It has been another eventful week in Ukraine, as the battle of Prokrovsk rages on, the EU continues to negotiate with itself on the Reparations Loan, and corruption allegations has forced the resignation of two Ukrainian government ministers. The fog of war hence continues to hang over Ukraine, but there is no immediate reason to assume that the outlook for Kyiv’s defense has materially changed. It remains the strong base case that the frontline remains largely static over the winter, and that the new corruption scandal does ultimately not affect the agreement among the EU members on the Reparation Loan by mid-December.
The Ukrainian defense of Prokrovsk has, like the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiika in 2022-23, taken on an increasingly inflated importance in the overall media evaluation of state of the war. The frontline situation has essentially remained unchanged since late 2022, as Russia has made continuous but only incremental territorial gains without the ability to take control over major Ukrainian urban areas or other key military objectives. The Russian penetration of Prokrovsk will not dramatically change this situation, even if Ukrainian forces fully abandon it in the coming weeks. Prokrovsk remains the 76th largest largest city in Ukraine with a pre-war population of approximately 60,000, located only about 40kilometer from where the frontline was located in February of 2022. Or put another way, after soon 4y of war (about the length of World War 2 against Nazi Germany for the Soviet Union from July 1941 to May 1945), Russian forces have advanced only about 40kilometers into Donetsk, a province annexed by Russia in late 2022. This war remains a military disaster for Russia, no matter what happens in Prokrovsk.
Key to Ukraine’s military decision making remains the overall strategy of denying Russia military victory on the battlefield, and make any Russian territorial gains as costly as possible. Or put another way, keep the “attrition ratio” sufficiently high by inflicting more casualties on Russia than it itself suffers. It is uncertain what the casualty balance in Prokrovsk is at the moment, but it appears to heavily favor Ukrainian defenders. The key to the military effect of Prokrovsk will be whether Ukrainian forces in the event of abandoning its defense can do so in an orderly manner and avoid seeing forces surrounded by advancing Russian troops.
The question emerges for both Russia and Ukraine as to why Prokrovsk has taken the importance it has in recent months? On the Russian side, this appears to be rooted in the lack of other military advances, and as such Proprovsk represents the best – perhaps the only – near-term opportunity for Vladimir Putin to “report progress in Ukraine” to both the Russian population and not least in the global messaging war about the war. Taking Prokrovsk soon might also help Putin regain stature with President Trump amidst Putin’s earlier claim that “we will soon take Donetsk”, and hence possibly sway Trump away from leaning towards Ukraine’s cause once again. There is in other words very good near-term political reasons for Russia to focus even very large military forces on taking Prokrovsk. Its capture, however, would merely temporarily obscure Russia’s overall continuing military debacle in Ukraine.
For Ukraine, as noted, if they can avoid encirclement and continue to inflict high casualties on Russian forces, defending Prokrovsk to the end makes military sense, as this defense would otherwise have to be conducted at another location deeper inside Ukraine. Improvements in Russian battlefield drone capabilities have since at least early in the summer de facto removed Prokrovsk’s importance as a logistical center for Ukrainian forces in Donetsk, and from a Ukrainian point of view, the city holds value largely because Russia is willing to expend so many lives and military equipment to capture it. It is very difficult to determine from the outside, whether it is a sensible calculation by Ukrainian military commanders to continue to defend Prokrovsk, as the city becomes a grey zone where drones make it impossible for either side to fully control the ground. If Russia’s ongoing focus on Prokrovsk sees Moscow shift forces here from other parts of the frontline, continued bitter fighting here might be offset by less Russian offensive operations elsewhere. Or Ukraine’s decision to deploy reserves to Prokrovsk could see holes in its defense emerge in other places on along the frontline. Whatever happens in Prokrovsk won’t decide the outcome of the war though.
Of far more strategic importance for the war is the ongoing EU debate about how to continue to financially support Ukraine. It is not a discussion among EU governments whether to do so or not, but how. This was once again underlined by Commission president von der Leyen in the European Parliament, as she this week addressed MEPs and outlined the “options available” for the EU supporting Kyiv for the next two years, stating;
Given the immediate fiscal costs to EU member states of both option 1 and option 2, it is self-evident that option 3 – the Reparations Loan – is de facto in a political sense the only credible option on the table – leaders will not spend their own tax payers’ money, when they have a potential alternative. With this now made clear to all EU leaders again and in public, the pressure on especially Belgium to agree to move forward will grow. It hence remains the strong base case that the Reparation Loan will be agreed by mid-December for the EU (likely with other like-minded countries in the UK, Canada and Norway participating in some way) to fund Ukraine for 2026-27.
The sudden emergence of the most serious high-level corruption case, reaching the cabinet level of the government, in Ukraine since the start of the war is not likely to shift the political will to find new money for Ukraine. Yes, long-term implacable opponents like Viktor Orban will try to use this corruption case to bolster his case against helping, but essentially all other EU governments are likely to take this case as “proof the anti-corruption system in Ukraine is working”, and press on with giving Kyiv a lot more money. Here, much will depend when determining the EU reaction on the response of Ukraine’s president Zelensky to this scandal. So far, the resignations of two government ministers and Zelensky’s stated intent to go after implicated private businessmen directly linked to him personally will solidify EU support. Unless new revelations directly link Zelensky personally to corrupt practices, or if he refuses to act against new implicated officials at the highest level of government, the corruption case will not, no matter how many press headlines it might generate, seriously endanger the EU’s ongoing support for Ukraine.
This financial support is not in the end charity on the EU’s part, but deeply self-interested actions taken by European leaders to protect their own populations from having to fight Russia in the future.
Jacob
