Is it Realistic for Ukraine to Recapture all of its Territory?
The stated goal of Vladimir Putin at the start of the invasion, to ‘denazify’ and ‘demilitarise’ Ukraine, was likely deliberately vague and broad in order to justify a wide range of goals that Russia might want to accomplish in the invasion. From the onset, most analysts of the war determined that the Kremlin held ‘maximalist’ goals in Ukraine, wanting to topple the Ukrainian government to turn it back into a Russia-friendly state, as well as likely push territorial concessions, such as the annexation of the Donbas. As the war has progressed and dragged on for Russia, Putin has had to reassess his maximalist goals. His move to officially annex some of the occupied territories such as Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson have been an attempt to show to some of the more pro-war voices in Russia that some progress is being made regarding territorial gains, and may serve as a bargaining chip for future negotiations with Ukraine if Russia manages to hold on to these territories.
The Ukrainian position has also changed as the war has continued. President Zelensky’s administration and the general public’s attitude towards Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine have continued to evolve as Ukraine’s military predicament has changed. At the start of the war, when Ukraine’s situation appeared far more dire, discussions in the Ukrainian government circled around what kind of concessions Ukraine would be willing to make regarding the Donbas regions, especially Crimea, which has been deeply integrated into Russia since 2014. However, several events have shifted the Ukrainian position into being less compromising and willing to fight a longer war in order to recapture all internationally recognized Ukrainian territory. The first came after the Russian withdrawal from the north of Ukraine, where mass graves and evidence of war crimes in the Kyivan suburbs of Bucha and Irpin hardened the Ukrainian refusal to concede anything to Russia. The second came after the major offensive in September that saw Ukraine recapture Kharkiv oblast and parts of Luhansk. The growing belief of Ukrainians and Western governments that the Ukrainian government will be able to go all the way and get the job done has been a significant factor in Ukraine’s openness to negotiations. Zelensky’s position on negotiations has shifted since April when he had said Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia to Ukraine would not negotiate with Putin. However, despite a growing openness towards open negotiations, Zelensky and the Ukrainian government’s attitude towards the concession of territory has become consistently firm and uncompromising.
Nevertheless, a gap exists between what is feasible for each side to accomplish and what their desires are. For Russia, the course of the war and the sometimes desperate logistical and tactical play that have plagued the behaviour of the Russian military have very likely made Russian maximalist goals in Ukraine completely impossible. With the Ukrainian military holding the initiative on the battlefield, and Ukrainian society being fully mobilised logistically, politically and mentally, it would take a much larger Russian military to seize most of Ukraine or topple the Ukrainian government. Indeed a recent report rumoured to have been circulated among Russian officers indicated that Russia would have to field five million men in order to conquer Ukraine, a bureaucratically and logistically impossible challenge. However, pressure from the pro-war nationalist community in Russia has kept Putin from conceding anything in the war. The Kremlin is likely bidding for time, counting on its ability to weather a longer conflict and waiting until Western support for Ukraine wanes in order to push for some territorial gains that would make Ukraine unviable economically in the long term by depriving it of a major part of its access from the Black Sea, as well as depriving it of the major industrial centres of the Donbas.
For Ukraine, maximalist goals of recapturing all territories occupied by Russia since 2014 are on the table, as the population and government see tangible gains on the ground materialising. The Ukrainian military is now in a position to make further gains, with the recent victory in Kherson making a push into Zaporizhia and even Crimea strategically feasible. The military realities can be difficult to predict, however, and there are no guarantees that Ukraine can maintain their offensive momentum through the winter, particularly if Russia succeeds in deploying new conscripts and Western support wanes over time. The desire to take all these territories back also presents some significant political challenges. As the Kremlin faces increased pressure back home for results, further disastrous losses will snowball in the country and likely drive Putin to behave more erratically. While many commentators note that Russia could lose the war without its government falling apart, the terms in which it can acceptably lose vary. Many analysts note that Crimea would be such an unacceptable loss to Russia that it would put nuclear weapons on the table in the event of a Ukrainian operation to retake the peninsula. Seen as the crown jewel of Putin’s presidency, any sign that Crimea is likely to fall to Ukraine could be seen as an “all or nothing” moment for the Russian establishment, resulting in unpredictable actions. Furthermore, serious questions have to be considered by the Ukrainian government over the future governance of regions like Donetsk and Crimea in the event they were to become part of Ukrainian territory. Crimea in particular has now seen over eight years of Russian rule, with much of the initial Ukrainian population having left and much of the remaining population having strong pro-Russian sentiments. Governing such regions would be a challenge in itself, and even a Russia without Putin would likely remain belligerent for years to come, putting the status of such Ukrainian territories into question for decades more.