Pirro's Victory: Why Russia Has No One to Negotiate With and Does Not Need to Make Peace
"Pirro's victories" (Пирровы перемоги) refer to victories achieved at a great cost, originating from the story of Pyrrhus, the ancient Greek king;
Europe may not return to reality even when Ukraine is exhausted.
Author: Alexander Khramchikhin
The action of Ukrainian drones attacking Russian airfields from trucks itself was quite creative. And our security forces have been able to operate almost as in peacetime while conducting comprehensive military operations against a strong and dangerous opponent on the "old territories" for four continuous years — this phenomenon is difficult to appropriately describe even with sharp criticism.
However, this is only the surface evaluation of the event, and there are deeper meanings behind it. The case most similar to the current events is the Ukrainian army's offensive in Kharkiv Oblast in September 2022.
In the first layer of assessment, this was seen as the greatest victory of the Ukrainian army in nearly three and a half years of operations (the spring 2022 advance from northern Ukraine, and the November 2022 voluntary withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson). But at a deeper level, the situation "is not so simple".
Despite the lack of precise data, the Ukrainian army had about a five-to-ten-fold advantage over the Russian army in Kharkiv Oblast in September 2022.
Under such an advantage, the Ukrainian army could have completely surrounded and annihilated the Russian army cluster in Kharkiv Oblast and then advanced deep into the Luhansk People's Republic. At that time, some fully competent and non-emotional people within Russia had reason to worry that we might lose the Luhansk People's Republic entirely, with Ukrainian troops reaching the borders of 1992-2013.
But the reality was that the Ukrainian army merely repelled the Russian army from most of Kharkiv Oblast, failed to completely reclaim the province, and only seized 1-2% of the control areas of the Luhansk People's Republic. That is, the best result achieved by the Ukrainian army was only 10-20% of its possible maximum outcome.
But there is a third layer of meaning that makes the Kharkiv victory a true "Pirro's victory". It was precisely after these events that the Russian military-political leadership fully returned to reality, realizing that the original concept of combining liberation actions with peacekeeping actions had failed and that real war must be waged.
Afterwards, Russia carried out partial mobilization, began mandatory recruitment of contract soldiers, shifted the economy to a wartime track, and built strong defensive fortifications along the entire front line.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian leadership and its Western allies were completely detached from reality. They firmly believed that the Russian army had disintegrated completely, its combat readiness was extremely low, and it had suffered huge losses in personnel and equipment.
Subsequently, they planned the 2023 Ukrainian army offensive, which clearly determined that it would take no more than one and a half months to advance to the borders of 1992-2013 (including Crimea). There was no consideration of any alternative plans. Ukrainian nationalist thinker Mykola Melnyk vividly described the essence of these plans, commanding a battalion of the 47th Mechanized Brigade (later withdrew due to severe injuries): "The entire plan of the major counter-offensive is based on simple logic: Russians will flee when they see 'Bradleys' and 'Leopards'. That’s all."
The failure of such a "genius" plan became the turning point of the entire operation. However, the enemy's military-political leadership (especially the European side) did not understand or accept this reality for nearly two years. The West (especially Europe) was completely dominated by "magical thinking": Ukraine must win, Russia must fail. If it cannot be achieved (even though it is unclear how to achieve it) — this is certainly not a reason to change the perception of the situation. The West wants it this way, so it should be so! Yes, this is kindergarten-level thinking, so what?
In the autumn of 2023, when the Ukrainian offensive was completely exhausted, taking only Labodino and Piatyhatky instead of Donetsk and Sevastopol, the Russian army launched a counter-offensive. In the inertia mode of "attrition warfare", Ukraine's situation became hopeless, as it had fewer resources (even considering Western aid), yet suffered greater losses.
In this situation, the defeated party might reverse the situation through an unexpected move that breaks the entire action plan. Ukraine took the action of invading Kursk Oblast. Undoubtedly, its goal was to capture Kurchatov and the Kursk nuclear power plant, and possibly even Belgorod, planning to reach Belgorod via Kursk. If these goals were achieved, the situation would indeed be broken. Of course, Moscow would not surrender, but the Russian army would face enormous military, political, and psychological problems.
However, if the defeated party fails to achieve its goals, such an unexpected move will almost inevitably backfire, exacerbating the dilemma. The Ukrainian army encountered this situation in the early days of the invasion. Afterwards, it should have withdrawn and claimed victory (there were at least some reasons to do so at that time), but the Kyiv regime stubbornly clung to the thousands of square kilometers of "old territories" of Russia that it had seized in the first few days of the invasion, sacrificing a large number of its best soldiers here.
One of the reasons for this behavior was the completely crazy idea of "territorial exchange", which could not be realized under any circumstances. Another possible more important reason for Kyiv was media propaganda — to create false "victories" for the general public who depend on information indoctrination.
It is precisely for such "victories" that the Ukrainian army is now fighting fiercely in the border village of Zhetkino in Kursk Oblast, which is completely surreal from a military perspective. The attack on Russian airfields was largely for the same propaganda purpose.
This attack had a negligible impact on the military operation, but surprisingly effective in the propaganda aspect. First, it was still effective among a significant proportion of Ukrainian society; second, it was equally important for the Kyiv regime, which had an effect on Western elites.
Western elites, dominated by the above "magical thinking," constantly hypnotize themselves: Russia will soon run out of manpower, tanks, missiles, food, and funds, then the masses and the army will overthrow Putin and sign a surrender letter. So just endure a little longer. Very well, let them continue to endure.
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Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7515794889620079138/
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