Ukraine’s War: A Defeat Written From the Beginning
Within the first six months, the outcome was already a foregone conclusion. Russia had shifted to a war of attrition, sanctions had failed, and Ukraine’s manpower was collapsing. Yet the West continued to encourage Kyiv to fight — not to secure victory, but to weaken Russia. What followed was a proxy war: tens of thousands killed, a similar number grievously injured, and a country bled for a strategic wager. Today, that wager is ending. The provoked war, sustained as a proxy conflict, is reaching its close.
Ukraine’s Frontline Crisis
Ukraine is running out of time. Military analysts, including some of Kyiv’s own commanders, concede that the army is stretched too thin across a long front. Many brigades are operating at roughly half their intended manpower. That makes it impossible to rotate units, to rest exhausted soldiers, or to close the growing gaps along defensive lines.
Russian forces, meanwhile, now outnumber Ukrainian defenders by at least three to one in the aggregate, and by as much as six to one in certain sectors. That imbalance allows Moscow to probe with small units until it finds weak points, then strike with overwhelming artillery, drones, and glide bombs. Far from the caricature of “human wave” assaults, the Russian approach has been cautious and deliberate — conserving manpower while grinding down Ukrainian positions piece by piece.
The result is not a stalemate. It is the slow attrition of a force that cannot cover its front. Whether the reckoning comes in weeks or months, most indicators now point in the same direction: Ukraine is on a trajectory toward defeat.
Russia Returned to the World War II Doctrine After Its Withdrawal from Kyiv
After the first six months of the war, following Russia’s withdrawal from Kyiv in early April 2022 and the collapse of negotiations in Istanbul later that same month, Moscow shifted decisively to a strategy of attrition. Those talks — which Ukrainian and Turkish officials suggested had made progress — were abruptly abandoned after a surprise visit by then–British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kyiv on April 9, 2022. According to multiple accounts, Johnson urged President Volodymyr Zelensky not to pursue a settlement and instead pressed for a long war backed by Western arms.
From that moment, Russia adjusted its method: conserving manpower while relying on artillery to grind down Ukrainian forces, much as it had done in the Second World War. The pattern was evident by the Battle of Bakhmut (July 2022 to May 20, 2023), where Moscow favored methodical firepower over frontal assaults. Russia simply reverted to its old doctrine: massive artillery firepower, the annihilation of the enemy by overwhelming guns, rolling barrages, and counter-battery campaigns. It was a continuation of the way of fighting it had always relied upon and had perfected in World War II.
Sanctions Fail, Russia Adapts
At the same time, sanctions failed to achieve their intended effect. Rather than collapsing, Russia adapted: it redirected oil exports eastward, with India reselling crude on global markets and China absorbing the surplus. The ruble held firm, revenues flowed, and the economy in many respects gained from the war. The Kremlin mobilized its industries, brought Soviet-era stockpiles of tanks and munitions out of storage, and ramped up war production. What began with artillery shells widened into the refurbishment of armor and missiles, a full-spectrum mobilization that the West had not anticipated.
Ramp Up in Russia’s Drone Production
As the war progressed, drone warfare moved to the center of the battlefield. Russia at first relied on Iran for loitering munitions such as the Shahed-136, but soon ramped up its own factories to manufacture both FPV drones for tactical use and long-range strike drones. Today, according to informed sources, Russia has the capacity to produce as many as 1,000 long-range drones a day, alongside a steady stream of battlefield drones. This scale of output ensures that Russian forces can replenish drone stocks rapidly and integrate them into both reconnaissance and strike roles. Ukraine, for its part, also expanded its drone production and has fielded large numbers of FPV drones for frontline attacks. But the disparity in scale remains decisive: Russia can replace losses at industrial speed, while Ukraine remains dependent on limited Western inputs and smaller-scale domestic workshops.
European Support Weakens as Economies Strain
If Ukraine’s manpower is collapsing, so too is its financial lifeline. France is already signalling limits on military aid into 2026. Germany has slipped into recession, its industrial base under pressure from high energy costs. Britain is wrestling with inflation and the fiscal aftershocks of Brexit. These are not economies positioned to bankroll a long war.
European leaders are doubling down politically, but their fiscal and industrial capacity is constrained. The more they pledge, the less credible those pledges appear. “The question is not whether Europe is willing, but whether it is able,” one Western diplomat admitted privately.
The U.S. Shifts the Burden to Europe
In Washington, the message is shifting as well. Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to push responsibility onto Europe. Even among Democrats, fatigue is visible: Congress is fractious, stockpiles are depleted, and domestic priorities are pulling ahead of foreign commitments.
The Biden administration continues to insist that America “stands with Ukraine,” but in practice support is conditional, temporary, and transactional. For Kyiv, the danger is stark: losing not only on the battlefield, but in the backrooms of Western capitals.
Propaganda vs. Battlefield Reality
President Volodymyr Zelensky has responded with relentless appeals to Western publics and parliaments. The campaign is understandable. Without constant reminders, support would erode even faster.
But propaganda cannot alter battlefield arithmetic. Wars are not won with speeches. They are won with men, munitions, and production. Western defence industries, even in the United States, cannot generate the shells and missiles Ukraine requires at the speed demanded. Russia, by contrast, has shifted to a wartime economy, refurbishing Cold War stockpiles and producing artillery and drones on a scale Ukraine cannot match.
The imbalance is structural, not temporary. And it is worsening.
Industrial Capacity: Russia Surges, NATO Stalls
Western states — including the United States — simply do not have the base capacity to produce the volume of weapons Ukraine needs to redress the imbalance. Meanwhile, Russia’s defence industry is running at wartime tempo, pumping out artillery shells, drones, missiles, and armour at a rate the Ukrainians cannot hope to match.
Ukraine therefore depends on Western replenishment, but its patrons cannot generate that output fast enough. This is the fatal divergence: Ukraine may be winning the information war, but wars are not settled by narratives. They are settled by firepower, manpower, and production. On those hard measures, the balance is tilting steadily against Kyiv.
NATO’s Credibility on the Line
For NATO leaders, the stakes now extend beyond Ukraine itself. After investing so much prestige in the war, admitting defeat would be a humiliation for the alliance. Officials in Brussels and European capitals talk about “staying the course,” but the course is narrowing rapidly.
The choices are brutal: negotiate a settlement that will look like a Russian victory, or risk Ukraine’s collapse on the battlefield. Either outcome is politically unpalatable. That explains why leaders continue to double down, betting that future production and future aid will reverse the trend. But as one senior European official acknowledged, “Wars rarely wait for long-term plans.”
A Moment of Escalation or Compromise
The closer Ukraine moves toward collapse, the greater the temptation in NATO capitals to escalate — to commit more directly rather than accept defeat. History shows that great powers rarely absorb humiliation quietly. Yet escalation has limits of its own. Europe’s welfare states cannot simply gut social spending to finance indefinite rearmament. Even if they tried, the payoff would come too late: by the time new plants and production lines deliver at scale, this war will already be decided.
That leaves the West in a dangerous bind: either negotiate or gamble on escalation it cannot sustain. Both paths carry risk; neither offers a clear way out.
The Foregone Conclusion
The tragedy, say several analysts, is that negotiations might have been possible earlier, when the costs were lower and the lines more fluid. Politics and pride prevented it. Now both sides are dug in, and the imbalance of manpower and industry favors Russia decisively.
Whether it is a matter of weeks or months, the trajectory appears fixed. Ukraine’s defeat is not just possible — it is, absent a radical shift, a foregone conclusion. And when the front finally breaks, the shock will reverberate not only in Kyiv, but across NATO itself.
