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UAinFocus

The Ukraine's priority should be to stabilise the front lines and inflict higher costs on Russia



Jamie Shea is the President of the Centre for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark; he is also currently a Senior Advisor at the European Policy Centre and a Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe.  Previously, he worked as a Professor of Strategy and Security at the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter. Before joining the University of Exeter, Jamie Shea was an international public servant and a member of the International Staff of NATO for 38 years. His last NATO post was Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for Emerging Security Challenges. Other positions included Director of Policy Planning in the Private Office of the Secretary-General, Deputy Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations, Public Diplomacy Division, Director of Information and Press, Spokesman of NATO and Deputy Director of Information and Press, Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Multilateral Affairs Section of the Political Directorate as well as Assistant to the Secretary General of NATO for Special Projects.


Outside NATO, Jamie Shea has been involved with several prominent academic institutions. For 20 years, he was Professor at the Collège d’Europe, Bruges. He was also a Visiting Lecturer in the Practice of Diplomacy at the University of Sussex and associate Professor of International Relations at the American University, Washington DC, where he also held the position of Director of the Brussels Overseas Study Programme. He has also lectured at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent and at the Security and Strategy institInstituteute of the University of Exeter, where he was an Honorary Fellow for six years. Jamie Shea is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, where he teaches a course on crisis management and political communication.


What is your view on the latest war developments in Ukraine? Will Ukraine withstand the Russian offensive in light of manpower and weaponry shortages?

Clearly, the situation on the ground in Ukraine is not encouraging. Russia is advancing in Donetsk slowly but surely, and Ukraine is having difficulties in holding its lines. The cost to Moscow is high -around 1500 killed and wounded every day - but Putin shows no sign of giving up. He now has a fresh supply of troops from North Korea, which allows him to avoid conscripting more Russian civilians and a regular flow of weapons and technology from China, Iran and North Korea. The danger is that Russia will extend its operations beyond Donetsk into the Dnipro Region. So, the absolute priority now is to halt the Russian advance and use the winter pause to build a much stronger, fortified Ukrainian defensive line. Because Ukraine is experiencing manpower and recruitment problems, Ukraine has to preserve its army while it trains and equips its next generation of soldiers. That means a defensive line based on advanced technology, sensors and enormous artillery and missile firepower to prevent Russia from concentrating its forces. 


Is there a way for Ukraine to boost its defence industry in light of the possibility of dwindling Western aid?

This is the second priority. As countries like the US and Germany continue to put unjustified restrictions on the use of their weapons to attack military targets in Russia, Ukraine has to be able to use more of its own weapons to do precisely this. It has a sophisticated weapons industry and has developed its own anti-ship and long-range ballistic missiles as well as a long-range drone, which have pushed the Russian navy back across the Black Sea and damaged Russian air bases, ammunition, energy and chemical plants as far away as the Caspian Sea and Siberia. But Ukraine’s military production plants are today only functioning at one-third of their potential capacity due to a lack of investment and a shortage of government contracts. So clearly, the Western partners of Ukraine need to strike a better balance between the weapons they supply Kyiv from their own stocks and production and their support for the build-up of Ukraine’s domestic defence industry. Some European countries such as Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have given money to Kyiv for domestic production, and Germany and the UK are pursuing joint ventures involving British Aerospace and Rheinmetall and local Ukrainian companies. These are helpful moves, but there must be faster technology transfer, supply chain integration and finance to permit long-term contracts. Low-interest loans and equity participation can also help to speed things up. 


Can Russians deploying North Korean units in Ukraine change the situation on the ground?

Not immediately, as we need to wait and see how effective the North Korean troops will be and to what extent they will enable Moscow to redeploy more of its forces from the Kursk salient to the Donetsk region. The 12,000 or so that North Korea has sent so far will not make a decisive difference, but if this is just the beginning and thousands more follow, it could help Putin to reduce Russian casualties and avoid further mobilisations. The question will be how committed is North Korea to Russia’s war against Ukraine?  Will it be ready to sacrifice thousands of its troops in exchange for the military and technological assistance and food and energy supplies that Putin is willing to give it in exchange?  


What do you think about Ukraine’s victory plan presented by Zelensky?

With Trump in the White House, there seems, frankly speaking, little chance of the Victory Plan going forward. It is Trump’s “Peace Plan”if he manages to produce a serious and balanced one, which will command attention in the coming months. Zelensky’s Victory Plan also received only lukewarm support from the Biden Administration and European capitals such as Berlin. The task for Zelensky and the European supporters of Ukraine now is to convince Trump to take as many elements of the Victory Plan into the new US proposals, particularly the commitment to long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, NATO membership, reconstruction aid, full return of POWs, effective ceasefire and troop withdrawal monitoring, clear penalties for Russia if it renews hostilities and the economic and political integration of Ukraine into Europe. 


Should Ukraine seek negotiations (e.g., on a ceasefire) with Russia in light of possible more limited Western aid in 2025?

No, not alone, but only with the participation of the US and the European allies. Ukraine has to be in a stronger position before it starts negotiations with Moscow and should certainly insist on continuing US and European military assistance and long-term security guarantees before Zelensky sits down with Putin. A ceasefire is of little use as it will only give Putin a breathing space to reconstitute and re-equip his forces for another offensive at a later date. There is still US aid coming to Kyiv from the US, and more will arrive before Biden leaves office. Europe is seeing how it can compensate for reduced US assistance and Trump has to tell us how he can exert real pressure on Putin to accept a genuine, sustainable peace rather than just a ceasefire or frozen conflict. So this is not the moment for Ukraine to give up the fight. The priority is to stabilise the front lines and inflict higher costs on Russia to persuade Putin that he has more to lose than to gain by continuing the war. 


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