NEITHER RUSSIA NOR UKRAINE WILL ACHIEVE ONE-SIDED VICTORY

Delaying a resolution is only multiplying the costs of war in terms of human and economic terms.

- MAJ GEN JAGATBIR SINGH 

On 7 October 2023, President Putin was given an unusual birthday present from an unexpected source, the Hamas attack on Israel and the outbreak of war in Gaza was his perfect 71 birthday gift in every sense. For one thing, the war in Ukraine departed from the front pages of international media, and the heads of the United States and the West turned once again towards the Middle East.

Consequentially, the Ukrainian conflict looked like a limited war, when compared to Israel’s war in Gaza, which has the risk of escalating and expanding in the region. Further, President Putin was secure in the fact that the aid to Ukraine as far as arms, ammunition and Western deterrence by deploying troops in the vicinity of Ukraine would now stand divided between the Ukrainian and Israeli cause. Finally, the brutality of the Hamas and its mirror image while retaliating by Israel have paled the Russian—Ukrainian conflict.

Prior to 7 October the majority view by Western analysts seemed to be that a “stalemate” was considered to be a “pessimistic view point as far as Ukraine was concerned”. The West had invested the Ukrainian Defence Forces with state-of-the-art weapon systems and they were hoping that the counter offensive would be successful. The EU had done what was unthinkable before the “invasion” that is supplied lethal equipment and delivered it to a non-member state at war. Aid to Ukraine was the buzzword and there were frequent trips by President Zelenskyy to various capitals demanding assistance to fight the war.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE CONTER OFFENSIVE