Ukraine's Strategic Neutralization of Russia Assures Putin's "Functional Defeat"

In what might be termed a diplomatic version of ju-jitsu - using your opponent's aggression to defeat him - Ukraine has adopted a policy it calls 'strategic neutralization.' This means allowing Russia to continue to fight and attack - but without making any progress. The evidence of this can be seen in Russia's so far unsuccessful summer offensive in Sumy, Pokrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and other sectors, as well as in the Black Sea, where Russia still, ostensibly has a navy, but which cannot mount any sort of power projection. 

The result is a 'functional defeat' of Russia, because Putin's goal, which he again reiterated this week, is to eliminate the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian people. That they continue to resist and exist is evidence of the Kremlin's fundamental failure to achieve its goals. JL

Roland Oliphant reports in The Telegraph:

Ukraine's strategic neutralization policy means the Russians can keep fighting for as long as they want to, but without being able to make any progress. A redefinition of victory as Ukraine surviving and functioning, regardless of how long the war lasts. (This would result in) Russia’s “functional defeat” which would allow Ukraine to begin its economic recovery, bring home refugees and attract investment from the West, all while the war continues. The best example is that the Russian fleet still exists – they have ships, personnel, command-and-control systems, bases – but they cannot implement the tasks they were created for: they cannot make an economic blockade or amphibious operations.

Denial, bargaining, anger, depression. European leaders ran through the full gamut of emotions before they, last week, finally accepted the grim truth: the war in Ukraine will not stop this year.

President Trump has now reached the same conclusion. On Monday, he vowed to send additional Patriot defence systems to help repel large-scale Russian air attacks, and even to supply long-range missiles.

He reportedly asked Volodymyr Zelensky to hit Moscow, to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

“I thought we had a deal done four times, and then you go home and you see [Putin] just attacked a nursing home or something in Kyiv,” Trump said as he set a 50-day deadline for the Russian president to agree to peace.

 

It is a “big moment”, as Nato chief Mark Rutte observed. But Ukrainian and European officials know the shift of mood in Washington cannot be taken for granted.

 

One Kyiv defence think tank believes it has found the answer.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Alina Frolova, two former defence ministers who run the Centre for Defence Strategies (CDS), have spent the past few weeks lobbying Western officials to pursue what they call “strategic neutralisation”.

It’s a term that Zagorodnyuk happily admits he made up because it sounds good.

What it means is that the Russians can keep fighting for as long as they want to, but without being able to make any progress. A redefinition of victory as Ukraine surviving and functioning, regardless of how long the war lasts.

“All the plans for recovery which we have now in the European Union, for example, are also connected to peace: that we do something after the ceasefire,” Frolova told The Telegraph in London last week.

 

“So if we don’t have a formal ceasefire, or if we don’t have a ceasefire at all, do we just have an economic decline and die in a war of attrition, or do we need to create some kind of more-or-less stable security situation in which we can not only simply live, but increase our capabilities?”

Russia’s “functional defeat” – another term Frolova and Zagorodnyuk have coined – would allow Ukraine to begin its economic recovery, bring home refugees and attract investment from the West, all while the war continues, albeit in neutered style.

The Black Sea

The model starts with looking at what Ukraine has done well, “even without defeating Russia in the conventional, classical way,” Frolova says.

The shining example is the maritime domain, where Ukraine has effectively neutralised – but not destroyed – Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

“We see that the Russian fleet still exists – so they technically have ships, they have personnel, they have command-and-control systems, they have bases, they have capabilities – but they cannot implement the main tasks they were created for. They cannot make an economic blockade and they cannot do amphibious operations.

 

”Ukraine defeated the Black Sea fleet not with a navy – it does not really have one – but through the creative use of unmanned systems including innovative drone boats (pictured below) and long-range anti-ship missiles. As a result, the naval war, while it still exists, is effectively stymied.