Somewhere in eastern France, some 2,300 Ukrainian soldiers are being trained. With 1,500 French soldiers, they recreated a Ukrainian battlefield, the trenches dug identically, as if they were in Donbass, the noise of the drones above their heads, the explosions of shells to stress them out.
This future Ukrainian brigade of 4,500 men is being trained on French equipment, including the Caesar cannon, which it will find upon its return to its country, at the beginning of 2025. At the same time, the first Mirage 2000 planes will arrive in Ukraine for which the Ukrainian pilots are currently training in France. Similar scenes are playing out in other NATO countries associated with the effort to support Ukraine.
Two and a half years after the start of the Russian invasion, this enormous Western logistical and financial machine allows the Ukrainian army to hold out against an adversary theoretically more powerful than it. But does it allow him to envisage a victory? This question is at the heart of the trip by Volodymyr Zelensky, who is in France today, in Germany tomorrow.
The Ukrainian president comes to present to his allies what he called “the victory plan”. But he was unlucky: Cyclone Milton, which struck Florida, forced Joe Biden to cancel his participation in an important meeting scheduled for Sunday in Ramstein, Germany, with the Ukrainian president and the Europeans.
The shadow of Donald Trump hangs over the Ukrainian issue, he who criticized the Biden administration for not helping the victims of the cyclones, but for sending, he said, “tens of billions to foreign countries that most people have never heard of.” Joe Biden canceled his trip so as not to serve Trump’s propaganda, but it’s bad news for Ukraine.
Zelensky’s “victory plan” has been in development for several weeks, and needs Ukraine’s allies to succeed.
All the ambiguity of the Ukrainian plan lies in the definition of the word “victory”. We do not know the details, but it is not, or no longer, a military victory which would consist of driving the Russian army out of Ukrainian territories. This is not realistic, and the Ukrainians agree, even if they have had difficulty admitting it.
Today it is about giving Ukraine the means to change the balance of power, to bring Russia to the negotiating table under conditions favorable to kyiv. It is not quite the same thing, it will involve compromises, therefore sacrifices for Ukraine.
The reasons for this realism are both Russian military aggressiveness which is hurting Ukraine, the “fatigue” of the population as evidenced by recruitment difficulties, and the reluctance of Westerners to take too many risks in this confrontation. , even indirectly, with a nuclear Russia.
Even Kamala Harris, it is said on the Western side, would welcome a negotiation to end this war costly in lives and dollars. On the condition that kyiv changes the balance of power with its “victory plan”; provided, too, that Westerners give it the means.
