Arne O. Holm says An Admiral’s Brutal War Story – And What Is the Definintion of a Victory in Ukraine?

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In my mind, I am back at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland. For three days, I listened to lectures and debates on security policy in the Arctic, including how Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine is also a war against us who live in the North.

In detail, Western and Russian military exercises in the Arctic were outlined and elaborated on.

The end of the conference was nearing, which is said to have had 2,500 participants, was nearing as Admiral Bauer, Chair of the NATO Military Committee, concluded his scheduled lecture.

A fist

Yet, he wasn't completely done. Rob Bauer wanted to answer some questions from the audience before he left Iceland.

How would you define a victory in Ukraine? was the first question posed to the military leader.

After hearing the answer, I decided right there and then to give the word to Rob Bauer in this week's comment. Not to make his words mine but to share his brutal description of the war in Ukraine with our readers. And what a possible peace is about.

I cannot promise a "happy ending" to Bauer's improvised reply. In fact, it is the opposite. But it is, in all its graphic depiction, also a fist in the face of those who believe that Ukraine will win the war by giving away its country.

Here is, to the best of my ability, an almost verbatim rendition of Rob Bauer's answer:

Not how it works

"Let me start by saying I will answer the question, but it needs a bit of explaining because we live in a world where a lot of people think that everything is plannable. Controllable. Zero risk. Those are the societies we have built by now. Unfortunately, in a war, that's not how it works. Because war is playing chess between two nations with armed forces that are able to destroy, to kill, to damage."

"So it's not nice."

"It is not nice at all."

Both sides will look for opportunities to become more successful than they are now.

"If you look back over the last thousand days—almost 969 days—the war is raging. We saw the invasion. The Russians have made extremely strategic mistakes. I think Mr. Putin has not achieved any of his strategic goals, which were basically a regime change in Ukraine. Then, fairly quickly, the Russians took quite a big part of Ukraine."

"And then, fairly quickly, the Ukrainians took back about 50 percent of what the Russians originally had taken."

"Then we entered this next phase, during which both sides learned and, in a way, became better."

The soldiers are dying

"You have to become better because you lose people, soldiers, every day. Apart from stuff, you know, weapon systems and ammunition, but you lose a lot of people."

"It's one of the topics a lot of nations need to think about because whether you have professional armed forces or not, you will have to think about that if you are in a conflict, after a couple of days, those professional soldiers get wounded."

"And die."

"And then you have to find new soldiers. Now both sides at the moment are looking at the same type of problems. They both look for new soldiers. They both look for new capabilities and they both look for new ammunition. And then they will look for opportunities with those new troops and the new capabilities to either gain more territory for the Russians or to retake territory for the Ukrainians."

We thought for too long

"The Ukrainians did the counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. And because we are in this sort of mindset of everything is plannable, we thought, OK, we have given them the weapons. We've given them the training. We give them the ammunition. So now they're going to win. But we forgot about the fact that the Russians were building these defensive works."

Right there and then, I decided to give the word to Bauer.

"And then, every time we talked about a type of weapon system that would help the Ukrainians, we thought about it a little bit too long. Because of this red line discussion, and then basically the time we took to decide to give it and to allow Ukrainians to use it, the Russians strengthened their defensive works."

"So by the time the country offensive started, the Ukrainians had a very tough job. They had to penetrate minefields between 10 and 15 kilometers deep. Five to six mines per square meter."

"So war is not plannable as a lot of us think."

"Therefore, we are now in a situation where there is movement at the front. The Russians are slowly taking relatively little bits of lead per day. But they take a little bit of lead per day against enormous costs when it comes to human lives. We are talking (about) more than 350.000 russian soldiers wounded and killed."

"350,000."

A dirty war

"The Russians suffer about 1000 (soldiers) a day. So it is unimaginable for most of us what is happening at the front. People think war is about cyber hypersonic AI. A sort of a clean war. That was what people predicted a couple of years ago. A war of bits and bots, but it is also still a war of mud and blood, which is about gaining territory, defending territory, gaining territory, and using tactics of World War One. Trench warfare, artillery barrages, wave after wave of infantry soldiers."

"It is a dirty war." 

"I think you can say that by now, the Russians count on quantity and the Ukrainians on quality. It is amazing what humans have achieved against these mighty Russian armed forces—yes, with our help. But the courage of the Ukrainian people is amazing."

"After a while, the people who played in the Symphony Orchestra and the ballerinas from the National Ballet were in the trenches in Ukraine."

"That is what war does to a nation."

The definition of a victory

"And if you ask people in Iceland now, would you like to go to war? I would be surprised if all the young people would say yes. Of course, you don't if you live in a prosperous country where there is freedom. Ukraine has to basically give away what they have lost, and then make peace, and then we can carry on with our lives without this war in Europe."

"If you would say that, try to imagine if people would say that to you when it was about Iceland or about your nation."

"I think you would give a different answer."

"So, war is difficult, and therefore, it is extremely difficult to give an answer—a precise answer to your question."

"What is the definition of victory?"

"Because it depends on who you talk to. It might be so, although he has achieved none of his strategic objectives, that Putin, in the end, can claim that whatever he has taken is a success. Even if he would like to have the whole of Ukraine. But he still doesn't have the whole of Donbas or the whole of the Luhansk region. So he's still struggling to get the sort of minimum option. But the only language that Putin understands is strength. And power."

"So the Ukrainians say to me that if we would agree to a settlement now, it doesn't mean that we will not have more (war) in a month or a year again."

"So it has to be connected to security agreements and a security arrangement for Ukraine."