continue the war for a long time, but it has paid too much for this operation. At least there must be a harvest of territory to explain internally, so it can only continue to fight; Ukraine firmly believes that Russia is more unable to fight a war of attrition than itself, so it intends to continue the bloody battle until its vitality is exhausted to a certain percentage and Western aid is suspended , to force Russia to compromise.
In short, all three parties are expecting the other party to make concessions, which has led to endless fighting.
Even so, this war will one day end in negotiations, but the timing and form are not easy to predict.
Looking forward to 2023, there is a window of opportunity for ceasefire and peace talks in the war, that is, after the spring offensive and before the next winter offensive, about a period of time after May and around December.
The reason why the two offensives were used as the target is related to the recent military developments in Russia and Ukraine.
According to foreign media reports, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense believes that Russia is preparing for a spring offensive, which may be in March 2023, one year after the special military operation, and Putin may mobilize an additional 500,000 people for this purpose to maximize the offensive effect.
According to Ukrainian estimates, the most likely focus of this offensive is to completely capture the entire Donbas region including Donetsk and Luhansk.
In addition, since about 15,000 Russian troops are currently training in Belarus, the Ukrainian side also speculates that the Russian army may use Belarus to attack Kyiv again.
The Danish military displayed French-made Caesar self-propelled guns. The authorities announced on January 19 that they had decided to donate 19 units of the same model to Ukraine.
(Reuters)
At the same time, the Ukrainian army is also preparing its own spring counter-offensive, and is actively requesting tank assistance from Western countries, which has received positive responses from the United Kingdom, Poland and other countries.
From this point of view, both Russia and Ukraine intend to make new changes with the spring offensive, but it is difficult for there to be two winners in a war, so the result is more likely to be that one side's offensive wins relatively, creating a new reality, but the process of confrontation between the two sides may lead to Due to heavy casualties, after the end of the spring offensive in May, Ukraine may no longer insist on the bottom line of "Russian withdrawal". NATOization, etc., the United States may also take advantage of the situation to make its own retreat this time better than in Afghanistan and Vietnam, so the negotiation window can be expected.
However, if the window after May fails to cease fire smoothly, Russia and Ukraine may start preparing for the winter offensive before December, and the United States will soon enter the 2024 presidential election year. They all believe that the cost of investing in the winter offensive is too high, and Biden is also worried that the Russian-Ukrainian war will continue until 2024, which will affect the Democratic election.
And if Russia and Ukraine can complete the ceasefire negotiations based on the status quo, the option that is most likely to be accepted by both parties may be the North Korean proposal, that is, Russia actually controls the occupied territory, and the "complete Ukraine" only exists on the map and has no practical significance. Although they did not give up their claims of sovereignty over the Russian-occupied lands, they essentially gave up their efforts to recover armed forces. Russia and Ukraine will have a long confrontation along the ceasefire line, with friction and small conflicts between the two sides from time to time.
Although Russia occupies part of Ukraine's territory, it cannot prevent and reverse the reality of Ukraine's NATOization. Ukraine, which has eliminated pro-Russian forces, may even join NATO with the support of the United States.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a video address to the World Economic Forum on January 18.
(Reuters)
However, if the so-called spring offensive does happen, it may become a stalemate, and it will not be able to create a window of opportunity for a ceasefire, and the US negotiators may not be able to become the mainstream before 2024.
If Russia and Ukraine miss the 2023 ceasefire window, which means that the war will continue in 2024, Russia may gradually repeat the Soviet Union’s nightmare in Afghanistan: it is difficult to make significant military progress, but internal public grievances and political pressure continue to rise. It may not be possible to withdraw troops from Ukraine, and it is impossible to "disintegrate Russia" as predicted by some foreign media. The legitimacy of Putin's regime will inevitably be damaged. Even if Putin can be re-elected in 2024 as a wartime president, he will arrange a successor I'm afraid I can't wait any longer.
Of course, European and American countries will also sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of the energy crisis and rising inflation, but Ukraine, which is the battlefield, will suffer the most from the prolonged war.
As the conflict intensifies, it will be further squeezed out of its productivity and vitality. Cities, large and small, will be riddled with holes due to the flames of war, and a large number of elites will flee. Low-level occupations that were ridiculed by some Western public opinion in the past, including coolies in Europe and the United States, prostitution, surrogacy in Ukraine, etc., sacrificed the prospects of a generation.
Looking forward to 2023, if the Russia-Ukraine war can be ceasefire and peace talks meet Russia’s bottom line, it will be a relatively favorable ending for Putin. Therefore, whether this ending can be achieved in 2023 still depends on the dynamics of the next battlefield.
Why is it so difficult to negotiate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine?
The United States is similar to the situation it dealt with Vietnam back then, and cannot change its current policy inertia; the bottom line of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine cannot be bridged.
What are the possible factors leading to a ceasefire in 2023?
The spring offensive may cause heavy casualties, making all parties feel that the cost of continuing the war is too high, so they have softened their positions; the U.S. election is about to usher in 2024, and the Democratic Party must re-examine and evaluate the possible impact of aid to Ukraine on the election .
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