Daily Archives: April 14, 2024

Kherson was the first major city to fall to Russian forces in the days after President Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine began. Few people had time to flee before the city fell to the Russians, including members of Khersons government, who remained trapped under occupation with a target on their backs.

Now, Kherson is once again a frontline town where attacks happen most days. With no new aid from the U.S. and a low supply of weapons, the authorities who remain fear the return of fighting on the streets, and the trauma of Russian occupation is constantly on their minds.

One man who asked to be referred to as Ihor told The Daily Beast that many people in Kherson resisted Russian soldiers by protests, working in underground networks, or sending information to Ukraines military when the city was occupied two years ago. Ihor and his wife had been attending anti-occupation protests for months and keeping up with Ukrainian news on their hidden cellphone.

During the summer of 2022, Ihor said his brother-in-law asked him to pass along any information he found about Russian collaborators, which he agreed to do. On Aug. 7, 2022, Russian soldiers pulled up to Ihors driveway in a large transportation van. He knew that he would be taken prisoner. Despite never being charged with a crime, Ihor was taken into custody and shunted around a series of prisons.

He said the prison cells were filled with mold and so small that he and his eight fellow prisoners felt that they could not breathe. There was no air, no water, no food, no medical aid, he said. Ihor says he has a weak heart, and the conditions of the prison made things worse. We were just using one bottle as a toilet with the other people with whom we were in the cell, he said.

For the first 23 days of his incarceration, Ihor says he did not eat, and each night, the men in his cell took turns lying down to sleep. Ihor said that the Russians controlling the prison also sexually assaulted the men, inserting wires into their genitals and zapping them with a current. They called this Bidens Call, he told The Daily Beast.

Another former prisoner of war, Andrii Andriuschenko, told The Daily Beast that he had also suffered Bidens Call, which he described as the next step of torture after a method called Zelenskys Call, where Russian soldiers wrap a cable from a field phone to a persons ears or genitals and make a phone call, which sends a blast of electricity to the targeted area of the body. The Call to Biden is the second state, when a cable is inserted into the anus and a person is electrically shocked this way, said Andriuschenko.

Kateryna Girniak, a communications officer at the U.N.s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), told The Daily Beast that similar horrific assaults have been recorded as part of Russias arsenal of abuse during this conflict.

HRMMU documented electric shocks as a form of torture in some instances, including by using a TA-57 military telephone (known as TAPik), she said. Electric shocks may be categorized as sexual violence in some instances, for example if applied to genitals or breasts.

Trapped alongside the citizens of the Kherson region were some of the politicians, leaders and mayors of towns that fell quickly under Russian control. Yurii Sobolevsky, the First Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Regional Council, said officials attempted to work until the last minute when they were pressured to collaborate with Russian soldiers, or labeled enemies of the Russian state. Many of them fled. Left behind were a few local officials, many of whom were arrested, and two years later, some are still prisoners of the Kremlin. A small group of authority figures stayed behind and shifted their work to focus on humanitarian aid.

I couldnt just leave all the people in this region. My phone was exploding with calls, said Sobolevsky, who remained in Kherson for the first three months of the occupation.

Alongside other local authorities, Sobolevsky delivered humanitarian aid throughout occupied Kherson and neighboring Mykolaiv, which was also under occupation. At the time, the residents of Kherson were fighting back by holding protests and working underground to help Ukraines military, according to multiple sources who spoke to The Daily Beast.

Sobolevsky stayed in Kherson until he was labeled as a state criminal by the Russians and forced to fleehe was smuggled out of his home city. I was afraid. The ones who say they are not afraid or such things are crazy or lying he told The Daily Beast. When I went to bed, I was still fully dressed because I knew I could be arrested at any moment. You realize that there is a risk of being killed, but you have to do your duty.

Within the first few days of the war, Sobolevsky and other civilians in Kherson began to gather in masses to protest against occupation. They told Russian soldiers to Go Home, graffitied Slava Ukraini (Glory to Ukraine) on buildings and waved yellow and blue flags. Sobolevsky turned to a local tailor who once worked for Khersons local administration, Oleg Akimchenkov, to create yellow and blue ribbons that could be distributed to the people who attended the protests.

Oleg Akimchenkov in custody.

Akimchenkov had already created a defense network of fellow civilians who tried to minimize looting and petty crimes among local residents who were struggling under the duress of war. Russian soldiers got to know Akimchenkov from his defense network and his work as a Red Cross volunteer. For months, Akimchenkov and two other men traveled in a bulletproof van throughout both occupied and free Ukraine, passing through an average of 30 Russian checkpoints to deliver aid. However, what Russian soldiers did not know was that he was working with Ukraine, passing information about the occupiers military positions, and smuggling people out of Kherson.

We were taking journalists, volunteers, former soldiers who didnt have time to leave, and the families of soldiers because repressions started; they were caught. We were [helping] everyone we could, Akimchenkov told The Daily Beast.

On a routine trip on Aug. 5, Akimchenkov said that he and one of the volunteers he traveled with were arrested by Russian soldiers, who imprisoned them for no apparent reason. Although they did not charge Akimchenkov with any crime, he was transported through multiple jails in occupied territories for months. Repeatedly throughout the initial interrogation process, Akimchenkov added that he and his fellow volunteer were beaten while Russian soldiers screamed at them What did you do in Kherson?

After hours of this treatment, they were thrown into a prison cell with nine other men, some of whom were aid workers, local administration workers, former soldiers, and civilians. For two months, Akimchenkov was moved around prisons in occupied territories, and despite repeatedly being tortured, he said he refused to give any information about his work or that of Ukrainians who were also helping their countrys military.

Akimchenkov and Ihor remained in Russian prisons until October 2022. By the time of their release, both men had lost a significant amount of weight and had deteriorating health. One month after they were freedon Nov. 11Kherson city was liberated.

When it was safe, Sobolevsky returned to work. Although the city has now been liberated for nearly 18 months, some of the towns and villages in the region are still under occupation, and currently, the southern frontline is just over three miles outside the city limits. Sobolevsky said that Khersons government is not planning for another occupation. Over this last year and a half, we stay believing that our army is best and they will not let Russians occupy here again soon. There is nothing worse than being under occupation, he said.

A fire burns after a Russian strike in the Kherson ship yards on Nov. 24, 2022. Kherson was the only regional capital to be captured by Russia following its invasion on Feb. 24.

Khersons government has tried to return to a pre-war normal, but it is missing one of its most influential peoplemayor Ihor Kolykhayev, who has been a Russian prisoner since May 2022. His son Sviatoslav told The Daily Beast that he has received no information or proof of life since September 2023. Sviatoslav Kolykhayev has had to piece together what happened to his father from men who were in the same prison. He has heard accounts of Russians using psychological torture on his father.

He was put in a single cell for more than 120 days without any human activity. Not a single point of contact from the outside world, said Sviatoslav.

There have been accusations by some Ukrainians that Ihor Kolykhayev was a Russian collaborator, an allegation that his son strongly denies. Before his arrest, Kolykhayev had worked to distribute humanitarian aid to residents of Kherson. Sviatoslav and his mother were evacuated from Kherson during the occupation. He said his father could have saved himself from it [imprisonment] by fleeing with his family. But he was a person who was keeping his word. He was giving his word to his people, that he would remain in Kherson despite threats to his life. Sviatoslav believes the Russians might have tried to recruit his father, and when Kolykhayev refused to collaborate, he was arrested. Sviatoslav has no proof of this.

Sviatoslav said that in September 2023, he was informed that his father was on an official prisoner exchange list created by Russian officials. Although he stressed that he has tried to contact Ukraines government multiple times to facilitate some agreement for his fathers return, his requests have been ignored.

Why [in] the country where my father was living, why they [government] dont protect him? he said, adding that he constantly tries to move the prisoner exchange forward. They dont show any interest in contact with me and my family. They dont show any interest in this situation, he added.

The residents of Kherson know that if the Russians return to occupy the land, these tales of cruelty, mistreatment and torture will be heard all over again. For Ihor Kolykhayev, it might be too late, no one knows if he is in a Russian prison being tortured, or if he is dead.

