Putin will win if the West cuts aid to Ukraine says ISW

It's been more than nineteen months since Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a new report has warned that Kyiv could lose the conflict if the West cuts its defense aid to the embattled country. 

However, Ukraine could also snatch victory from the jaws of defeat if Western support is ramped up. Here’s what The Institute for the Study of War’s Frederick W. Kagan argued was needed for Ukraine to win the fight. 

Kagan wrote that the situation in Ukraine was not the stale stalemate proposed by Chief General Valerii Zaluzhny—Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces—but rather a highly unstable situation that could be tipped either way. 

On November 1st, The Economist published an in-depth interview with General Zaluzhny on the state of the war in which Ukraine's Commander-in-chief explained that the battle had become a stalemated positional war. 

General Zaluzhny argued that a number of factors made it impossible for either Ukraine or Russia to outmaneuver the other, factors Kagan conceded were quite true even if he didn’t agree with Zaluzhny’s conclusion. 

The pervasiveness of drones on the battlefield coupled with Moscow’s electronic warfare and prepared defensive networks have turned the war into a positional one, especially in light of Ukraine's major shortcomings.  

Ukraine’s limited air defenses and lack of long-range strike capabilities paired with Kyiv's small numbers of tanks and armored vehicles have created a situation where the country’s armed forces can’t maneuver. 

However, where others see a stalemate that can only be broken with new technologies, Kagan sees a situation where Western aid could prove to be the deciding factor that tips the conflict in either Russia's or Ukraine’s favor. 

Moscow faces its own problems, chief amongst them is the Kremlin’s inability to bring its capabilities to bear across different sectors of the frontlines. Ukraine can blunt Russian attacks while Russia can do the same to Kyiv. 

For example, Russian electronic warfare systems are effective weapons according to Kagan, yet they are not deployed in density across the front. This situation allows Ukraine to use its drone fleet to disrupt Russian offensives. 

On the other hand, Russia’s dominance in manned air operations have been enough to stop some Ukrainian advances but not enough to prevent Ukraine's reinforcements from being redeployed to threatened sectors. 

Russia’s current industrial capacity can’t replace the tanks and armored vehicles being lost in its advances, and within this context, Kagan argued more Western aid could make a difference for the Ukrainians. 

“Western arsenals already possess the weaponry necessary to address nearly all the challenges confronting the combatants in Ukraine,” Kagan wrote, adding Kyiv’s current ability to stop Russia relies on Western aid and weapons. 

“Air defense, artillery, and anti-armor systems are existential requirements for Ukraine,” Kagan added, arguing Kyiv couldn’t make or acquire these systems on its own in a way that could stop Russia from regaining the ability to conduct large-scale combat operations.  

So what does all this mean? Ukraine is essentially in a situation where aid from the West could make or break the war for Kyiv. Cuts in aid would strip Ukraine of its ability to continue to stop Russia and could lead to a victory for Putin.

However, if the West expanded its aid to Ukraine, providing weapons that are already in Western arsenals, it could tip the scales of the war in Ukraine's favor and lead to an end of the current positional war stalemate between the two belligerents. 

Kagan noted weapons that could destroy Russia’s electronic warfare capabilities, as well as more airpower, more armor, and more mine-clearing equipment, would be some of the key weapons systems the West could supply to help Ukraine break the stalemate.

“Facilitating Ukraine’s ability to reinstate maneuverability on the battlefield… requires leaning into the provision to Ukrainian forces of weapons and systems already in Western arsenals on the scale needed to allow Ukraine to succeed,” Kagan concluded.