Ukraine counteroffensive in war with Russia could prove skeptics wrong
Ukraine-Russia war sees credible chance for Kyiv to reclaim Kherson, whatever the skeptics say. Russian President Vladimir Putin won't compromise, so Ukraine must fight.
Kyiv on Monday launched a flurry of attacks into areas of southern Ukraine controlled by Russia, billed as the opening moves of a much-heralded Ukrainian counteroffensive to liberate the key port city of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper River.
Yet the doubters — many of whom confidently predicted at the start of the war that Ukraine couldn’t possibly resist a Russian invasion and that Western military assistance to Ukraine wouldn’t make a difference — still can’t let evidence to the contrary get in the way of their convictions.
Broadly, this cohort wants Washington to withhold aid to pressure Kyiv to sue for peace and concede Ukrainian land seized by Russia rather than continue to resist.
When Russian forces finally managed to seize two important eastern cities by early July after months of struggling in their war with Ukraine, the defeatists — from think tank analysts and academics to former foreign policy hands to allegedly anti-imperialist leftists — again insisted that Ukraine had no hope of prevailing against Russia’s superior might. In advance of the new operation this week, the doubt continued. A typical argument is that it would take a “miracle” for Ukraine to succeed.
Broadly, this cohort wants Washington to withhold aid to pressure Kyiv to sue for peace and concede Ukrainian land seized by Russia rather than continue to resist. Give Russian President Vladimir Putin an excuse to declare victory, they claim, and he’ll take the opportunity to negotiate a peace agreement and bow out with his pride intact.
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