Sviatoslav said he feels that some of the people protecting human rights in Ukraine do not get enough attention for their work. He believes that in Ukraine, people do not acknowledge the sacrifices his father has made, adding that he does not know what the next stage for his fathers prisoner exchange would be.

I dont see the real way to solve it. But I would use any opportunity to save his life now, he said.

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Biden's Call: Survivors Say Russians Tortured Them With Twisted Sexual Abuse Named After Biden - The Daily Beast

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine So many drones patrol the skies over Ukraines front lines hunting for any signs of movement that Ukrainian and Russian troops have little ability to move on the battlefield without being spotted, and blown up.

Instead, on missions, they rush from one foxhole to another, hoping the pilots manning the enemy drones overhead are not skilled enough to find them inside. Expert drone operators, their abilities honed on the front, can stalk just a single foot soldier to their death, diving after them into hideouts and trenches.

The surge in small drones in Ukraine has turned the area beyond either side of the zero line normally known as the gray zone into the death zone, said Oleksandr Nastenko, commander of Code 9.2, a drone unit in Ukraines 92nd brigade. Those who dare to move day or night under the prying eyes of enemy drones are dead immediately, he said.

Cheap drones deployed in Ukraine have transformed modern warfare and initially gave Ukrainian troops an advantage on a battlefield where they are perpetually outnumbered and outgunned. This is the evolution of our survival, Nastenko said.

But the Russians quickly caught on and began mass producing their own drones.

What followed was an overabundance of disposable, deadly drones and electronic warfare devices known as jammers that disrupt their flights. Most common are first-person-view, or FPV drones, typically controlled by a pilot wearing a headset and holding a remote controller.

What were witnessing right now is blitzkrieg drone warfare, said Andrew Cot, chief of staff at BRINC Drones, a Seattle-based drone company sending equipment to Ukraine. Cot said that drones in Ukraine are as game changing as tanks were in World War I. It is pretty stalemate, he said, because if you are out in the open, you will be hunted.

The technological advances probably have saved lives because drone pilots can work slightly farther from the zero or contact line than traditional infantry. But the saturation of drones, many with thermal cameras that work at night, has also shrunk the space where troops can move safely without being spotted leading to high casualties and, in recent months, largely preventing either side from making major breakthroughs.

These conditions combined with widespread minefields and shortages of ammunition and soldiers now make it virtually impossible for Ukraine to retake swaths of territory as it did in 2022.

Russia, which has ample missile stocks and superior aviation power, capitalized on Ukraines ammunition shortages to seize the strategic eastern town of Avdiivka, and is now pushing to take more land. On Saturday, Ukraines commander in chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned that the situation on the eastern front had significantly deteriorated.

Ukraine will rely largely on drones to make it difficult for the Russians to press forward without putting expensive Russian fighting vehicles at risk whenever they move.

With large-scale drone production underway in Russia, Ukraine is racing to manufacture more than a million drones this year in hopes that it will prevent further Russian gains.

That task is turning even more urgent as Kyiv rapidly runs out of artillery and air defense ammunition from its Western partners, including the United States. For months, Republicans in Congress have blocked a $60 billion aid package proposed by President Biden.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraines minister of digital transformation who is overseeing much of the countrys drone development, said Ukrainian drones have proved more accurate than artillery on some enemy targets. Still, artillery is a top need.

Earlier in Russias invasion, Ukrainian troops relied on artillery to destroy high-value targets such as Russian tanks and halt the Russian advance. Now, a severe shortage of 155-mm shells means that even if surveillance drones identify dozens of targets, few will be attacked.

If we dont get enough ammunition we will lose this war, said Denys, 31, a drone commander in Ukraines 45th brigade who conducts surveillance deep inside Russian-controlled territory, and who is being identified only by his first name for security reasons.

In the meantime, we are holding off their advance with FPV drones, said Nepal, 32, a drone operator in the same brigade who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition he be identified only by his call sign, in keeping with military rules.

Ukraine has trained tens of thousands of soldiers like Nepal as drone pilots a role that effectively did not exist when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky formalized the role of drone operators, establishing a new military branch called the Unmanned Systems Forces. Repelling ground assaults is primarily the task of drones, Zelensky said, acknowledging that the role of infantry soldiers has changed dramatically.

