Ukraine Update August 14-20, 2023k
Hey everyone,
Hope you enjoyed your weekend. Few days ago I moved to Michigan for a study. In case you missed it, I’m a Knight Wallace fellows of this year. But I’m going to continue to summarise the news from Ukraine, especially as I stay in touch with many Ukrainians all the time.
One of the biggest news is coming from Denmark where the PM confirmed that Ukraine will get the first F16s before the New Year Eve. Ukrainians are celebrating. Especially given the fact of how many negative news there was coming in the last two weeks about Ukrainian counter offensive.
"Ukraine is running out of options to retake significant territory." This is the title of a new Washington Post article with unhappy predictions about the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The main points of the piece:
-"More than two months into the fight, the counteroffensive shows signs of stalling. Kyiv's advances remain isolated to a handful of villages,."
- Russian troops are advancing in the north;
- the conflict is reaching a stalemate, and international support may be waning;
- Ukraine will not be able to secure a breakthrough without more advanced weapons or full utilization of all reserves;
- Russia and Ukraine are now trying to drain each other's resources rather than make significant territorial gains;
- Kyiv’s attacks on Moscow and other regions of Russia will not change the course of the war, they cause insignificant damage;
- Due to the increasing number of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory, the U.S. may finally refuse to supply Kyiv with long-range ATACMS missiles, fearing that the Ukrainian army will use them to attack Russia, which will lead to an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict.
In addition to the Washington Post piece, articles with similar messages have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Politico, and Wall Street Journal.
Wall Street Journal wrote that the West is now working on options for a treaty to end the conflict in Ukraine, but their terms do not meet the interests of both Kyiv and Moscow.
The West wants to end the conflict because of problems in the global economy, uncertainty about how long their voters will support the current level of aid to Ukraine, and whether Kyiv will be able to completely push Russian troops out of its territory.
The number of pessimistic thoughts came from NATO Chief of Staff Stefan Jensen suggestion that Ukraine could be granted NATO membership in exchange for giving up part of Russia's territory, and that this could be part of ending the war in Ukraine.
This is big news only because it is the first time that an element of the legal discussion about how Ukraine could become a NATO member has been discussed publicly.
One of the accession scenarios could involve the rejection of the territories if Ukraine does not return them but insists on joining. After all, if there were practical tools to force Russia to return the Ukrainian occupied territories, they would have been used by now.
Ukraine does not have to join NATO if it has to give up its territories. On the other hand, I think this discussion is too early, because it is unlikely that NATO will consider Ukraine's accession in the coming years. And we have the capabilities and resources to regain our territories.
Meanwhile, I know there are serious discussions about joining the EU. And we all need to remember that pessimists don’t win wars! While, the western authorities were sending signals to public, U.S. officials have told CBS News it appears the Ukrainian military has made progress in advancing on the Russian-held city of Tokmak– a vital barrier city that stands between the Ukrainian forces and the southeastern city of Melitopol.
One of the goals of Ukraine's counteroffensive is to advance south through heavy Russian fortifications in a bid to reclaim occupied Melitopol – the gateway to Crimea, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014 and a vital Russian transit hub.
Also, last week Ukraine regained the village of Urozhaine. It is a small village north of Moscow's formidable defensive line and on the road to occupied Mariupol.
“Ukraine's advance into Urozhaine could prove significant. Kyiv's troops have reportedly taken punishing losses in trying to reach and breach the first line of Russia's network of fortifications named after the former commander of the invasion, General Sergei Surovikin, who oversaw a broad consolidation of Russian defenses in southern Ukraine in late 2022.” - Newsweek wrote.
Urozhaine is still around 5 miles north of the first line of the Surovikin fortifications. The ISW described the Ukrainian advance here as "tactically significant." Ukrainian and Russian milbloggers noted the settlement's important role in local Russian supply networks, suggesting its fall would complicate Moscow's defense of the wider area.
The negotiations about some kind of agreement to end the war are ongoing. Different options are on the table and Zelenskyy stands for Ukraine the most. Still, we need to understand that protracted war is going to be painful for Ukraine.
The other big news of the week is that the Russian rouble has reached its lowest value since the early weeks of the war in Ukraine as Western sanctions on energy exports have begun hitting the economy and weakening demand for the national currency.
On Monday, the Russian currency passed 101 roubles to the dollar, continuing a more than 25 percent decline in its value since the beginning of the year and hitting its lowest value in almost 17 months.
In January, the rouble traded at about 66 to the dollar but lost about a third of its value in subsequent months.
After Western countries imposed sanctions following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the rouble plunged as low as 130 to the dollar, but the Central Bank enacted capital controls that stabilised its value. By last summer, it was in the 50 to 60 range to the dollar.
Last week, the first cargo ship left Ukraine port since end of grain deal despite Russian threat. A civilian cargo vessel has left Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, despite warnings from Russia that its navy could target ships using the Black Sea export hubs. It successfully reached Turkey taking the cargo farther. Symbolically it is a big deal, as it shows that Ukrainians agriproduct can be exported without Russia participating in the Black Sea initiative. But still too little to talk about the real export opportunities.
SkyNews published an interesting piece saying that the Kremlin is artificially inflating the numbers of its nuclear carriers. According to political scientist and expert on Russia's armed forces Pavel Luzin.
While Moscow officially claims to have 13 strategic submarines, evidence from a range of sources indicates it only has eight in a best-case scenario in practice - but that only six "can be reliably claimed to be ready to fulfil their missions".
Others among an ageing fleet that the Kremlin purports are still in service - some of which Mr Luzin says have been "fraught with bizarre events" - are effectively "zombie" submarines and are almost certainly no longer operational.
Meanwhile, he says, 13 of the 14 strategic submarines in the US fleet "are ready for their intended missions.”
German natural gas storage rose over the past week to 231.0 terawatt-hours, or 92% full, in the week to Aug. 15 compared with the 5-year average of 76% for this time of year, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe. A week earlier it was 90% of capacity, Bloomberg shared with us great news.
“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia — never,” President Joe Biden said in a speech in Poland this year, and rightly so. For the war in Ukraine to end on terms consistent with American interests and ideals, Ukraine must be seen to have won, and Russia’s invasion must go down in history as a decisive failure, enough to deter other authoritarian powers from launching similar wars of aggression in the future. Please, read this great piece in Politico about the possible scenarios of the future. It’s a pretty good analysis of what’s happening in politics and what’s possible about the war.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/18/how-to-end-ukraine-war-00111752
As well as you, I am waiting for the visuals of new windows and doors of the residents of Oleksandrivka. I’m still having around $700 and will send them to the organizers of reconstruction work in the village for the stoves as they decide which ones and for whom they will need to buy. Thank you again!
Have a peaceful weekend,
Iuliia Mendel