What Does Ukraine Need to Win?

By JMS

To answer the question, "What does Ukraine need to win?", we must look at what has happened before. In this book I approach Russian production potential, economy, military tactics, and nuclear doctrine. Western aid, and what the West has spent on other major events, air power, and how to fund Ukraine.
All of this information will lead back to the original question "What does Ukraine need to win?" and how we can answer this question.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jms
• Release date: Jun 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227259585

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WHAT DOES UKRAINE NEED TO WIN

Copyright © 2024 JMS

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1st Edition

Foreword

This is a book I never wanted to write.

My main interest has always been World War 2. It was a conflict long over, and so whatever I found, or conclusions I would make would not have any impact on the people living then.

Then Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and I tried to figure out what I could do. First, I stopped any research into World War 2 and switched to covering the War in Ukraine, trying to understand that conflict.

My bias was already present, and it was based on this. People and countries must have agency, and democratic rule is the best form of government we have. History tells us as much. Ukraine was a democracy attacked by a country that can only be considered a fascist state, and has been so since 2014.

I quickly decided on some general rules I would follow. I would try not to let my pro-Ukrainian bias affect my reporting. In other words, I would not be over-optimistic, or over-pessimistic regarding events. Rather try to stay as close to what we knew at any given time, and let that reflect my reporting. I also decided not to report anything about Ukrainian troop movements, even when they were made public by Ukrainian sources.

My principle is that if I see a problem, it should be voiced so possibly it can be addressed. I have no illusion that my reporting would have any major impact, but whatever impact it had, I wanted to be as true as possible.

What almost directly struck me was the similarities to Europe in the late 1930s.The rhetoric by Hitler was mimicked by President Putin. Hitler justified his actions by bringing all German-speaking people back to the fatherland. President Putin wanted to bring all Russian-speaking people back to the motherland. Much of the propaganda was also very similar.

As I continued to follow the war, what next struck me was the lack of a general plan for how Ukraine could win this war. What did Ukraine actually need, and why? Instead, what I saw was an ad hoc approach. Military aid was given short term, and somewhat haphazardly.

Do not get me wrong, Ukraine could not have survived as a state without western aid. That is clear. However, the difference between statements of support towards the goal of liberating Ukraine, and what aid was given has shown striking inconsistencies.

So what this book will attempt, is for me to try and figure out what Ukraine needs to win, and I will take you on that journey. To understand what they need, I need to understand the journey Ukraine has taken since its independence. What does Ukrainian nationalism look like? What aid has been given? What can we expect from drones in the future, and so on?

Most chapters will show what information I have found, followed by my conclusions. The former is the objective part, the latter is the subjective part.

All those chapters will lead up to the last chapter where I try to answer the question What does Ukraine need to win?

Hopefully, this book will help illuminate the situation a bit better, and if it does that, the book has achieved the goal it was written for.

If you want to follow my coverage of the war in Ukraine on YouTube, my channel is JMS WW2

JMS, May 2024

Chapter 1 - The birth of a nation 1991-2014

Mostly we see reports or articles regarding what is happening after the Russian full-scale invasion which happened in February 2022. Ukraine has been at war since 2014, but that was for many years a low-intensity conflict that ran from 2014 until 2022, so it got relatively limited Western cover.

The start of this conflict goes back to the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, and you can state the seed for it started with Ukrainian independence in 1991. After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union started breaking up, Ukraine declared independence on the 24th of August 1991. On the 1st of December the same year, a referendum was held, and 90% supported independence, and so the Modern Ukrainian state was born. The Soviet Union recognized this new state on the 26th of December 1991.

At the end of the Soviet Union, Crimea was designated as the Crimean Autonomous Republic in 1991[1], which gave it more autonomy. This led to a back-and-forth regarding what the Crimean status should be, and whether it should be inside Ukraine. Crimea had its own legislation that would later be rejected by Kyiv. This problem was, at least temporarily, settled by 1994 when Crimea became a recognized part of the new Ukrainian state. It would remain an area of tension between Ukraine, Russia, and pro-Russian politicians.

The reason for the importance of Crimea is its strategic location in the Black Sea. The nation that holds Crimea will be able to project power into all the Black Sea. That is the reason we have a Russian naval base at Sevastopol. That very fact likely played a significant part in what happened after 2014.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, the then Soviet Union had 100,000 troops, and 835 naval vessels in Crimea[2]. By 1997, the status of the Russian naval base in Sevastopol had been clarified via the Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty. It gave Russia the ability to retain its naval base until 2017, and that year is likely not unimportant for what would later come.

Sevastopol would continue to give the Russian navy the ability to project power throughout the Black Sea, and it would always be an enclave within the new Ukrainian state. While that was not a major concern for the Russian Federation in the '90s, it would become more important after 2000 with the rise of Putin.

The Russian Federation continued during this time to see all former republics of the Soviet Union as being in the Russian sphere of influence. The new Russian Federation was a minor economy that had not yet realized it was no longer part of a superpower.

Another birthing pain was nuclear weapons. Ukraine found itself to be the 3rd largest nuclear power, with some 1,900 strategic warheads, and 176 ICBMs. It is important to remember that while Ukraine has the physical warheads, the launch codes were still held by Moscow. What would happen to these warheads was not clear in the early 1990s. The Ukrainian parliament has started to voice the possibility of retaining at least some nuclear weapons.

