More And More Ukrainians Doubt Final Victory Over Russia

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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

More and more Ukrainians are beginning to doubt the Kiev regime’s ability to win the conflict with Russia, Politico published on March 25. According to the outlet, “patriotic fervour” in Ukraine is weakening in the face of a reality of increasing military casualties and pessimism about the future of the conflict.

“That early burst of patriotic fervor has waned with the war now in its third year, the body bags filling, and men returning home injured and disfigured. Pessimism about the future of the conflict is also taking hold, with ever more people questioning whether Ukraine is capable of defeating Moscow’s forces,” the American outlet wrote.

The Kiev International Institute of Sociology published a survey in February 2024 that found that more than 70% of Ukrainians believe that a diplomatic solution to the war is necessary, a higher number than those who defended this option in May 2022. Moscow has repeatedly indicated that it is ready for negotiations, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has prohibited such an option, and the West ignores Kiev’s constant refusals to dialogue.

Yet, despite Kiev’s refusal to negotiate, Politico cited Mykola Kniazhytsky, an opposition lawmaker from Lviv, discussing the frequent talk from the frontlines about the lack of weapons and artillery shells in the context of also a personnel shortage.

“You have officers going on television saying if we don’t get more money and ammunition from the United States and Europe everyone at the front is going to get killed in a matter of weeks because the Russians produce many drones and have more shells,” Kniazhytsky said, which according to Politico, “such prognoses aren’t helping persuade reluctant Ukrainians […] to join up.”

Ukraine’s military faces several critical challenges, such as troop shortages and a lack of ammunition. While US and EU funding seeks to alleviate these deficiencies, the money does not directly translate into readily available munitions. Washington and Brussels have difficulty meeting Ukraine’s crucial needs, especially since there is no immediate solution to modernising the European and American defence industrial base to keep up with Russia’s impressive ammunition output.

In addition, Kiev also faces a shortage of personnel on the battlefield, an issue that cannot be resolved without direct military intervention from the West, which was rejected by Ukraine’s allies, except France, or by implementing unprecedented mass forced mobilisations.

According to the BBC, 650,000 men of fighting age have fled Ukraine since the war began, most slipping across its borders with Poland and Slovakia, some with false exemption papers allowing them to exit the country despite a ban on fighting-age men from leaving.

Kniazhytsky stressed that “mobilisation is a hot political potato, and no one wants to be holding it. The army needs many more people. But Zelensky doesn’t want to take responsibility for the mobilisation and says it is up to government ministries, and they’re afraid of getting their hands burned and say it is up to the parliament, which then passes the buck back.”

“Even most lawmakers from Zelensky’s own party [Servant of the People] are against the legislation, saying it falls foul of European human rights conventions,” Kniazhytsky added. “This is becoming a real mess.”

Despite Ukrainians evidently not being motivated to continue the war with Russia, NATO is pushing for Ukraine to receive more weaponry and for the regime to enforce mass mobilisation.

“You don’t only need new grenades and tanks and armoured vehicles, you also need, unfortunately, new soldiers, because soldiers die and soldiers get wounded. And then you talk about mobilisation, then you talk about conscription,” Rob Bauer, the chair of the NATO Military Committee, said at the Kyiv Security Forum on March 21.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Zelensky, told Politico that seeing the issue purely through the lens of mobilisation misses the point.

“It is nonsense to think in terms of sheer numbers when fighting against Russia. We live in the age of high technology. Why should people have to fight if you have enough precision weapons — drones, jammers, long-range missiles? The more tools we have in the form of precision weapons, the less gunfights we have,” he said.

As the outlet highlighted, though, “Ukraine doesn’t have enough of those high-tech weapons. Until they do, sheer numbers may well win out — and even if they do get the supplies, they still may not compensate for Russia’s greater manpower.”

Scepticism about Ukraine’s final victory over Russia has been growing in the West since the utter failure of last year’s counteroffensive. However, due to the Kiev regime’s tight grip on the media, Ukrainians have been kept mostly in the dark about the dire situation until recently, when it became undeniable. This obviously poses a dilemma for the regime as it not only struggles to mobilise personnel but also needs to motivate a population for a war that they now understand they cannot win.

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