Ukrainian factories are producing a wide range of drone models, including ones that strike inside of Russia, and civilian volunteers are building FPVs themselves, following directions on YouTube.

Demand for drones is outpacing supply, Fedorov said. Even if we meet all the needs that are formally there now tomorrow there will be 10 more attack drone companies that also need drones, he said.

The sheer number of drones means the battlefield is almost transparent on both sides, Nepal said, speaking from a makeshift base near the front line filled with parts for FPVs.

The devices, while fairly cheap to construct, are so strategically valuable that Nepal spends hours at his desk working to repair those seized from the Russians or fixing their own in hopes they can be used again.

Jamming systems, which disrupt drone frequencies and turn pilots screens to static, have made missions even more difficult. Sometimes, Nepal said, he must hit his targets being almost blind.

There is little besides jamming the signal that troops can do to protect themselves from a drone. Nepal often watches as Russian troops, holding assault rifles, try to save their lives by shooting down his explosive-laden drones before they crash into them.

Nepals commander, Fox, 32, said nonstop flights of Russian drones mean everything is in danger. Last fall, his troops could fly their drones freely, taking out Russian targets. Now, due to jamming, they often cannot move them much more than one mile before their screens go gray.

Stanislav, 35, who runs a drone unit in eastern Ukraine said that within a 10-kilometer radius controlled by his brigade and two others, there might be 100 reconnaissance and attack drones flying back-and-forth.

The most challenging thing to figure out is if its Ukrainian or Russian drones, Stanislav said. When you see 10 drones in the sky theres no way to understand if its our drone coming back after reconnaissance in Russian-controlled territory or if its their drone which is coming for reconnaissance or attacking Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Although the jamming systems he uses, developed by Ukrainian company Kvertus, help disrupt Russian flights, they also hamper his own. He said he wishes there was a magic button to disrupt all signals, but with drones using an increasingly wide range of frequencies such technology is not available.

Russia knows how valuable drone pilots are to Ukraine and are targeting our drone operators with aerial guided bombs and grad systems, Fox said.

Nastenko compared the precision of an advanced pilot to that of a jeweler; Fox likened the skill set to that of a Formula 1 racecar driver.

On a recent mission, Nastenkos team working from a foxhole near the zero line launched a Vampire drone toward Russian positions. The thermal camera combed over dead trees until it found Russian troops hiding on their side of the line. Then, the drone dropped its payload, igniting a massive explosion. A recording showed Russian troops bodies as they went flying.

The drone returned back to its base, where the Ukrainian troops loaded it up again and sent it back to kill any survivors. Meanwhile, another drone called a Mavic lingered overhead, monitoring Russian movements. Its camera picked up two disoriented soldiers running side by side in circles, their camouflage uniforms turned an eerie white under the thermal lens. Then they separated, looking for anywhere to hide. The Vampire drone homed in and fired again.

Intercepted communications showed that the attack, which took roughly an hour, killed eight Russian troops, Nastenko said.

Days later, troops in his unit embarked on another mission. While in the field, they came under an artillery attack, losing two of their own.

David L. Stern in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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Drones saturate the skies over Ukraine, largely paralyzing battlefield - The Washington Post

KYIV As Ukrainian officials plead for more Western arms and a U.S. aid package remains stalled in Congress, Russia is advancing on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, seizing new territory and intensifying attacks to capture the town of Chasiv Yar and others in the Donetsk region.

Away from the front line, Ukraines dwindling air defense capabilities are showing vulnerabilities, as more Russian missiles and drones are able to hit targets such as critical infrastructure facilities.

Outside Kyiv considered Ukraines best-protected city the largest power plant serving the capital was destroyed Thursday, stoking concerns that Ukraine might be running out of surface-to-air missiles to counter the Russian airstrikes.

We need air defense systems and other defense assistance, not just turning a blind eye and having lengthy discussions, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

For months, Ukrainian military personnel have described the battlefield situation as dire due to a shortage of weapons and soldiers amid a renewed Russian offensive. They have reported increased Russian bombardment using guided air bombs, dropped from their planes onto Ukrainian military positions.

