Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t have the luxury of fantasies

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin didn’t mince any words in Brussels on Wednesday. Addressing the nearly 50 countries that make up the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the former four-star general begged and pleaded for Washington’s allies to step up arms deliveries to Ukraine. He noted that the Ukrainian military has taken heavy losses over the last several weeks. The United States announced new military aid to Kyiv shortly after Austin’s remarks — a package that included two anti-ship Harpoon missile launchers, 18 howitzers, and 36,000 rounds of artillery. For the Ukrainians, however, no amount of military equipment is enough.

If the first month of the war in Ukraine was characterized by bumbling, stumbling Russian troops, the last month has seen Ukrainian forces suffering an unyielding Russian artillery bombardment. Say what you will about the systemic weaknesses of the Russian military — there are no doubt plenty, from unmotivated shock troops at the front to logistical problems — but it’s now impossible for even the most hawkish Western commentators to ignore the war’s change of momentum.

The Russians have adapted their tactics and changed their war strategy. They are no longer ordering their troops to take several major Ukrainian cities simultaneously, something Moscow couldn’t achieve without a full mobilization that Putin would prefer to avoid. Instead, Russia has limited its objectives to the east, where supply lines are less burdensome and their proxies have a long-established foothold. Russian ground forces are now being deployed only after a punishing campaign of artillery, air, and missile strikes, which is hitting everything in its path and wearing down Ukrainian defenders to the point where morale is becoming a problem. The Ukrainians are losing approximately 200 soldiers a day, an extremely high rate of attrition for an army that is outnumbered and outgunned. Severodonetsk, the last major urban center in Luhansk, is now at risk of falling, with the last remaining bridge used for reinforcement, evacuation, and resupply having been destroyed.

In the West, it’s beginning to dawn on policymakers that a longer war is perhaps not in Ukraine’s best interests. Idealism is starting to give way to realism.

President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to put on a brave face. Russia’s unjustified war of aggression has turned the former comedian into a stoic commander in chief, someone who has demonstrated a unique talent for rallying his people and pushing the West solidly into Kyiv’s camp (the Russian military’s brutality provides an assist). He remains confident that with time, a few hundred more tanks, and dozens of additional long-range missile systems, the Ukrainians can chip away at Russia’s territorial gains and perhaps win the war outright.

But how can the Ukrainians sustain such a high casualty rate? How many troops, tanks, howitzers, aircraft, and munitions would be required to field an adequate offensive military force to reclaim the roughly 20% of territory now under Russian control? How much more destruction and death would the Ukrainian people have to endure in the process? And would such an offensive even succeed?

For many observers, no outcome short of a full Russian capitulation is acceptable. Zelensky, however, doesn’t have the luxury of living in a Utopian fantasy land.

Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.