What's next for the war in Ukraine?

Business Insider

Ukraine's army is making slow and bloody progress in its push to retake territory occupied by Russia. Minefields, weapons, morale, politics, and the weather will all play a part in the conflict in the months to come.

Transcript

00:00 Ukraine is paying a heavy price for every metre of its land recaptured from Russian

00:07 control. The counter-offensive, which began in June 2023, has so far failed to deliver

00:12 Putin's forces a knockout blow.

00:14 There was a lot of hope for the counter-offensive. I think by all accounts it's fair to say

00:18 that it hasn't gone entirely to plan.

00:22 Can new weapons tip the balance in Ukraine's favour in the months to come, or will Putin's

00:27 war of attrition grind on indefinitely?

00:31 The long wait for Ukraine's counter-offensive in the south and east gave Russia time to

00:36 dig in, and hopes that modern tanks would bring about a swift advance never materialised.

00:43 My name is Mia Yankovic and I'm a senior news reporter. Russia's defences there are really,

00:48 really strong. Ukrainians seem to have switched to an infantry-led tactic, where they're attempting

00:54 basically to try and almost go through on foot, supported by artillery fire. Ukraine

00:59 is now potentially the most mined country on earth, and they're trying to get through

01:05 all of this while under the constant surveillance of reconnaissance drones.

01:11 Yet slowly Ukraine is advancing, using longer-range weapons to target Russian artillery positions

01:17 and logistics hubs, while infantry painstakingly clear minefields and Russian trench lines.

01:24 They are instead having to go almost tree-line to tree-line, road to road, village to village,

01:29 in order to make slow but steady gains.

01:31 There are fears the onset of winter may grind this momentum to a halt.

01:37 Classically, winter tends to slow down warfare. The ground is either impassable because it's

01:42 too wet and it's muddy, or it's frozen over and it's hard to dig trenches, and typically

01:48 things slow down at that point.

01:50 Cutting-edge weaponry has helped Ukraine in recent months, and there's the prospect of

01:54 more on the way.

01:55 There's been quite a lot of different technology passed over to Ukraine from Western allies.

02:01 The Storm Shadow Scalp Missile from the UK and France. This is a cruise missile with

02:06 the capability of striking into the Russian space.

02:10 Another example would be the very controversial gift of cluster munitions. It has the potential

02:16 to leave small bomblets unexploded around the country long after the conflict is over.

02:22 It's very useful for doing exactly what it needs to do right now, which is to be firing

02:26 on artillery, infantry, moving vehicles, exactly the kind of ground fight that it's engaged

02:32 in right now.

02:34 The United States has agreed to supply F-16 fighter jets. NATO countries are training

02:39 Ukrainian pilots to fly them.

02:42 It's not as simple as just giving Ukraine F-16s, unfortunately. But there's a really

02:46 long lead time getting things like F-16s and then being able to use them. And in truth,

02:50 they're probably not relevant to this counter-offensive at this point.

02:54 Both sides are locked in an arms race to produce enough ammunition and drones, as well as train

02:59 enough soldiers to tip the balance in their favour.

03:02 There's no silver bullet for the landscape of this war. As one analyst told me, there

03:07 is no single weapon that can win a war.

03:10 Western allies have promised unwavering support for Ukraine, but a change in American politics

03:15 could jeopardise that.

03:17 We know that Zelensky and Biden have a great relationship, and I don't think the resolve

03:21 is wavering in any sense in the White House right now. If the composition of the House

03:26 changes towards the more right-leaning factors within the Republican Party, you have this

03:32 potential for the US to be sending over much less military support to Ukraine.

03:38 After the failed mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, the

03:43 prospect of Russian internal politics playing a part in this conflict is still very real.

03:48 What's happened with Wagner in the last few months is really interesting in terms of the

03:53 future of the conflict. The rebellion was a huge embarrassment to Putin, but ultimately

03:58 he has allegedly taken out the major threat in the form of Prigozhin himself, and that

04:04 may actually have cemented his power. No one can know what's in Putin's mind, but what

04:12 he may be hoping for at this point with the kind of slow attritional warfare that we're

04:17 undergoing would be to simply wear down the Ukrainian troops by defending what he already

04:22 has, essentially trying to buy time in order to keep Ukrainian forces just coming at him,

04:29 coming at him, and coming at him until they've spent their abilities to fight.

04:33 [MUSIC]

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