With resources running low, this assault in eastern Ukraine could threaten larger towns and cities such as Kostiantynivka, just west of Chasiv Yar potentially advancing Russian President Vladimir Putins goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region, which he has already declared, illegally, to be annexed by Russia.

Chasiv Yar west of the city of Bakhmut, which Russias Wagner mercenaries captured and occupied nearly a year ago is now the new focus of Moscows forces, commanders fighting in the area said.

They systematically try to advance, said a deputy battalion commander in the 24th Separate Assault Battalion, better known as Aidar. The Washington Post agreed to identify the commander by his call sign, Chichen, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.

We now see, due to their assaults, a large number of [Russian] armored vehicles knocked out on the outskirts, Chichen said, adding that on Friday morning, some 20 units of heavy equipment were part of the Russian assault.

Literally six months ago, this did not happen here, he said. Now there is a lot of burned-out equipment.

Note: Control areas as of April 11. Satellite image, March 28

Sources: Institute for the Study of War, Copernicus

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Note: Control areas as of April 11. Satellite image, March 28

Sources: Institute for the Study of War, Copernicus

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Note: Control areas as of April 11. Satellite image captured on March 28

Sources: Institute for the Study of War, Copernicus

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Note: Control areas as of April 11. Satellite image captured on March 28

Sources: Institute for the Study of War, Copernicus

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Ukraines worsening battlefield situation has coincided with Republicans in Congress blocking, for more than six months, $60 billion in security aid for Ukraine proposed by President Biden. During that time, Russia has regained the offensive initiative, initially by overtaking the town of Avdiivka in February.

Moscows forces have continued to advance past Avdiivka in the southern part of the Donetsk region. And on a separate axis, they are now encroaching on Chasiv Yar a two-pronged attack.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are concerned that Russia is preparing to mobilize hundreds of thousands more soldiers for another potential offensive in the northeast, toward Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city. Kharkiv in recent weeks has been pummeled repeatedly by missiles, and strikes on energy infrastructure have disrupted electrical service.

Elsewhere in the southeast, Ukrainian forces have been fighting to maintain the few gains they made during a counteroffensive last summer, towns such as Robotyne, south of the city of Zaporizhzhia.

Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that without the U.S. support particularly in providing air defense and artillery ammunition Ukraines defense along the front line could crumble

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the top U.S. general overseeing military operations in Europe, warned U.S. lawmakers this week that Russia is expected to hold a 10-1 advantage on artillery shells within weeks.

Oleksander, a Ukrainian battalion commander fighting on the left flank of Chasiv Yar, said Russians are now assaulting the town directly as well as other villages at its edges. He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

In recent days, the Russians had reached the outskirts of the town, he said, and he predicted that if Ukraine does not withdraw from Chasiv Yar the end of the month, fighting will probably already be taking place in the towns center.

Chichen, the Aidar deputy battalion commander, said that Chasiv Yar could be strategic for Russian soldiers because it has high ground that is convenient for launching drone attacks. Defending a canal that runs through the eastern edge of the town will be key for Ukraine, he said.

Now the canal is one of the main boundaries that everyone is trying to hold on to, Chichen said. If they have to advance, then there are restrictions on the places in which they will cross it. It will be possible to pass there by infantry, but it will be more difficult for them to cross with vehicles. Therefore, the canal is quite an important thing.

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Russian troops advance in Ukraine as Kyiv runs low on air defenses - The Washington Post

Consider the news last week that authorities in several European countries had uncovered a vast corruption network, in which European politicians were paid to spread anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia propaganda. The network, according to intelligence sources cited by Czech media and confirmed by the countrys prime minister, was orchestrated by pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. Politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary were allegedly paid directly with cash or through cryptocurrency exchanges.

The case highlights an important misunderstanding that arose during Trumps first presidential campaign, about how malign influence operations work: They are not simply, or even primarily, bot or troll networks on social media that amplify lies and propaganda. Theyre human intelligence operations toonot unlike what you might see in a Hollywood film. Operatives of Russias security services meet with politicians, journalists, activists, and other influencers and pay them to carry out certain tasks.

