THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine 75 available - between 150,000 and 200,000 - made such an ambitious goal impossible at that time as this would have required eight- or ten-times greater manpower. Oc- cupying a country with over 600,000 square kilometres, and a mainly hostile population, would have required the kind of military and economic capacity that Russia can only dream about right now. The same goes for setting up a puppet government in Kiev, because this would have required the aforementioned occupation, as a regime of this type could only be sustained while the country was occupied. So, what was the point of attacking in the north and putting pressure on the capital Kiev? And why did they abandon this line of action? Let’s take a look. It is likely that the Russian General Staff planned that their initial offensive, and threat to the capital, would cause the Ukrainian military to collapse quickly and with it, cause a political crisis that would bring Ukrainians to change their own government, in favour of someone who could forge agreements with the invader and stop the fighting before the subsequent destruction and brutality would make this absolutely unfeasible. This would doubtless- ly have been the ideal situation for the Kremlin, which attacked the capital but did not want to destroy it from the air as it surely could have done, so as not to rule out any chance of an agreement. The attempt to swiftly bend Ukraine’s will failed, a strategic error that cost many Russian lives and a great deal of equipment, doubtlessly due to poor analysis by the formerly prestigious Russian military intelligence. Maybe there was an additional intention: luring the Ukrainian war machine towards the capital region, to give the Russians greater freedom to act in the east and the south of the country, where other offensives had been launched. Nevertheless, early in the invasion each of these lines had its own commander, causing an enormous shortfall in coordination between them. In any case, Ukraine put up strong resistance to this first onslaught. There was no collapse, no crisis and Western support - which began to arrive almost immediately - made it possible to foresee a stalemate situation in the north and around Kiev, locking down as many Russian troops as Ukrainian, with no sign of victory. This did not suit Moscow, so it tacitly admitted its mistake and aban- doned this line of action to concentrate its efforts on the Donbas region - officially the cause of their intervention - and other territories in the east and south that would allow it to create a security area under its control be- tween Ukraine and Russia. If Russia could not rip the Kiev government from its Western influence, it would at least divide the country and weaken it, annexing part or at least creating a zone under its influence, comprising the territories with a Russian-speaking majority which had traditionally belonged to Imperial Russia or part of them. Precisely one of the most important aspects at the time of writing is how far the Kremlin’s territorial ambi- tion might go in Ukraine. In other words, the ultimate aim of its plan B, for lack of a better name, once it did not manage to get Ukraine to capitulate quickly. It is clear that the Russians’ priority is the Donbas territory - meaning the provinces (oblasts) of Luhansk and Donetsk - whose occupation they will complete over the next few weeks or months unless there is a drastic turn of events in the tactical situation in favour of Ukraine.The question is whether that will be enough, plus part of the provinces of Zaporiyia and Jerson that they already occupy and that they use to link up with Crimea, or whether they will want to occupy all these provinces, and even beyond, moving on the important cities of Járkov in the north and Odessa in the south, both majority Russian-speaking with a historical ties to Russia. The latter would demand a much greater effort and it is doubtful that the Russian offensive would achieve this right now, at least in its cur- rent format and in any case, this would take a long time. In the case of Ukraine, there was no other strate- gy than resisting the attack and attempting to involve Western countries - particularly the USA - as much as possible in the war, in the hope that their help and fore- seeably wearing down Russia would help them through the offensive to recover lost ground. As mentioned, a strategy has to be realistic and perhaps this one is not. Sooner or later, Kiev must come to the negotiating table