Billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk’s latest remarks on the Ukrainian military conflict make one nervous: he warned that while Moscow has no chance of taking over all of Ukraine, the longer the war goes on, the more territory Russia will gain until it reaches the Dnieper River, which is difficult to overcome, POLITICO reports.
Elon Musk cautioned:
“However, if the war lasts long enough, Odesa will fall too.”
With his history of calling for Ukraine to agree to territorial concessions – and his opposition to a $60 billion US military aid package that is stuck in Congress due to partisan infighting – Musk is not Ukraine’s favourite commentator, to put it mildly. And his remarks have provoked the expected reaction.
But the billionaire’s prediction is actually very similar to the dire warnings Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has issued over the past few days. According to Zelensky, if the stalled multi-billion dollar military aid package is not approved soon, his troops will have to “go back, retreat, step by step, small steps.” He also warned that some major cities could be in danger of falling.
Zelensky’s warnings are clearly part of a broad diplomatic effort to get the military aid his troops are sorely lacking – everything from 155mm artillery shells to Patriot air defence systems and drones. But even if the US Congress gives the green light to send aid, the massive resupply may not be enough to prevent a major defeat on the battlefield.
And such a failure, especially in the midst of election campaigns in America and Europe, may well revive Western pressure for negotiations that will be clearly in Russia’s favour, leaving the Kremlin free to reignite the conflict in the future as it sees fit.
In essence, it now depends on where Russia decides to direct its forces during the offensive that is expected to begin this summer. In the run-up to the offensive – from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south – Russia has launched a slew of missile and drone strikes in recent weeks, hitting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will launch its main offensive.
According to senior Ukrainian officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny – the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February – the military picture is bleak.
The officers believe the front line will collapse wherever the Russian generals decide to focus their offensive. Moreover, thanks to the significant numerical advantage and guided aerial bombs that have been rattling Ukrainian positions for weeks, Russia will likely be able to “penetrate behind the front line and smash it in some areas,” they said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely.
One of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO:
“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers.”
Only Ukrainian courage and resilience, he said, and the mistakes of Russian commanders can now change the grim dynamic. However, senior Ukrainian officers reminded that relying on Russian mistakes is not a strategy and bitterly pointed to mistakes that they said had hampered Ukraine’s resistance from the start – mistakes made by both the West and Ukraine. They were also scathing about Western inaction, saying that supplies and weapons systems came too late and in insufficient quantities to make a difference. One of the officers said:
“Zaluzhny used to call it ‘the War of One Chance. By that, he meant weapons systems become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians. For example, we used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully — but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this. Don’t believe the hype about them just throwing troops into the meat grinder to be slaughtered. They do that too, of course — maximising even more the impact of their superior numbers — but they also learn and refine.”
Officers said anti-tank missiles supplied by Britain and the US in the first weeks of the military conflict came in time to help them save Kyiv, as did the lightweight HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, which were used to great effect and allowed them to drive Russian troops out of Kherson in November 2022. Another senior officer said, citing the F-16 fighter jets as an example:
“But often, we just don’t get the weapons systems at the time we need them — they come when they’re no longer relevant. A dozen or so F-16s are expected to be operational this summer, after basic pilot training has been completed. Every weapon has its own right time. F-16s were needed in 2023; they won’t be right for 2024.”
And that’s because, according to this officer, Russia is ready to counter them:
“In the last few months, we started to notice missiles being fired by the Russians from Dzhankoy in northern Crimea, but without the explosive warheads. We couldn’t understand what they were doing, and then we figured it out: They’re range-finding.”
The officer explained that Russia is working out where best to place its S-400 missile and radar systems to maximise the area they can cover when targeting F-16s and to keep them away from the front line and Russian logistics centres.
The officers also said they now need more basic traditional weapons as well as drones. One of them told POLITICO, estimating that Ukraine needed 4 million shells and 2 million drones:
“We need Howitzers and shells, hundreds of thousands of shells, and rockets. We told the Western partners all the time that we have the combat experience, we have the battlefield understanding of this war. [They] have the resources, and they need to give us what we need.”
Europe, for its part, is trying to help Ukraine compensate for its total shortage of artillery shells. In this regard, the Czech Republic’s proposed bulk purchase of artillery ammunition could bring Ukraine’s total purchases both within and outside the EU to 1.5 million shells worth $3.3 billion – but still not enough to meet its needs.
Officers emphasised that they also need many more men. The shortage of soldiers on the front lines compounds the problem of insufficient support from the West.
However, Ukraine has yet to pull the trigger on conscription ahead of an expected Russian offensive, as authorities fear the political fallout of mobilisation efforts amid draft evasion and avoidance of obtaining draft documents. Zaluzhny had already publicly called for the mobilisation of additional troops back in December, believing that Ukraine needed at least another 500,000 troops. Since then, the issue of conscription has not left the agenda.
Then, last week, General Oleksandr Syrskyi — Zaluzhny’s replacement — abruptly announced that Ukraine might not need quite so many fresh troops. After a review of resources, the figure has been “significantly reduced,” and “we expect that we will have enough people capable of defending their motherland,” he told the Ukrinform news agency. Syrskyi added:
“I am talking not only about the mobilised but also about volunteer fighters.”
The plan is to move as many uniformed officers and those not engaged in combat as possible to the front lines after an intensive three to four months of training. But senior officers interviewed by POLITICO said Syrskyi is wrong and “playing along with the politicians.” Then, on Tuesday, Zelensky signed some additional parts to the old mobilisation law, tightening requirements for Ukrainian men of draft age to register their details and lowering the minimum age for conscription from 27 to 25. But in Ukraine, this is seen as mere meddling. One of the officers said:
“We don’t only have a military crisis — we have a political one. While Ukraine shies away from a big draft, Russia is now gathering resources and will be ready to launch a big attack around August, and maybe sooner.”
So perhaps Musk’s predictions are very real.