The idea is to push narratives and policies that help Russia but to mask them behind a local face. (In the aforementioned case, the popular website Voice of Europe was allegedly used to push the propaganda and to facilitate payments.) This provides Russia plausible deniability, but it also makes it more likely that audiences will trust the messages. It serves a purpose within Russia too, as domestic propaganda purportedly showing that people in other countries agree with the Kremlins positions.

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Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too? - The New Republic

Does the West actually want Ukraine to defeat Russia? That is the question many in Kyiv are now asking amid continued signs of Western indecision as the biggest European invasion since World War II approaches its third summer with no end in sight.

The mounting sense of frustration among Ukrainians is easy to understand. Encouraged by delays in military aid for Ukraine, Russia has intensified the bombing of Ukraines civilian infrastructure over the past month, plunging entire cities into darkness and leaving millions without access to electricity, heating, water, or internet. Despite the looming prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe, the Western response has been notably lacking in urgency.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has begun striking back with drone attacks on Russian refineries, and has succeeded in disrupting more than ten percent of Russian refining capacity. Rather than supporting this seemingly effective campaign to weaken Putins war machine, The US has reportedly called on Kyiv to end its drone strikes due to concerns over global oil prices and possible retaliation. Viewed from Ukraine, these do not look like the actions of partners who are fully committed to Ukrainian victory.

Over the past two years, Ukrainians have grown accustomed to excessive Western caution and insufficient Western support. While the democratic world deserves considerable credit for delivering the weapons that have allowed Ukraine to survive, the military aid provided since February 2022 has been subject to frequent delays, and has consistently fallen far short of the quantities required to defeat a military superpower like Russia.

The Wests inadequate response to Russias invasion is primarily due to a crippling fear of escalation. Putin sees this indecisiveness and acts accordingly. He easily intimidates Western leaders with nuclear blackmail, while escalating his own attacks on Ukrainian cities and the countrys civilian infrastructure.

In March 2024 alone, Russia attacked Ukraine with 264 missiles and 515 drones, according to Ukrainian Air Force data. Some were intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses, but ammunition is rapidly running out. With no clear idea of when the next batches of interceptor missiles may arrive, Ukrainian troops must ration supplies, leaving millions vulnerable to the horrors of Russian bombardment.

The situation on the front lines of the war is equally critical. With half of promised weapons deliveries arriving late and vital US military aid held up in Congress for the past eight months, Ukrainian troops are running short of crucial ammunition and are currently in danger of being overwhelmed by Russian firepower. In late March, President Zelenskyy admitted that if US aid is not forthcoming, Ukraine will be forced to retreat. If that happens, he warned, Russia could break through Ukraines defensive lines and attempt to seize the countrys biggest cities.

Despite this deteriorating picture, there is currently a surreal sense of business as usual in much of the West. The political classes are increasingly preoccupied with upcoming elections and appear largely unaware of the geopolitical disaster unfolding on Europes eastern frontier. Many seem to think Ukrainian courage alone will be enough to hold Russia back until the invasion runs out of steam. This is wishful thinking. In reality, if Ukraine does not urgently receive increased support, there is a very real chance that Putin will win. And if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will go further.

At present, the West appears content to wage of a slow war of attrition while drip-feeding Ukraine minimal supplies. This is a recipe for defeat. Russia enjoys huge advantages in terms of manpower and weapons, while the Kremlin has successfully shifted the entire Russian economy onto a war footing. Putin clearly believes he can outlast the West in Ukraine, and is confident time is on his side.

This does not mean a Ukrainian victory is unachievable, but Ukraines partners need to demonstrate far more resolve if they genuinely hope to secure Putins defeat. Ukraines long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries have exposed the vulnerability of Russias economically crucial energy industry, but the Western response has so far been predictably cautious. This needs to change. Ukraine cannot win a war against such a powerful enemy with one hand tied behind its back.

Likewise, Ukraines remarkable success in the Battle of the Black Sea debunks notions of Russian red lines and offers a road map toward victory over the Kremlin. Despite not having a conventional navy of its own, Ukraine has used drones and missile strikes to sink around a quarter of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This has forced Putin to quietly withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from Crimea.

