Russia-Ukraine War: What Options Does Moscow Leave After Battlefield Setbacks?

The Russian president, Vladimir Putinhas two options after the humiliating withdrawal of its troops from the Ukrainian city of Cherson: escalation, with the risk of losing control of the situation, or trying to save face by filing negotiations with Kiev.

The decision will largely depend on the evolution of the war. Analysts warn that, with the arrival of winter borealis, could occur a progressive stagnationtopped off with collateral damage like the Ukrainian missile that accidentally landed in Poland on Tuesday.

For Ukraine, the Russian withdrawal from Kherson, in the south of the country, marks the third major success since the conflict began in late February.

The first was to prevent the Russians from reaching take Kiev at the beginning of the invasion and then, in September, at the recapture of the Kharkov region (northeast).

With morale flaming, the Ukrainians are now in the crosshairs other territories occupied by the Russians to the east, as well as the Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014 and whose reconquest made the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, a condition for the end of the war.

But the torrent of Russian missiles targeting civilian infrastructure across Ukraine was a reminder on Tuesday the price to pay will be high, since Putin believes this condition it’s out of the question.

“Historically, Russian authorities have never negotiated from a position of weakness,” said Cyrille Bret, a researcher in the cabinet at the Institut Jacques Delors in Paris.

With the recent mobilization of 300,000 reservists, the Russians “are thinking about it how to alter the balance of forceswith military operations but also with diplomatic, economic or even hidden initiatives”, he explained.

Winter is coming

A war of attrition punctuated by Russian aerial bombardment, for example, could undermine Ukrainian resolve during the winter.

The fact that the days have fewer daylight hours it also limits the ability to carry out operations that allow Ukraine to recapture territory in the east.

“Russians are better off than when they arrived in the country in February when they were ill-prepared,” a Western official who requested anonymity told AFP.

“We are seeing a greater degree of coherence in the overall military approach” being taken to the conflict, he said.

If Ukraine is registered more successes on the battlefield, could increase its pressure for a negotiated agreement, underline the analysts, who recall, however, that Zelenski’s willingness to retaking Crimea has caused concern among their Western allies.

Many Crimeans want the peninsula to remain part of Russia, which needs a base of operations for its Black Sea fleet.

“This is an existential problem for the Russian Navy and for the Russians themselves,” said William Alberque of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Having power over Crimea, the deal may be to freeze the battle line here,” he said, arguing that if Crimea is left off the negotiating table, Russia will have less “pressure”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that after speaking with G20 leaders in Bali, “the path of negotiation is not incompatible with the resistance” of Ukraine and that “there is probably more consensus on this position today”.

Macron said he wanted to speak with Putin soon, especially to insist on a warning from the G20 to avoid a nuclear escalation of the conflict.

Some analysts also see a change of position on the part of the United States, whose military support is essential for Kyiv.

Last week, US General Mark Milley said the war could not end in military victory, but that there was “a window of opportunity for negotiations”.

And that same week, US intelligence chief William Burns met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, in Turkey in a rare face-to-face.

However, negotiations are unlikely at the moment, as both sides are convinced they can still win on the battlefield.

“Of course Ukraine is not interested in having fixed battle lines, they want to record victories over the winter to be in a much stronger position next spring,” Alberque said.

Emma Ashford, head of the Stimson Center in Washington, however indicated that US President Joe Biden and his administration “must think about the right time to move forward with the negotiations and to what extent the costs of continuing to fight outweigh the benefits.”

The expert outlined three scenarios possibilities for the coming months that could facilitate a negotiation: Ukraine making more progress, Russia attacking more forcefully o a stagnation.

“What all three have in common is that, overall, the battlefield findings point toward a consensus on the possibility of a deal,” Ashford wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last October.

The author is an AFP journalist

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