[Military & Weapon Subsection] Author: Feng Yu
Let's refocus on the situation between Russia and Ukraine. As usual, we will first review the latest dynamics of the battlefield between Russia and Ukraine. On June 19th local time, according to the latest battle report from the Russian Ministry of Defense, in the past day, the Russian side has eliminated 1315 enemies. Among them, the "Western" Army Group of Russia captured the village of Dovhenk in the Kharkiv region. At the same time, the "Northern" Army Group of Russia also captured the settlement of Novo-Nikolaevka in the Sumy region.
In general, Russia's recent progress on the battlefield has accelerated. And the reason for this, I think, is that the recent outbreak of fighting between Israel and Palestine has given Russia a rare strategic window of opportunity. In fact, it's not hard to notice that with the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Palestine, the United States is gradually陷入ing a strategic dilemma in the Middle East. And against this background, Trump simply has no time to spare for the development of the situation between Russia and Ukraine. I also mentioned such an event in an article I wrote a few days ago "Trump said at the G7 summit that he is deliberately delaying sanctions on Russia and hopes that both sides of Russia and Ukraine can reach an agreement as soon as possible." To put it bluntly, Trump is currently trying to reduce Russia's burden, gradually forcing Europe and Ukraine to face reality and quickly end this dispute.
At the same time, with the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Palestine, Europe's strategic focus has also shown signs of dilution. The already strained assistance to Ukraine now faces more directions of resource diversion and policy interference. The escalation of the Middle East conflict not only reignited old problems such as energy security, refugee waves, and terrorism, but also forced European countries to reweigh their priorities among diplomacy, military affairs, and finance. Especially traditional major countries such as France and Germany have expressed dissatisfaction and helplessness in multiple occasions about bearing pressure on multiple fronts. And the United States, as the main security support for Europe, its strategic return to the Middle East region has gradually made NATO's aid agenda for Ukraine further marginalized. Therefore, for Europe today, the Ukrainian issue is a hot potato, not only "high cost, low return", but also difficult to get rid of.
In this situation, Ukraine can only adopt one method, which is to drag, dragging until the end of the Israel-Palestine war. But I think Russia will not give Ukraine this time window. Judging from the current battlefield situation, the Russian army has opened gaps on multiple fronts. Once the Russian army forms a pincer movement trend in the north, east, and south lines, Ukraine's strategic depth will be rapidly compressed. We can easily see that the Russian army's advances in the Sumy direction and the Kharkiv direction are gradually approaching the core hinterland to the east of the Dnieper River. This means that the Russian side is likely to cut off the coordination and supply between the southern and northern troops of the Ukrainian army.
If the southern front can advance synchronously to the areas north of Nikopol and Zaporizhzhya, it may achieve a pincer convergence with the eastern forces, thus completely cutting off all defensive depth of the Ukrainian army on the east bank of the Dnieper River. Once the Russian army forms a pincer attack, the Ukrainian army will be forced to be divided into several isolated battle zones, losing overall strategic dispatching capability. At that time, even if Ukraine wants to "drag", it will lose its strategic maneuvering space.
Of course, Ukraine also understands this principle, so the next round of negotiations, Ukraine can be said to be forced to talk. So, at around midnight local time on the 19th, Putin announced the consensus reached by the delegations of both sides - the third round of talks will be held after June 22nd. It can be foreseen that if the Israel-Palestine war further deteriorates, Ukraine is very likely to choose strategic compromise in this round of talks to gain breathing room on the battlefield.
And the key issue still lies in whether Europe can withstand the pressure of the Israel-Palestine war and continue to provide assistance to Ukraine. Judging from the current situation, I think in the short term, Europe's assistance to Ukraine will not show a significant cliff-like interruption. On the one hand, EU countries still need to maintain basic support for Ukraine in the political sphere to maintain consistency in their Russia policy; on the other hand, Ukraine still retains moral advantages in Western public opinion, and abandoning assistance will cause substantial damage to internal unity within the EU and its external reputation. Therefore, even though actual military aid and financial support are already becoming tight in quantity, countries will still maintain the appearance of "continuous support for Ukraine" through technical means such as delayed delivery and budget splitting. However, from a long-term perspective, Europe's assistance capacity will face structural bottlenecks. In other words, Europe's ability to "withstand" now does not mean it can "withstand" in the future, and when Europe is exhausted, it will be the day Ukraine fails.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7517569320562557492/
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