Ukrainian forces are rapidly regaining territory lost to Russia all along the front around Kharkiv, Kherson and Donbass, territories assimilated by Russia. The Kremlin acknowledged that it did not know where the borders were for the regions in Ukraine that it had recently annexed. That did not stop the lower House of the Russian Parliament, the State Duma, from ratifying Vladimir Putin’s attempted annexation of four regions. No other nation has recognised it as legal.

Ukraine is on a winning offensive against demoralised and despairing Russian forces whose supply lines are being cut by Ukrainian forces. Kherson itself might begin to resemble the battle for Mariupol in reverse. It is to be seen whether the resistance of the Russians would be as dogged as that of the Azov Brigade, thereby tying down a large number of Ukrainian forces for a very long time.

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As things stand it seems unlikely. In fact, mass surrender by surrounded Russian forces could take place any time soon seeing that reinforcements of men and munitions remain unlikely.

In June this year in an article in The Statesman titled “It is time for a Russian reset” (The Statesman, 24 June), I had written that the victorious Russians had practically all the cards while Ukraine with its back-to-the-wall had none. Russia did not go in for a reset.

Today, Ukraine would appear to be in a similar position. As a consequence of the setbacks resulting from the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, Putin has ordered large-scale mobilisation that could go up to 300,000 with harsh decrees for desertion, malingering, declining to enlist and so on. Many Russians fleeing the country while several others have slipped back to the obscurity of their villages.

Further, because Putin apparently does not consult the military top brass and only issues orders, nobody among the generals has told him that this hasty mobilisation would be his biggest folly to date.

The following aspects of the mobilisation could lead to either mass surrender post-induction or decimation at the hands of the Ukrainian Army:

• Raw recruits many of them old, unfit and insufficiently trained;
• Experienced instructors who could have trained them have been committed in Ukraine, many killed or disabled;
• Minimum time required for adequate training not being met;
• The same is required for commanders of formations, units and sub-units to lead them;
• A large number of frontline generals have been killed or sacked, and
• Specialist equipment like tanks has been destroyed in large numbers or simply abandoned in the face of successful Ukrainian interventions. What remains in the depots would be old models, even unserviceable equipment awaiting repairs.

IIl-trained, ill-treated, unmotivated soldiers have never won wars. President Zelensky has a strategic choice before him that could affect the future of Ukraine as much as Russia. While the tables have been turned, he must not push President Putin to the brink. The latter has choices that the former never had. The Ukrainian President has to make his decision independent of his Western backers. While giving way on the ground, it has enough devastating firepower to do incalculable damage to Ukrainian cities including Kyiv.

The West has been unstinting in providing weapons, many advanced, to damage Russia as much as possible. The amount required to put Ukraine back on its feet is already reckoned to be over a trillion dollars. Any more damage could set Ukraine back by half a century.

Thus, President Zelensky has to take the most important decision of the war independent of his Western backers.