Donald Trump has claimed that Ukraine could win back all of the land captured by Russia since the beginning of its invasion in February 2022, in a major shift on his position on the war.
Marking a striking shift in his position, the US president said in a Truth Social post that Kyiv’s military could win back “all of Ukraine back in its original form”, adding that Putin and Russia are in “BIG Economic trouble”.
Military experts say that Ukraine could push Russia pack towards the 2022 borders and force Vladimir Putin to seek a peace deal – but only under a strict and unlikely set of conditions.
The Independent spoke to three experts with knowledge of Russia’s military, economy, and the frontline in Ukraine about whether Trump’s claim could be realised.
What would it take for Ukraine to drive Russia out?
Experts say that in theory, Ukraine has always had the capability to win back the 13 per cent of its territory seized by Russia since the beginning of its invasion. But in practice, it would require a specific set of conditions.
“Can they regain some of the territory that was lost since February 2022? I think, unquestionably,” said John Lough, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre. “We saw during the offensive in late 2022 that they took back a lot of territory at that point.”
Kyiv’s troops, Mr Lough said, are “fighting extremely well” given the size of their military compared to Russia. He highlighted repeated Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries as a strategy which has inflicted damage on the Russian economy.
But for Ukraine to overpower Russia militarily, he said Kyiv would need a “great deal more assistance from its allies”, including an effective “sky shield” to protect from nightly air attacks and more long range weapons.
It is “very difficult to see them getting the military capacity” to overwhelm Moscow’s forces, Mr Lough added.
“It doesn’t really look realistic unless Russia can be crippled economically. Perhaps this is what Trump is thinking of,” Mr Lough added.
Military push by Ukraine would take ‘more than a year’
With a sustainable change to US policy to damage and pressure the Russian economy, along with strong military support, Mr Lough says Ukraine could take back large parts of its territory and force Putin to accept a peace deal. This can not be done quickly – it would take at least 12 to 18 months, he said.
And while Trump’s attitude appears to have shifted, Mr Lough says he remains skeptical about “whether that really is going to lead to a kind of sustainable change in US policy”.
Keir Giles, a Russian military expert who is a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, says there is “nothing to suggest that there’s going to be any deviation from the consistent policy of the Trump administration to hang Ukraine out to dry”.
He said it has “always been possible for Ukraine to defeat Russia” but only “if the US were interested in this happening”. Under Trump and Biden, he says, this has not been the case.
“What would be required is support from the coalition of countries backing Ukraine, primarily the US, that is not conditional,” he added.
Military success will require ‘exhaustion of Russia’s economy’
Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst at Finnish OSINT specialists Black Bird Group, is also highly doubtful over Kyiv’s ability to overpower Russia’s military enough to push it back to the 2022 borders.
“It may be able to counterattack locally, it has actually even done that during the summer and into the fall,” Mr Kastehelmi said. “But Russia has also been advancing forward, and I do not find it possible under the current circumstances that Ukraine would be able to take all of its land back.”
A precondition for Russian forces to be pushed back and Putin to be forced into peace would be “the exhaustion of Russian economy and society”, he added.
But Mr Kastehelmi said a military collapse by Russian troops, in a way that would force it to withdraw at a large scale, was “extremely unlikely”.
Defeating the Russian military repeatedly and plotting continuous strategic military breakthroughs is an “immense task” which would likely only be possible if Western countries joined Ukraine’s resistance, he said.
How significant is Ukraine’s Donetsk counteroffensive?
Mr Zelensky insists that Ukraine is making major gains in the Donetsk region, where Russia has been edging forward for more than a year as it looks to seize the key strategic town of Pokrovsk.
“It was there that one of the most important directions of the Russian offensive was located, and they were unable to launch a full-fledged offensive there. Our military is destroying their forces,” he said in his nightly video address late last week.
“The Russians have suffered significant losses, and the ‘exchange fund’ for our country has been significantly replenished – every day more Russian prisoners are being taken.”
But Mr Kastehelmi said he doesn’t entirely understand “what Zelensky is actually talking about,” Mr Kastehelmi said.
He said that Kyiv’s forces have made some local counter attacks, taking back some villages and some land areas, but those areas have since changed hands a “couple of times”.
Mr Kastehelmi is doubtful about Zelensky’s claim that Ukraine has made significant gains in Donetsk.
“The amount of land that he’s saying that has been taken back seems to be over exaggerated, and usually Zelensky is very vague while talking about these things, so it’s difficult to say what he actually means.
“I think that’s more like strategic messaging towards the West and especially towards Trump, to actually bolster these claims a little bit over the actual situation.”
