Volunteer and public figure Gennady Druzenko expressed confidence that the active phase of the war in Ukraine may end by the winter of 2024. However, according to him, this period will be only the beginning of new challenges that the country will face. He outlines three possible scenarios of the development of events, which can radically affect the future of Ukraine.
I have already had to write more than once that this winter I expect the war to subside. Because the parties will simply not WANT to fight on such a scale. Despite the patriotic elation and relentless propaganda from both sides, there are fewer and fewer people willing to kill and die for their homeland. The mobilization resource is becoming more and more low-quality. And there is simply no political will to announce general mobilization in Russia or lower its age to at least 20 years in Ukraine. Because almost everyone who wanted or was not against fighting is already at the front, and the multi-million army of fans from both sides prefers to destroy the enemy in absentia, that is, in absentia. In addition, the very ethos of war as an existential one (they say, only one will survive) has long been and irreparably undermined.
Ukrainians are increasingly convinced that the war is not going on for Ukrainian statehood as such, but for its borders. And most importantly, who and how will be the beneficiary of Ukraine in these (new) borders. And this stimulates the most shrewd and resourceful to think and invest resources not in the defense of the country, but in getting into the team of (future) beneficiaries. Well, the second front, on which the Ukrainian authorities are waging an uncompromising war with Ukrainian citizens and Ukrainian businesses, has already become much closer and more tangible for most Ukrainians than the front on which we are fighting the horde...
Russians are also far from feeling an existential threat from the Ukrainian offensive, and therefore from the motivation to save Russia at any cost. Despite the frenzied propaganda, the Kursk offensive only confirmed the guesses of many citizens of the Russian Federation: this is not their war. "Khokhly" are Nazis only in Putin's sick imagination, it is not scary to be under them, and the main thing is that the front line does not linger for a long time in your "small homeland". Therefore, it will not work to mobilize the "huge country" as in 1611-1612, 1917-1920 or 1941-1945. It remains to fight mercenaries and contractors, but with such intensity of their disposal in Ukraine, very soon there will simply be nowhere to take them. And the size of the "lifting" will not affect the critical shortage of manpower.
Therefore, I consider both the "Kursk Offensive" and the Pokrovsky Offensive as the last trump cards of the parties before the war begins to slip in the winter and gradually subside. But the stakes are not equal. The Russians have declared that they want to annex the Ukrainian Donbas forever and even wrote it down in their own constitution, but what should we do with thousands of square kilometers of the People's Republic of China if we continue to declare our loyalty to the UN charter and internationally recognized borders is unclear. In Putin's place, I would generally offer purely symbolic resistance to the Ukrainians on the "eternal" territory of the Russian Federation: the more Ukrainian forces and resources are involved in Russia, the easier it will be for the Russians to conquer Donbas. As Napoleon said, bayonets are good for any purpose, but sitting on them is inconvenient. The more "originally Russian" (subsidized) territories come under the control of Ukraine, the heavier the burden will fall on our state in terms of their maintenance. Let me remind you that the whole of Kurshchyna is a little less than 0.18% of the Russian territory...
So, according to my forecast, the war of odds will begin to significantly slow down in the winter. Perhaps, for a certain time, the parties will compensate for this with a certain analogue of the "war of cities" during the Iran-Iraq war. That is, instead of capturing square kilometers, they will focus on destroying each other's critical infrastructure. Because it requires much less people. But even in this war to destroy the enemy's infrastructure, I'm afraid the West and China will see to it that it declines as quickly as possible, without causing shocks in global markets and man-made disasters felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine and Russia.
And when the front lines stabilize and become temporary, not recognized by anyone, but more or less permanent borders of post-war Ukraine, the very internal logic of the war for independence will put us before a fundamental choice. Because the people will rather feel than realize that the cause of this destructive war and the terrible victims it brought to the Ukrainian land is not only the "Kremlin grandfather" bent on phantom imperial pains (although he is primarily the one), but also the weakness and ineffectiveness of the Ukrainian state , which seemed not only to Putin an easy victim for the Russian bear. Therefore, statehood was preserved with an incredible effort and at great cost. Its actual borders are defined not in Moscow or Yalta, but on the battlefield, where the dynamic balance of forces has been established between us and the enemy. As, by the way, almost always happened in real, not fictional history. After that, Ukrainians will be faced with the question of how to fill our independence in order to make it last? And for it to guarantee not only the protection of individual identity, but also security, development, prosperity and self-realization for its citizens.
And here we will have two and a half paths.
First. How Americans, French, Italians, Indians, having defended independence, sit down and agree on new rules of the game in post-war Ukraine. Call your Constitutional Convention. Relinquish the uncharacteristic functions of the president as a cornerstone and guarantor of Ukrainian statehood. Create a more balanced system of checks and balances. Make difficult compromises. Balance different branches and levels of government. Leave enough autonomous space for the individual and protect it with effective courts. To eventually make our natural ego work for the greater good.
The second way is more likely than the first. Find and believe in the next messiah. Especially since the war created and continues to create a whole pantheon of modern heroes. "Parental fantasy," as my teacher David Williams called it, is deeply rooted in human nature. Most do not like to take responsibility and nolens volens look for a "father" to whom they are ready to delegate the burden of choice, responsibility and freedom. Thus, we may have a moderate "messiah" Valery Zaluzhnyi or less moderate and more passionate Ukrainian "caudillos" appear on Bankova. In this case, there is a chance for radical reforms, which Ukraine desperately needs. After all, both Atatürk and Chiang Kai-shek and Park Chung-hee were great modernizers who brought their countries from the third world to the first. Unfortunately, there are many more negative examples of Latin American and African dictators in uniform who led their countries astray to civilization. I am not sure what will happen to us with the new "guide" as an Asian tiger, and not the other way around.
And the last option is not to radically change anything after victory. Let the country drift. To wrangle the rest of her wealth among those close to power. Call for international aid. Conduct endless negotiations with the EU. To write off all fakes on treacherous Muscovites. To feed the people with identity instead of development and well-being. To be proud of the heroes of the liberation struggle, especially the fallen (it's safer that way), and to brand all critics of the regime as "Kremlin agents." And for decades to rot from the inside. There are many examples.
Unfortunately, the probability of the above options increases from the first to the third in a geometric progression. Because, it seems, we have learned to fight, but we still haven't learned to agree on a common future. But the choice is still ours...
