What awaits us in the nearest future and how it can affect Ukraine and the world?

Ivan Sichen

With the development of the situation around Ukraine in early 2023, a quite reasonable question arises: what will happen both in the near and far future? This concerns, first of all, the course and consequences of the war unleashed by Russia, which are important first of all for Ukraine.

In previous articles, I have already touched upon this topic. But I think it’s right now to return to it and analyze it in more detail. Moreover, from what is happening now at the front, already in the spring and summer of this year, the fate of the whole war can be determined, if I may say so. Therefore, let us forecast what exactly awaits us in the nearest future and how it can affect Ukraine and the world.

So, as already noted, in 2023, the main factor in determining the development of the situation around Ukraine will continue to be the full-scale war unleashed by the Russian Federation, which will also significantly affect the situation all over the world.

Thus, one cannot hope that V. Putin will stop the war and agree to constructive negotiations with Ukraine. Firstly, he has completely lost touch with reality, because he still hopes to defeat Ukraine, intimidate its Western partners and influence their positions by demonstrating military force and energy blackmailing. Secondly, Putin’s neo-imperial policy has caused irreversible changes in the consciousness of the Russian society: it supports the war against Ukraine. At this, Russia has already paid too high a price for the war in the form of losses among Russian troops and military equipment, as well as economic losses as a result of sanctions imposed by the West. At the same time, as is always the case with Russia, individual oligarchs — owners of defense enterprises, as well as other persons engaged in military supplies, make money off the war. A voluntary end to the war will mean the failure of the main idea of V. Putin’s life. This will deal a crushing blow to his authority, as well as cause a negative reaction from quite powerful political and economic groups in Russia and the majority of ordinary Russians. Not to mention various national chauvinist organizations in the country, which already harshly criticize the Putin regime for the lack of significant success in the war against Ukraine. All this will necessarily lead to V. Putin’s losing his so far fairly high level of support in the Russian society, which will form a direct threat to his power. Therefore, V. Putin will not stop the war, whatever it costs Russia. His strategic goals for the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state will remain unchanged.

As before, the implementation of such plans at the first stage will provide for Russia’s access to the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the military control and expansion of the occupied territories of southern Ukraine as a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula. Besides, there will be a threat of a new Russian attack from the northern and northeastern directions in order to contain the Defense Forces of Ukraine, create a buffer zone on the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarusian-Ukrainian borders and isolate our state from its Western partners.

In case if Russia achieves the above-mentioned goals and manages to preserve its military resources in sufficient quantities, it is likely to move to the second stage, namely, to the process of occupation of the entire territory of Ukraine and deprivation of its statehood and sovereignty. To this end, the Russian troops will continue to carry out offensive operations in several directions deep into Ukrainian territory. As part of such an operation, their efforts will be focused primarily on the seizure of the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa. After that — the central and western regions of Ukraine. Then Moscow will move to the already developed methods of integration into the Russian Federation of the occupied territories of Ukraine and assimilation of their population.

Now Russia continues to fulfill the tasks of the first stage of such plans, and is also preparing to expand the scale of hostilities in order to create conditions for the transition to the second stage.

Thus, partial mobilization in Russia, removal from storage and restoration of military equipment (albeit of old models), as well as taking steps to militarize its economy helped Moscow to obtain additional resources to compensate for the losses of its troops at the front, as well as to accumulate reserves. Some of them have already been deployed near the borders of Ukraine (including on the territory of Belarus) as the second echelon of the Russian troops, invading Ukraine.

Besides, Moscow has once again changed the command of a “special military operation” in Ukraine in order to increase its effectiveness, as well as complete subordination to a single military command of various private and local military structures. First of all, it concerns the units of the PMC “Wagner” and “Chechen special forces”. Thanks to this, it is meant to deprive their leaders (Ye. Prigozhin and R. Kadyrov) of political influence and their claims to increase their role in the system of Russian power. Currently, the implementation of the above-mentioned tasks is entrusted to the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces V. Gerasimov, who in January 2023 was appointed the new Commander of the SVO.

Thanks to such measures, Moscow has created conditions for a significant expansion of the war against Ukraine, including an offensive in all (or most) key sections of the front. In fact, the resuming of Russia’s offensive actions is already observed in practice.

Thus, the command of Russian troops is no longer trying to seize Ukrainian positions with separate assault groups of several dozen people, but uses full-fledged military units, as it did before. Besides, it resumes offensive operations in the south of Ukraine from the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia region.

According to some estimates, Russia may begin a new stage of hostilities as early as February 2023 after the training of reservists is completed, and appropriate troops are formed. At the same time, the number of forces and means involved may exceed that which acted against Ukraine at the beginning of the war in February-March 2022.

Based on the above, we can conclude that the decisive period of the war will be the spring-summer of this year. It is on the results of hostilities during this period will depend: whether Russia will be able to achieve the goals of the first stage of the war in Ukraine and move on to the implementation of the next stage, or whether the war will again become relatively positional in nature, or the Defense Forces of Ukraine will go on a counteroffensive. It can be performed in several main directions. They are known, so there are no secrets here. First of all, it is the liberation of the northern part of Luhansk region, which, among other things, will guarantee the security of the east of Kharkiv region. The second direction of Ukrainian troops’ attack may be in the west of Donetsk region, which will create preconditions for its final liberation.

The next step will definitely be the de-occupation of the south of Ukraine, as a land corridor from Rostov region of Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. And then we will liberate the rest of our territories.

The USA has already promised the necessary weapons for this, which is more efficient, although it may be outdated (at least at first glance). And no additional mobilization, or V. Gerasimov’s new tactics, which involves the accumulation of Russian airborne troops near Ukraine’s borders, will help Moscow. Russia’s airborne troops were actually destroyed in March 2022 near Kyiv and, in general, in the north of our state.

However, we should not relax. Russia still has enough forces to create significant problems for us. First of all — in the east and south of Ukraine. We should also expect new missile strikes on critical energy and other infrastructure of our country.

So, let’s hope for the best, but continue to strengthen the defense of Ukraine. And one more thing: this year, final fundamental decisions on granting Ukraine full membership in the European Union and NATO can be made.

No steps by Moscow will be able to prevent this.