The war is going badly. Ukraine and its allies must change course
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. If Ukraine and its Western backers are to win, they must first have the courage to admit that they are losing. In the past two years Russia and Ukraine have fought a costly war of attrition.
That is unsustainable. When Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to America to see President Joe Biden this week, he brought a “plan for victory", expected to contain a fresh call for arms and money. In fact, Ukraine needs something far more ambitious: an urgent change of course.
A measure of Ukraine’s declining fortunes is Russia’s advance in the east, particularly around the city of Pokrovsk. So far, it is slow and costly. Recent estimates of Russian losses run at about 1,200 killed and wounded a day, on top of the total of 500,000.
But Ukraine, with a fifth as many people as Russia, is hurting too. Its lines could crumble before Russia’s war effort is exhausted. Ukraine is also struggling off the battlefield.
Russia has destroyed so much of the power grid that Ukrainians will face the freezing winter with daily blackouts of up to 16 hours. People are tired of war. The army is struggling to mobilise and train enough troops to hold the line, let alone retake territory.
There is a growing gap between the total victory many Ukrainians say they want, and their willingness or ability to fight for it. Abroad, fatigue is setting in. The hard right in Germany and France argue that supporting Ukraine is a waste of money.
Donald Trump could well become president of the United States. He is capable of anything, but his words suggest that he wants to sell out Ukraine to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. If Mr Zelensky continues to defy reality by insisting that Ukraine’s army can take back all the land Russia has
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