As of: February 22, 2024, 11:31 a.m
By: Erkan Pehlivan
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Split
Ukraine suffers from depleted resources and a shortage of ammunition.
Russia, on the other hand, relies on numbers and power.
How is the West behaving?
Moscow – The Ukraine war continues unabated.
President Vladimir Putin has failed to achieve his initial goal of taking large Ukrainian cities in one fell swoop.
There were even some setbacks afterwards.
But now the situation has turned back in Moscow's favor.
Russian troops repelled the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year and now control important areas in the south and east of the country.
Russia has many soldiers in Ukraine
The reason for this is not only the weapon superiority, but also the number of soldiers that Moscow is sending to the war with Ukraine.
According to the online industry magazine
Defense Express,
citing Vadym Skibitskyi, a representative of Ukraine's defense intelligence service, the number of Russian soldiers in the neighboring country has now reached 470,000.
This does not include soldiers from the Russian Air Force and Navy.
The Russian National Guard is now represented in the country with around 33,000.
“These are people who can ensure the activities of the occupation authorities and the protection of strategic facilities and, if necessary, take on defense tasks in the temporarily occupied areas,” said Skibitzkyi, quoted in the online industry magazine.
Almost half a million Russian soldiers are said to be in Ukraine.
© IMAGO/Evgeny Biyatov
“Putin is confident that he can defeat the West and that is why we must act decisively and prove him wrong,” warns a senior Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin leader has recently become increasingly optimistic.
Ukraine “has no future,” he predicted in December.
And in an interview with the controversial ultra-right US talk show host Tucker Carlson, Putin said that a strategic defeat for Russia was “by definition impossible.”
West should increase support for Ukraine
Given Russia's massive military presence, the West fears that Ukraine will be defeated.
But Europe's priority must be “not to let Russia win,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in January.
And Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has also been repeating like a mantra for months: “Russia must fail in its attempt to annex its neighboring state by force.” However, experts are of the opinion that this goal can only be achieved if the West shows its support for the Ukraine, which is running out of ammunition, increased significantly.
Western aid to Ukraine is currently crumbling.
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives could fail the new US aid package for Ukraine.
If the right-wing populist Donald Trump is re-elected US President in November, Kiev can no longer rely on support from Washington.
And Europe is divided on the question of support for its invaded neighbor.
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Only one in four Germans believes Ukraine will win
In Germany, too, people are now skeptical about whether Ukraine will win the war.
A current survey by the market and opinion research institute Ipsos now shows that only one in four Germans (25 percent) believes that Ukraine can still win the war against Russia.
40 percent of those surveyed do not think a Ukrainian victory is realistic, more than one in three (35 percent) are unsure.
(erpe/dpa/AFP)