Discussions around Ukraine’s potential efforts to retake Crimea continued this week following the New York Times report two weeks ago that the United States was contemplating providing Kyiv with the weaponry needed for such a campaign.
Politico reported on a classified briefing delivered by four senior Defense Department officials to the House Armed Services Committee the primary takeaway from which was that “Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to recapture Crimea from Russian troops in the near future.”
U.S. government officials have long maintained that the peninsula is part of Ukraine as a matter of international law, but the report on the Congressional briefing echoed statements made by Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last month in Germany. “I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all — every inch of Ukraine and occupied — or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” said Milley. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.”
A report authored by Samuel Charap and Miranda Priebe for the RAND corporation echoed those concerns, arguing that an end to the war in which Ukraine gained full control over the entirety of its internationally recognized territory was “a highly unlikely outcome.”
Skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to retake Crimea would put Washington at odds with officials in Kyiv. According to Politico “One person familiar with the thinking in Kyiv said the Zelenskyy administration was ‘furious’ with Milley’s remarks. Ukrainian officials, including Andriy Yermak, the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, have said that a Ukrainian victory that did not include recapturing Crimea would be “absolutely unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, the Washington Post ran a story about the Ukrainian intelligence chief who was one of the few in Kyiv to predict Russia’s invasion. Kyrylo Budanov is now predicting that Ukraine will have to retake Crimea in order to end the war. “We must do everything to ensure that Crimea returns home by summer,” he told the Post. “Crimea will be returned to us. I’ll tell you more: It all started in Crimea in 2014, and it will all end there.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic declared this week that "it is clear that Crimea will never again be part of Ukraine," according to a report by Reuters. Milanovic further said that he opposed sending lethal arms that could aid Ukraine in this effort because it would only prolong the war.
Writing in War on the Rocks, James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned that pushing too aggressively on Crimea could be a “potentially catastrophic mistake,” because it would not advance diplomatic negotiations and risks increasing the possibility of a nuclear strike.
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
—The Politico report on Crimea also noted that House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) was urging the U.S. government to supply Ukraine for a coming offensive to create an eventual blueprint for the end of the war. “Russia is never going to quit and give up Crimea,” Rogers said, adding ““What is doable? And I don’t think that that’s agreed upon yet. So I think that there’s going to have to be some pressure from our government and NATO leaders with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy about what does victory look like. And I think that’s going to help us more than anything be able to drive Putin and Zelenskyy to the table to end this thing this summer.”
—Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, labeled talks with Kyiv "pointless" after the U.S. and other NATO countries agreed to send tanks to Ukraine. "Under the current conditions, when Washington announced the decision to supply tanks, and its vassals, including Ottawa, are competing over who will supply armored vehicles, especially old ones, to Ukraine, and how many of them... it's pointless to talk," said Ryabkov.
—The U.S. said that Russia has violated the New START Treaty , the only nuclear agreement between the two Cold War rivals that remains in effect, by not allowing inspections of its nuclear facilities. A spokesperson for the Kremlin responded that Russia wants to keep the treaty.
—NATO leaders sent Kyiv mixed messages on whether they would provide fighter jets. Joe Biden simply responded “no” when asked if the United States would provide F-16s to Ukraine, and a spokesperson for the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak maintained that sending aircraft would not be “practical.” French President Emmanuel Macron, however, did not rule out the possibility, asserting during a press conference in The Hague on Monday that “nothing is excluded” at this time. And the Kyiv Independent reported that Poland was “ready to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighters in coordination with NATO.”
—Earlier this week, Russia claimed that they captured a village north of Bakhmut. This would represent its biggest battlefield victory since last summer. According to Reuters, the “front lines in eastern Ukraine had largely been frozen in place since November after Kyiv recaptured swathes of territory in the second half of 2022. But momentum has lately swung back towards Russia as it has made incremental gains for the first time since mid-2022.”
—Negotiations surrounding the possibility of creating a safety zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine have stalled. Russian deputy foreign minister Ryabkov blames Ukraine for "dragging its feet."
U.S. State Department news:
In a press briefing on Wednesday, Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield repeatedly reaffirmed U.S. support to Ukraine.
“In terms of our message on Ukraine and the war in Ukraine, our message is also very consistent: Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine is also an attack on the UN Charter,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “It is an attack on the sovereignty and independence of a smaller neighbor. And it is important that we stand together, united, and condemn those actions. And we have been successful in the UN General Assembly, getting 141 votes and then 143 later, condemning Russia’s attempt to annex parts of Ukraine.”