Similar success is possible on land if Ukraines Western partners give the country the tools it needs. Ukraines requirements are already well known; the Ukrainian military needs vast quantities of artillery shells and drones along with increased deliveries of armored vehicles, combat aircraft, air defense systems, electronic warfare technologies, and long-range missiles.

Without this military aid, Ukraines prospects look grim. Nor would the consequences of a Russian victory be confined to Ukraine alone. On the contrary, the shock waves would be felt around the world as Putin and his fellow autocrats sought to capitalize on Western weakness.

A triumphant Putin would almost certainly look to build on the considerable geopolitical momentum created by success in Ukraine. In practical terms, this would mean expanding his quest to reverse the verdict of 1991 and reclaim historically Russian lands. Putins revisionist agenda would place more than a dozen independent states that formerly belonged to the Russian Empire at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine. The most probable initial targets would include Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, but his ambitions would likely expand further.

The fall of Ukraine would leave NATO demoralized and discredited, creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Russian dictator to achieve his ultimate goal and instigate the break-up of the alliance. NATO leaders have already demonstrated that they are afraid of escalation and inclined to back down when confronted by the Kremlin. In a post-Ukraine environment, Putin may look to exploit this lack of resolve by testing NATOs own red lines while stopping short of full-scale hostilities. If the alliance failed to rise to this challenge, it would risk losing all credibility overnight. While NATO could technically survive such a crisis, the alliance would struggle to maintain any legitimacy without its cast-iron commitment to collective security.

Fellow authoritarian powers like China and Iran are also watching the Wests weakness in Ukraine and are drawing the obvious conclusions. This is already helping to fuel insecurity in the Middle East and increasing the threat to Taiwan. The global security architecture established over the past eighty years is clearly crumbling, and Ukraine is the front line in the fight to shape the future of international relations.

The Wests fear of escalation is Vladimir Putins secret weapon. It has deterred Western leaders from arming Ukraine, and has prolonged the war by preventing the Ukrainian army from building on its early battlefield successes. Unless the West can overcome this self-defeating fear, it may ultimately lead to Russian victory.

Russian success in Ukraine would almost certainly set the stage for a far bigger military confrontation between the Kremlin and the democratic world. Since February 2022, Putin has placed his entire country on a war footing and has positioned Russia as the leader of an anti-Western coalition of authoritarian states aiming to transform the world order. As the invasion of Ukraine has escalated, he has become increasingly open about his own imperial ambitions. It is dangerously delusional to suggest Putin will simply stop if he wins in Ukraine. Instead, Western leaders must decide whether they would rather arm Ukraine for victory today, or find themselves confronted with a resurgent and emboldened Russia tomorrow.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Image: Pictures and flowers at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine on April 2, 2024 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by VESA MOILANEN/LEHTIKUVA/Sipa USA)

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Western weakness in Ukraine could provoke a far bigger war with Russia - Atlantic Council

For most of its history, NATO has had a problem: not enough troops.

It was an issue for much of the Cold War, when NATO looked across the Warsaw Pact lines in East Germany and saw 6 million troops to their 5 million, and more divisions, tanks, combat aircraft, and submarines.

Ever since then, the problem has only gotten worse. In the 1990s and 2000s, NATO nations shed troops and painted their green tanks in desert camouflage for 20 years of war in the Middle East. By 2014, when the Kremlin ordered troops into the Crimean Peninsula, there were only around 30,000 U.S. troops in Europe. Pentagon officials scrambled to figure out how to make it look to the Russians like there were 10 times that many.

NATO basically forgot about its military, said one senior NATO nation diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about military planning. It was absolutely insufficient for a big crisis.

As NATO builds out its new war plans this year to defend against a potential Russian attack on three axesnorth, central, and southit is getting all of the tanks, artillery, and ammunition in place. But it is struggling to find enough troops. The alliance plans to train NATOs new 300,000-troop Allied Response Force this summer, but to keep pace with Russias buildup of people, the alliance is going to need reservesa lot of them. And NATO is having to rethink the entire way that it gets troops from allied countries.

