The current state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces leaves much to be desired. This assumption has been repeatedly grounded by President Petro Poroshenko.
Since Kiev launched its offensive in Donbass, the country has seen six waves of mobilization. And they were not enough. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the mobilization brought only 60 percent of the necessary personnel.
In addition, in order to build up an effective army Ukraine needs money. Currently, military expenditures are nearly five percent of GDP; the military budget for the next year is $4 billion, $1.6 billion higher than this year. The budget was approved despite the fact that Ukraine still needs financial aid and cannot service its debts.
"What would be goals for these campaigns? Would it be to defeat the fifty to seventy-five thousand Ukrainian forces? Or, to take Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Odessa? Kiev? One can argue that these goals are reachable, but nobody can prove it will be easy," the author wrote.
However, the fact that both sides are not interested in the renewal of hostilities does not mean they will find ways to reconciliation, he underscored.
The author proposed to consider the current state of the Donbass conflict as a mostly nonviolent competition of the two sides.
"With each day, the conflict resembles the Cold War—a competition between a pro-Western government in Kiev and the leaders in Lugansk and Donetsk, who pledged their allegiance to the 'Russian World'. This competition is […] about how those conflicting sides present their populations with at least minimally functioning state," the article read.
The author underscored that chances are high that sooner or later the leaders of the self-proclaimed republics will join the "Normandy Four" format. Such talks may bring numerous advantages for both sides of the conflict, especially when they result in a stable ceasefire and further steps in the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
The October talks in Paris will be very important as both sides of the conflict have acknowledge the Minsk agreements, he pointed out. One can expect that during the talks in Paris the future of the agreements will be decided.
"There is no reason to expect any crucial or substantially new decisions," he assumed. "Regardless, all sides are interested in making sure that Minsk-II is being implemented. The latter means that most likely several benchmarks and deadlines for the implementation will be agreed upon in Paris to extend the life of Minsk-II."
