Ukraine’s window of opportunity is closing

Dec. 5 marked the 29th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum. As the war in Ukraine approaches its 22nd month, we are reminded of the nuclear weapons concessions Ukraine made in exchange for security assurances from the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.

Those assurances are now at risk of giving way to Ukraine fatigue — and competing conflicts. 

Apparently, “standing shoulder-to-shoulder” has an expiration date. “For as long as it takes” has become the next presidential election cycle. Ukraine has become a political talking point rather than a national security imperative, with Republicans and Democrats using Ukraine’s plight to advance partisan positions. 

Meanwhile, the $106 billion request from the White House to fund the wars in Ukraine and Israel, and to secure the border, awaits approval in Congress. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young delivered an ominous assessment to leaders of the House and Senate on Monday, warning “the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year.”

Ukraine’s window of opportunity is closing. 

Western media has shifted its focus to Gaza and the war in Israel — just as Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin planners intended.

The Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Iranian-backed Hamas militants provided General Valery Gerasimov the distraction he needed to launch a massive counteroffensive on Oct. 9, attempting to encircle and capture the town of Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast. It failed — at a cost in human lives in the tens of thousands. But it succeeded in stalling Ukraine’s momentum toward Melitopol, the Sea of Azov and the ultimate objective of retaking the Crimea Peninsula.

Valeriy Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has the dubious task of regaining momentum in search of Ukraine’s Yorktown moment. He needs a decisive victory to awaken Washington and Brussels from their stupor so that they recommit to victory. It won’t be enough simply to kill more Russians.

Putin has demonstrated he has little regard for life; 335,110 Russian soldiers have been eliminated, and three times that number have likely been wounded. The recent announcement from Moscow that the Russian military will increase its size by nearly 170,000, to a total of 1.32 million, evinces Putin’s commitment to his “special military operation.” He is in it for the long haul.

On Nov. 27, Putin went a step farther by officially approving “a significant increase in military spending that will see around 30 percent of fiscal expenditure directed towards the armed forces in 2024.” 

Is this just more messaging to the West to break their will? Perhaps. NATO and the European Union are showing signs of fracturing as the war approaches its second year with no end in sight and financial commitments running in the billions of dollars. What once brought these alliances together — Russian aggression and their threat to eastern Europe — is slowly dividing them. 

There has been a rise of populist European leaders rejecting support for Ukraine — Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Robert Fico in Slovakia, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and now Bulgarian President Remen Radev. On Monday he vetoed “the country’s plans to send 100 surplus armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.”

Putin recognizes the trend and is intent on settling in, adopting a squat and hold military strategy, and waiting for the West, specifically the U.S., to lose interest. He knows that Ukraine uprooting his defenses in the Donbas region and Crimea will take time, lives and munitions that are becoming increasingly difficult to replenish. 

Winter is coming, and if the storm that hit Odessa and Crimea last week is any indication of the winter months ahead, it will be tough sledding. As a result, Putin will likely attempt to weaponize winter again, targeting critical Ukrainian infrastructure with the intent to bring as much suffering to the Ukrainian people as possible. 

Incredibly, Putin’s failures on the battlefields have little impact on the outcome of the war. Time has become his ally. He will simply throw more bodies into the meat grinder and prolong the suffering. Being a dictator has its advantages.

Yet Putin and his generals are still vulnerable. Despite the advantages of dictatorship, domestic Russian support for the war in Ukraine is declining.

According to Meduza, a Russian- and English-language independent news website based in Riga, a Russian Federal Protective Service poll conducted by the Kremlin shows only 25 percent of Russians favor continuing the war in Ukraine and 55 percent support peace talks.

Denis Volkov, director of the independent sociological institute Levada Center in Moscow, attributes this downward trend to Russian citizens’ “sheer reluctance to take part in the war personally….The risks are greater, and people want to start the talks.”

To capitalize and remain relevant, Ukraine must jumpstart its multi-domain offensive. Kyiv needs to recapture the attention of the American public. As General George Patton proclaimed in his speech to the Third Army in June 1945, “Americans love a winner.” Ukraine is not winning, it is surviving. That has to change.

The Ukrainians must take the fight to Russia and make those residing in the interior uncomfortable. They need to continue heeding the advice of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who told Ukrainian special operations troops during a trip to Germany, “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night. You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”

They have — twice now in the Buryatia region, which borders Mongolia. In one attack, explosives were detonated as a freight train crossed the Chertov Bridge. In the other, explosive devices were detonated as a cargo train was moving through the Severomuysky Tunnel. 

Ukraine needs to resume strikes on the airfields in Russia and Crimea, where aircraft are launched to deliver cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities. They must resume deep strikes in Crimea, while interdicting Russian forces and their equipment before they arrive in Ukraine. Kyiv must continue the close fights, dictate the conditions on the battlefield and make Russia react — as they did by crossing the Dnipro River last week near the southern city of Kherson and securing terrain. 

But Zelensky needs a breakthrough — a decisive victory to recapture America’s attention.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth, an economist and entrepreneur, is a former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis.