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PUTIN CANNOT FIGHT IN UKRAINE INDEFINITELY. UNFORTUNATELY, HE DOESN’T HAVE TO
>Russia is unlikely to accept a deal with Trump, because the Kremlin believes it can grind Kyiv and the West into surrender
>Putin is unlikely to think that he needs to fight “indefinitely”. Instead, he may have determined that he only has to fight long enough to inflict what Russian military planners call “unacceptable damage” – to both Ukraine’s combat potential and to the morale of the country’s troops and civilian population. The result would be Ukraine’s capitulation.
>In terms of combat potential – a combination of the size of a country’s weapons stockpile, the size of its armed forces, its ability to mobilise additional troops, its military-industrial capacity to scale up production of weapons, and its will to fight – Ukraine is outmanned, outgunned, and overly reliant on the West economically and militarily. Its will to fight also appears to have been eroded. Despite having lowered the minimum conscription age in 2024 from 27 to 25, and allowing men over 60 to enlist in the military, Ukraine is in a manpower crisis, with the average age of a Ukrainian soldier reportedly having reached 45.
>Ukraine faces critical shortages in key weapon systems and ordnance, forcing it to ration its ammunition, especially artillery shells. Russia’s disproportionate advantage over Ukraine in artillery shell use – 44,500 vs 14,600 in the summer of 2024, according to one estimate – has hindered the Ukrainian military from fighting effectively and appears to have drained its troops’ morale.
>Supplies from the US and Europe are not endless, either, because their respective arsenals have also been depleted. In contrast, Russia, having moved onto a wartime footing seven years prior to the invasion of Ukraine, is now believed to be producing more ammunition in three months than Europe in one year.
https://archive.md/zqjaj