Ukraine from offensive to defensive
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Abstract: Russia and Ukraine have been fighting along a 640-mile frontline for the last three years of war, and Russia has captured over 112,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory through a frozen conflict. Ukraine has been failed either to take back its territory or halt the tempo of Russian war machine despite tremendous Western economic and military support. President Zelenskky can be required to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in war reparations to the White House via a critical mining agreement when Russia has just captured a coal mining town in Toretsk. The conflict evolved into a natural resources war for controlling mines and minerals in Ukraine and the strategic location of the Black Sea. Russia's war machine is now relentlessly operating on the eastern and southern fronts of Ukraine, but this conflict has evolved into a horizontal proliferation and prevails over diplomatic and military relationships among the countries. Introduction Warfare, a practice steeped in history, has evolved into a profoundly costly and intricate endeavour in modern era, leading to the tragic loss of invaluable human lives and the destruction of public, private and military infrastructure. It drains vital national financial resources intended for military advancement, depletes geological resources like crude oil for flying warplanes and diesel for running tanks, trucks, and railways, disrupts trade relationships between the warring nations and erodes the cultural and diplomatic ties that previously flourished. On 24th February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the NATO alliance came under severe stress to offer military, financial, and structural aid to Ukraine. As the Russia-Ukraine war has now entered third year. Both sides suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties and lost valuable military equipment. This conflict evolved into a contemporary theatre of drone warfare. Additionally, many Ukrainians and some military experts raise hopes that the Biden administration's decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range ATACMS inside Russia would change the battlefield dynamics. However, the ground realities still remained harsh and unfavourable for Ukrainians. This essay will talk about the recent developments on different fronts of the war in Ukraine and shed light on the latest Russian military gains. It will also look at whether the use of long-range ATACMS against military targets on the mainland has slowed down the Russian offensives and stopped their small gains in strategic heights of Chasiv Yar and the surrounding Pokrovsk. Finally, it will ask why Ukraine can't join NATO soon and whether peace negotiations in Riyadh would facilitate Ukraine's swap of the held salient in the Kursk Oblast for a portion of the over 112,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory under Russian control.
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The author is an independent freelance writer and a self-financed candidate for a PhD at the University of Exeter. The author expresses his opinions on various topics such as security, military operations, military diplomacy, foreign and international relations, and pre- and post-conflict state-to-state relations.