By 1993, Ukraine had agreed to dismantle 42% of the warheads, with the rest to remain under Ukrainian control. The USA stated that it would provide more financial aid if Ukraine ratified START (The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty).

By 1994, Ukraine had signed the Trilateral Statement, and later that year they signed the Budapest Memorandum. That memorandum stated in short that Ukraine would hand over its nuclear warheads to Russia, to be dismantled. This was done in exchange for security assurances against the threat of force, against intervention in Ukrainian domestic politics, and respecting Ukrainian territorial integrity. This memorandum was signed by Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, which held post-Soviet nuclear warheads, and by the USA, the UK, and the Russian Federation as the guarantors.

Was it a mistake of Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons? Possibly would be the short answer. Likely, it would have been very hard for them to carry the cost of keeping enough nuclear warheads and delivery systems, to be a credible nuclear deterrence.

Some of the problems with Ukraine retaining nuclear weapons at that time would have been:

* Ukraine had nuclear weapons that the Russian Federation could technically launch[3].

* The SS-24s in Ukrainian hands were old, and would probably have been unusable by 1996-97 without serious modernization. That would have been very costly.

* Sustaining a credible nuclear force is very expensive. In 2022, Russia is estimated to have spent $9.6 billion on their nuclear weapons. In 2010, they spent $6.9 billion[4]. The total Ukrainian defense budget in 2010 was around $3.4 billion[5].

In 2011, it was estimated that the Pakistan nuclear weapons program costs were between $800 million to around $2 billion per year[6]. It is probably in the range of $1.5 billion per year, for approximately 30 warheads. That would have been almost 50% of the total Ukrainian defense budget. While it is possible for Ukraine to have retained some nuclear weapons, it would have added a significant financial burden on the country. It would likely have required a substantial increase in their defense budget with much diminished conventional forces. The conventional forces were at that time not as well funded as they should have been. It is unlikely Ukraine could have realistically carried those costs without external aid. That Ukraine could have found any such external aid is unlikely. Western countries wanted to reduce the nuclear threat after the Cold War had ended, and so would not have supported Ukraine in retaining nuclear warheads.

Would Russia still have invaded if Ukraine had nuclear weapons? The chance would have been much less likely, but it would not simply have gone away. What Ukraine did get in exchange for handing over the nuclear weapons were no firm security guarantees, and that would come back to haunt them.

The country started its democratic life, but it was by no means an easy one, and much less clear-cut than only Western Ukraine vs Eastern Ukraine[7]. The first president, Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994), walked a narrow line between moving towards the West and retained a working relationship with the Russian Federation. It also experienced a lot of corruption scandals and a declining Ukrainian economy.

In 1994, Leonid Kuchma became president, with a clear divide between western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine in how the votes were cast. He wanted to improve relationships with both the EU and Russia. He signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership in 1997 with the Russian Federation[8]. He was re-elected in 1999, the only Ukrainian president to sit two terms. The votes had become fragmented by this time, and he gained and lost votes all over Ukraine with no clear divide.

The democratic situation in Ukraine deteriorated, with media censorship, journalists being arrested, and the Ukrainian economy continuing to struggle. In 2004, pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovich was elected president despite claims of widespread voter fraud, and so came the Orange Revolution, and a re-election. This time, the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was elected president[9]. We had a clear divide between eastern Ukraine and western Ukraine in that election. Viktor Yanukovich did not go away. He would return and be a major part in triggering the war that would come. The Orange Revolution brought a desire for democratic reforms[10].

In 2010, Viktor Yanukovich again ran for president and this time he won. The voter base had solidified into eastern Ukraine vs western Ukraine. During his presidency, Russia would get an extension of their lease of the Sevastopol naval base. The talks with the EU were halted in 2013 when he vetoed the EU agreement that had passed the Ukrainian parliament by a staggering majority. Instead, he moved towards closer ties with the Russian Federation.

That sparked widespread demonstrations, and over 100 demonstrators were killed. In one day alone, 48 demonstrators and 5 policemen lost their lives. That was on the 20th of February 2014. The next day, Yanukovich and the opposition leader signed an agreement to create an interim government, conduct early elections, and also implement constitutional reforms. The Ukrainian parliament voted to reinstate the 2004 constitution with 386-0 in favor[11], and Yanukovich fled, helped by Putin to do so[12].

What had President Yanukovich done so far? He abolished conscription, which would be halted by 2014[13]. He extended the Russian lease of the Sevastopol naval base almost indefinitely, and he moved away from closer ties with the West. Many of his actions placed Ukraine in a very poor place to contest any Russian aggression, almost like he was clearing the ground for something.

Some on the more pro-Russian side called the Revolution of Dignity, or the Maidan Revolution, a coup, or a putsch against the democratically elected leader. In hindsight, there were clear signs of what can only be seen as questionable actions against Ukraine. Yanukovich was later convicted of this in absentia by a Ukrainian court.

Russia would soon spring into action, and Ukraine was in no position to oppose them. Russia had likely prepared operations to take Crimea for some time.

Ukraine was struggling during this time because of rampant corruption, with Ukraine having a