We have to think about making sure that we have enough military to execute the plans that we have agreed to, Royal Netherlands Navy Lt. Adm. Rob Bauer, the chair of NATOs Military Committee, told Foreign Policy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February.

Most of NATOled by the United Stateshas been recruiting all-volunteer forces for the past half-century, though in the United States, all eligible men have to register with the selective service in case Congress or the U.S. president authorizes a draft.

But falling unemployment rates in the United States and across the Atlantic Ocean have made hitting recruiting numbers more difficult. Since the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. employers have kept adding jobs, keeping the unemployment rate hovering around 4 percent. In the Netherlands and Germany, unemployment is lowabout 3 percentmeaning that anyone whos out of work is either switching jobs or just entering the workforce. But there are other factors. In the United States, at least, fewer people are meeting military recruitment standards because of fitness, mental illness, or past criminal activity, leading to a shrinking pool of recruits.

The biggest factor that has driven down recruitment, experts think, is the lack of an existential U.S. national security threat. Were victims of our own success, said Kate Kuzminski, director of the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington think tank. The sense of existential threat is not necessarily as strong as it used to be, which is a good thing, but it leads to some challenges when it comes to recruitment.

The U.S. military missed its recruiting target by more than 41,000 people last year. The active-duty U.S. military is smaller than it has been in over 80 years. The British Army has fallen short of its targets every year since 2010. And Germanys Bundeswehr shrank by 1,500 military personnel last year, despite a massive recruitment drive. Even Ukraine, which is outside of the NATO alliance, has had to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25 to bring on enough troops to help fight off a Russian invasion on its soil.

Russia has adjusted its conscription age, raising the maximum age at which someone can be conscripted form 27 to 30, but the Kremlin has also taken action on the other end of the spectrum: raising the service age to re-conscript old soldiers. So youve got retired generals whove been drinking for the last 30 years being conscripted back into service, Kuzminski said.

In the U.S. Army, attrition and exhaustion have been most acute in the combat arms branchesthe service experienced a high rate of suicide just among tankers between 2019 and 2021. Air defense troops have also had high rates of fatigue, in part because of their globe-spanning mission.

So the Americans and the Europeans are going out to try to find people. A handful of nations, such as Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, and Norway, already conscript service members for some length of time. Latvia is bringing conscription back. And Swedenwhich once conscripted half of its populationhas brought back the old mobilization model and is looking to double its conscripts by 2030. Poland is trying to resist economic gravity, building a 250,000-troop active-duty army and adding 50,000 territorial defendersa reserve force akin to the Ukrainian mobilization modelwhile unemployment is hovering around 2 percent.

If you talk about people, [and] you cant find them in terms of voluntary service in a professional armed forces, then you need to think about other ways to find people, Bauer said. And thats either conscription or mobilization.

Russia is having no such troublefor now. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned recently that the Kremlin was planning to mobilize another 300,000 troops by the beginning of June, and the British Ministry of Defense believes Russia is bringing on 30,000 new recruits every month, almost entirely through forced conscription. Though Russia has emptied its borders with NATO of its troops to send them to fight in Ukraine, European officials believe that the Kremlin intends to double the almost 19,000 troops it had on NATOs eastern flank before the war.

Its a big question if Russian society will actually sustain the sacrifices, said Leon Aron, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. Putin is in a marathon against the West, Ukraine, and his own society. Even amid that marathon, the United States believes that Russias military has almost completely reconstituted in the last several months, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said at a CNAS event earlier this month.

But China, on the other hand, might not want to run a marathon against the United States or other Western powers. On both sides of the Atlantic, officials and experts are also thinking about mobilization in deterrence terms now. NATO officials characterize the option of bringing two U.S. divisions across the Atlantic Ocean to help out in an Article 5 contingency as one of their chief deterrents against Russiaanywhere between 45,000 and 90,000 troops.

Particularly for the China scenario, all signals indicate that theyre terrified of a protracted conflict, Kuzminski said. What draft mobilization in the U.S. signals is that we have the ability and the willingness to engage in a protracted conflict, which hopefully is the thing that keeps them from pulling the trigger in the first place.

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NATO Countries Struggle to Recruit Troops to Counter Russia Threat - Foreign Policy