Turning Up the Heat: How Ukraine is Shaping the Negotiating Table

Wells Benjamin

Introduction

After three years of fighting, with unspeakably high casualties on both sides and countless civilians displaced, it seems that no one can pin down what will end the war in Ukraine. Even with the new Trump administration signaling a possible shift toward a formalized peace process, the future remains uncertain. While some may observe surface-level factors like territorial capture and deduce Russia has achieved its war goals, the extreme martial, demographic, and economic costs of Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” will haunt Russia for decades, regardless of whether the war ends tomorrow or in another three years. On the other hand, Ukraine is starting to soften its position toward peace negotiations, as it faces a constant manpower shortage across its armed forces. Despite a slight softening in both sides' stances on negotiations, an end to the largest war in Europe since World War II seems to remain distant. 

Maneuver 

Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that war is a continuation of politics by other means. His insight highlights a crucial reality: most wars do not end with the total destruction of an enemy’s ability to fight. At this point in the war, it is extremely unlikely that either side will be able to achieve a decisive breakthrough and end the war in a single offensive in the style of classical warfare. This claim is supported by the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. Ukraine pursued a fundamentally flawed theory of victory influenced by Western advisors and generally overoptimistic planning by Ukrainian leadership. Success in the Kherson and Kharkiv counteroffensives in 2022 led many to believe that restoring maneuver-based warfare was possible. Maneuver warfare refers to decisive and fast military action that uses shock to overwhelm enemy defenses, allowing for breakthroughs that result in operational objectives being fulfilled quickly. While this strategy was effective in 2022, the construction of fortified defensive positions and large increases in Russian manpower brought on by the initial round of mobilization fundamentally changed the nature of the operational problem. Western-supplied weapons were not enough to offset the significant advantage in tactical artillery that Russia held across the front, and shaping operations were insignificant to overcome the defensive challenge posed by emplaced minefields and multiple layers of prepared trenches. Shaping operations are actions conducted to improve the odds of an operational success. For example, Ukraine attempted to use long-range strikes to decrease the availability of supplies across the front prior to their offensive. Ukrainian command was quick to adapt to the reality of this situation and stopped pursuing the offensive once unfavorable casualty ratios became clear. Russia has lacked such adaptation, and one notable case demonstrates this. 

Attrition

The Battle of Bakhmut, which lasted longer than the infamous Battle of Verdun, marked Ukraine’s transition to a static war of attrition. Attritional warfare is the foil of maneuver strategies and is characterized by a longer more traditional style of combat in which the enemy's political will to fight is the target rather than achieving decisive offensive action. While the Russian army was eventually able to capture Bakhmut, it was not before sustaining over 100,000 casualties – the deadliest battle of the 21st century. For reference, in a single year-long battle over a city with a pre-war population of 70,000 people, Russia lost over 20 times as many soldiers as the US did in 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. Bakhmut epitomizes the brutal warfare that has defined the past two years – one where Russian commanders are willing to sacrifice limitless troops for Pyrrhic territorial gains. As front lines have solidified in the past two years, it has become clear that an absolute victory for either side remains unlikely, and so the center of gravity has shifted. 

Ukrainian leadership understands that the once-stated goals of restoring the internationally agreed upon 1991 borders are now untenable, as such lofty aspirations are simply unrealistic given the current situation on the ground. While much has been said across the West about the war in Ukraine being a “stalemate,” this is a drastic oversimplification of the complexity of war. Both sides have adapted to an attritional reality, and the center of gravity for Ukraine has now shifted towards: maintaining the general position of the frontlines, preventing any catastrophic breakthroughs, protecting domestic energy infrastructure, maintaining the Kursk salient, and using long-range strike capabilities to destroy Russian state income from hydrocarbon production. None of these factors are likely to cause a complete collapse in the structure of the Russian state or armed forces, but they will place Ukraine in a significantly better position for peace negotiations, whenever those take place. It could be argued that the long-range strikes in the Black Sea and across Russia have been the most overall successful theatre of the entire war for Ukraine. Using Western-provided missiles like Storm Shadow and Neptune, as well as a diverse array of domestically produced drones, Ukraine has effectively conducted deep strikes.

Striking Deep 

The threat posed by the Ukrainian precision strike complex was made clear in the first months of the war when Ukraine sank the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva. The warship that had been touted as the pinnacle of Russian military technology was destroyed in a complex operation involving American-provided intelligence, and this only marked the beginning of the threat posed to Russian assets situated far behind the frontlines. The past three years have seen countless successful strikes both inside of Russia and inside of Russian-occupied Ukraine, even against systems like the S-400 air defense complex which have been advertised as cutting-edge. Another notable incident saw the destruction of the Russian submarine Rostov-on-Don with a U.S.-provided missile while the sub was in drydock at the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, marking the first time a Russian submarine had been destroyed in combat since World War II. The destruction of operationally significant assets like ammunition depots has allowed Ukraine to offset the large advantage Russia holds in artillery ammunition and pieces. Using both drones and Western-provided systems like HIMARS, Ukraine has caused constant logistical challenges for the already strained Russian supply system. The destruction of a large ammunition depot in Toropets serves as a notable example, as the explosion was large enough to trigger devices used for monitoring earthquakes. The current Ukrainian deep-strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure represents the pinnacle of their offensive strategy throughout the war and will serve to put Ukraine in an advantageous position during any future negotiations. Reaching far beyond merely affecting consumer sentiments around gasoline prices, and the supply of fuel for the Russian army, the Russian energy industry is a key source of hard and soft power which has proved instrumental for Putin’s foreign policy goals in the past decade. While Russia has been able to avoid many of the most dire consequences of sanctions by changing who it sells oil to, the new plan of President Trump to further increase support for Ukraine and oil-related sanctions could significantly increase pressure on the Russian economy. The Ukrainian deep strike campaign alone cannot dismantle the Russian war machine, but it can erode the public's support for an increasingly unpopular “special military operation.” No matter what Putin’s stated goals for the war are, his ultimate goal is the same as any autocrat: his regime’s survival. By surgically striking key facilities, Ukraine threatens both Putin’s legitimacy and his legacy.

Ukraine has systematically attacked oil refineries and storage facilities for months, sometimes striking targets over 1,000 miles away. As Russia continues the strategy of indiscriminate drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure, a simple dichotomy emerges. If Ukraine is able to push the Russian economy further towards collapse through the destruction of oil production before the Ukrainian energy grid faces catastrophic collapse, then it will be in a favorable position. The Trump administration seems geared up to support this Ukrainian strategy by maintaining American military support and increasing sanctions in order to further pressure Putin. Russia has been gambling for years now that the election of President Trump would serve to completely isolate Ukraine from its backers, but their gamble has failed. Whether they come to the negotiating table or not, the pressure increases with each passing day. Ukrainian leadership is extremely wary of making any kind of binding agreement with the historically duplicitous Russian Federation, given that in the past decade alone over a dozen ceasefires in Ukraine have been broken. Regardless of their trust in a peace process, Ukraine is making sure they are in the best possible position to end the war on their terms. With stalled Russian gains, mounting economic strain, the Kursk salient, and relentless Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory, Kyiv is positioning itself for what looks to be the third act of the war.