The Ukrainian commander in chief General Syrksi seems to have given up. Recent remarks of his suggest that he no longer sees a way to win the war. He is now simply waiting for the politicians to concede.
The Ukrainian military has recently started to move thousands of air-defense soldiers and logistic personnel into the infantry. People who were taught to detect, analyze and fight aerial targets get pushed into roles for which they did not receive training and are no qualified.
Syrski is justifying this as the only way to keep a sufficient number of men in front line trenches:
The army chief stressed that his order prohibits the transfer of highly qualified personnel who have undergone training and specialize in aircraft maintenance.
"Clearly, these are invested funds, specialists who have experience and are practically irreplaceable, on the one hand," said Syrskyi.
“On the other hand, we fundamentally need personnel on the front, and we must maintain an adequate number of troops in our mechanized brigades. Unfortunately, mobilization capabilities do not meet this need.”
According to him, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are "reasonably" reducing the logistical component and part of the support in the military, as well as those involved in maintenance.
"Therefore, the headquarters know these tasks; they have done the calculations," Syrskyi stated.
The number of freshly mobilized soldiers is lower than the number of losses. The military thus has to start to 'eat itself'. The problems being caused by this will not be visible immediately but they will over time destroy the armies core functionality.
People have done all they can to avoid a service at the frontline. Commanders have been bribed to allow for their soldiers to do duty behind the front lines. Others deserted. There are thus plenty of superfluous logistic and headquarter staff that can be moved to put up a more serious resistance.
But in few week those reserves will have emptied too. Logistics will start to slow down and air defenses will fail to defend against even the most primitive drone attacks.
Syrski sees this coming. He knows that defending the country will not win the war (machine translation):
Ukraine will not be able to win the war while on the defensive.
This was stated by the commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky on the air of the telethon.
"You know, no matter how much you defend, you will still retreat. And we are forced to hold the defense and concentrate our forces, in fact, to keep along this front line," said Syrsky.
Just two months ago Syrski was sounding more optimistic. He was still dreaming of and announced further counterattacks (machine translation):
The APU will not only stand on the defensive, but also counterattack.
This statement was made by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky at a recent meeting with military bloggers. Details of the statement were given in his Telegram channel by the participant of the meeting, military Kirill Sazonov.
"Pokrovskoe and Kurakhovskoe directions. The situation is difficult. But it's better than it was a week ago. Then it was really critical. Some units were retreating, leaving their positions, but there was no one to close them. Indeed, a crisis situation. But the issue is resolved, the reserves are deployed, the enemy's plans are thwarted. Alexander Syrsky's position: we must stop the enemy. But victory is impossible if the APU will work only in defense. We must seize the initiative and counterattack. We must and will. Where and who-you will see, " wrote Sazonov.
Kurakhove has since fallen and Pokrovsk is about to be surrounded. No further Ukrainian initiative has been seen.
One can not counterattack when one lacks the troops to even fill up the front lines.
Syrski may finally come to grips with the 'winning' charade the Biden administration has all along played with Ukraine:
When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three objectives for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never among them. The phrase the White House used to describe its mission at the time—supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes”—was intentionally vague. It also raised the question: As long as it takes to do what?
…
The future that Zelensky and many of his countrymen have in mind is one in which Russia is defeated. But in rallying the world to the fight, the implication Biden embedded in his own goals was that defending Ukraine against Russia is not the same as defeating Russia. So it is not surprising if that goal remains far from Zelensky’s reach.
A victorious Ukraine has never been an aim or priority in the proxy war the Biden administration has waged against Russia. Even its main 'diplomat' has never shown interest in peace (archived):
Mr. Blinken was less a peacemaker than a war strategist. Immersed in details of military hardware and battlefield conditions, he often argued against more risk-averse Pentagon officials in favor of sending powerful American weapons to Ukraine.
And when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley, suggested in late 2022 that Ukraine should capitalize on battlefield gains by seeking peace talks with Moscow, Mr. Blinken insisted the fight should go on.
There is hope now, though only a slight one, that the incoming Trump administration will disavow the war in Ukraine and shut it down without any delay or escalation. The danger of proceeding otherwise is for Trump to get hooked to the war like Nixon became to Vietnam:
[Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon] advocates ending America’s all-important military aid to Kyiv, but fears his old boss is going to fall into a trap being set by an unlikely alliance of the U.S. defense industry, the Europeans and even some of Bannon’s own friends, whom he argues are now misguided. These include Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. general who is Trump’s pick to be special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
“If we aren’t careful, it will turn into Trump’s Vietnam. That’s what happened to Richard Nixon. He ended up owning the war and it went down as his war not Lyndon Johnson’s,” Bannon said.
If it would fully engage the U.S. might be able to delay the outcome of the war in Ukraine. But it will, like in Vietnam, be unable to change the inevitable result.
Trump should concede that Russia has won the war, remove all support from Ukraine, pull back the Europeans and wash his hands over the outcome.
This would give Ukraine a chance to again bind its fate to the east.