2023 passed for Ukraine under the slogan of a major offensive and the liberation of most of the territory. Having started the year with loud statements about this and even with the bold disclosure of the plans for the (counter)offensive itself, Ukraine was faced, on the one hand, with an “unexpected” powerful strengthening of the enemy’s defensive lines, and on the other hand, with an acute shortage of weapons necessary for such operations from the “Ramstein countries” (because the West also found itself facing the collapse of inflated expectations – its own and Ukrainian). As a result, the major offensive turned into the liberation of only a few villages and settlements.

At the same time, the fierce defensive battles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not allow the enemy to advance the front line further into the territory of Ukraine. Russia did not capture a single large settlement, because a 10-month assault on the ruins of Bakhmut or Soledar can by no means be considered a major military achievement.

As a result of continuous mutual battles in a defensive mode, the front line hardly advanced on either side, and the war ultimately turned into a continuous mutual "meat grinder", similar to World War I, but with the use of much more deadly weapons.

Such a war turned out to be much more profitable for Russia, because the population there is 4 times larger than in Ukraine, and the reserves of old weapons are larger, and most importantly, a dictatorship reminiscent of the Nazi one, in which the Putin regime, through a combination of propaganda, material incentives and repressions, reduced the intrinsic value of human life to almost zero. In both armies there is a significant proportion of highly trained, educated military personnel; however, in the Russian army a significant proportion of infantry is made up of criminals recruited from prisons and colonies, convicted of serious crimes. This method is not used in the Ukrainian army; in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, those who fight - still without rest and change! - are largely the best citizens who went to defend the Motherland on the wave of national patriotism in the first days of the Russian attack. This makes the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine more motivated, but also more tired, because the Russian army replenishes its ranks more easily.

However, the most important thing is that Russia has found allies in the person of Iran and North Korea. Cooperation with Iran began in the fall of 2022, when Iranian-made Shahed UAVs began to fall on Ukrainian cities. In 2023, the Iranians built a plant in the Russian Federation for the joint production of these deadly drones, and at the same time, their direct supply from the dictatorship of the ayatollahs to the dictatorship of the racists continues. And since the summer of 2023, with the visit of the Russian Minister of War to Pyongyang, intensive cooperation with the DPRK began: Russia receives their missiles. In January 2024, they were “tested” in Kharkiv and Kyiv.

At the same time, Ukraine had breakthrough achievements in 2023. First of all, on the Black Sea. Without its own fleet, but only with the help of UAVs and naval drones, largely of its own production, and long-range missiles, Ukrainian forces destroyed so much of the Russian Black Sea Fleet that the Russian Federation relocated the remnants of the fleet from occupied Crimea to Novorossiysk. This allowed it to partially restore the “grain corridor”, thwarting Russian attempts to completely block it.

Ukraine has also made progress in negotiations with the EU: it has been given the go-ahead to begin negotiations on EU accession. However, progress towards NATO is being held up by the unwillingness of 30 member states. Instead, framework agreements on bilateral security arrangements with some G7 countries were signed at the Vilnius summit. Just on January 12, during an unannounced visit to Kyiv by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a 10-year agreement was signed. The UK package will include “more air defence, more anti-tank weapons, more long-range missiles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and artillery shells,” Sunak said. Both sides pledge to support each other with arms supplies, but such agreements are not a full-fledged security guarantee and do not replace Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

Such a positional war may turn out to be practically endless, in any case, until the complete exhaustion of both forces. For Ukraine to win, as the now former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, noted, it is necessary to achieve a comprehensive technological breakthrough simultaneously in several branches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: first of all, in the air, including at the expense of drones, but also on the ground - with long-range missiles and artillery; and in cyberspace. This requires the exertion of all forces of both Ukrainian society and the West. To do this, it is necessary to clearly formulate that Ukraine's victory means the victory of the free world not only over the Russian Federation, but also over the united axis of evil, which is manifesting itself more and more clearly.

Nadiya Banchyk, journalist,

San Jose, California