Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented to Verkhovna Rada on October 16 The five-part plan for Ukraine's victory in the war by the end of 2025.
Among the points are: an immediate invitation to join NATO; continued Western support and aid; an opportunity for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike military targets in Russia and increased intelligence sharing with Ukraine; Western and Ukrainian non-nuclear strategic deterrence against Russia; Western investment in Ukraine's strategic economic growth, as well as a promise that Ukrainian forces would "replace" certain Western military contingents currently stationed in Europe after the end of the war.
Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces will use their war experience to strengthen NATO's defenses and ensure security in Europe.
There are also several secret aspects of the plan that he has shared with Ukraine's Western allies.
Zelensky said that the fate of Ukraine is linked to the fate of its neighbors in the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. He warned that the West must support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity or risk future Russian aggression.
This is what the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says in its analysis.
Ukrainian and Western officials expressed support for Zelensky's plan on October 16. He will present the plan to the European Council on October 17.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably aiming to win a war of attrition. However, severe mid- and long-term constraints will derail this strategic effort.
The Russian military is currently trying to eliminate the challenge to its initiative in the Kursk region after the Ukrainian invasion in early August 2024, while maintaining an offensive thrust in eastern Ukraine in pursuit of long-standing operational objectives.
The Russian military's intensified summer 2024 offensive operation for Pokrovsk and Donetsk Oblast is likely to culminate in the coming months, although the Russian military command will likely continue to engage Russian forces in the overall strategic containment effort.
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Putin is counting on Russian forces to conduct sustained offensive operations indefinitely, but these crushing attacks are likely to significantly strain available force and materiel. Russian forces will have to reduce the pace of the advance at least in selected sectors of the front.
ISW has observed a steady increase in the financial incentives that the Russian authorities are offering to enter into a military contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD). This suggests that Russia is running out of reserves to recruit willing volunteers.
Russia currently relies on a large but limited stockpile of Soviet-era equipment to offset its massive losses in Ukraine, and appears to be depleting its stockpile at an increased rate.
Russia uses partnerships with North Korea and Iran to acquire munitions and military equipment and engages with China to acquire critical components for defense production, but these international supply efforts will not meet all of Russia's material needs in Ukraine.
Putin appears as uncertain about conducting an economic mobilization as he would about conducting another wave of mobilization, and it remains unclear whether critical difficulties and worsening military shortages would even allow Russia to quickly and fully mobilize its economy for the war effort if Putin has allowed it.
Incarcerated ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin, in particular, questioned the Kremlin's theory of victory and estimated that 2025 and possibly the end of 2024 would be a "serious test" for Russia, as the Kremlin has not yet addressed mid- to long-term force generation and defense-industrial capacity constraints.
Ghirkin published a series of letters from prison, written between September 28 and October 12, in which he argued that the Kremlin's current strategy hinged on the outcome of the US presidential election. This suggests that the Kremlin expects that Russia will be able to outlast Western support for Ukraine based on the policies of the new US administration.
Ghirkin admitted that the Kremlin has not yet solved its problems with the systematic defense industrial base and manpower after the start of the war in February 2022. These problems could soon lead to military-economic crises in Russia.
Girkin argues that the Kremlin has exaggerated its military capacity but is failing to catch up with wartime equipment needs. The war "ends" the remaining Russian reserves of men and weapons, which are not "endless and inexhaustible". Girkin hinted that a new mobilization would be detrimental to the Russian economy.
US President Joe Biden announced a new $425 million military aid package for Ukraine after a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on October 16.
The package will include ammunition, armored vehicles, air defense interceptors. The Ministry of Defense specified that the package will include additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), RIM-7 missiles and air defense support, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Missile Systems (HIMARS), munitions air- land, 155mm and 105mm artillery munitions, tube-launched, optically tracked, guided-by-wire (TOW) missiles, Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems, high mobility wheeled multi-purpose vehicles (HMMWV), and other munitions and equipment. The Defense Department noted that this is the Biden administration's 67th tranche of equipment drawn from the Defense Department's stockpile provided to Ukraine beginning in August 2021.
The Australian government has announced that it will provide Ukraine with 49 M1A1 Abrams tanks as part of a new aid package for Ukraine worth about $164 million.
South Korea's Ministry of Defense (MOD) said on October 16 that "up close" is monitoring reports that the Russian military is training North Korean soldiers. South Korea's National Intelligence Service coordinates with Ukrainian intelligence services.
Ukraine's military and intelligence sources told Ukrainian publications RBC Ukraine and Suspilne that the Russian military is currently training more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia's Far East and is preparing to transfer some of them to border areas near Ukraine , to free up Russian military personnel for rotations.
Ukrainian publications Suspilne and Liga reported on October 15, citing anonymous military intelligence sources, that Russia's 11th Airborne Brigade formed a "battalion" of 3,000 people, manned by North Korean nationals (the numerical composition is far more than a battalion), which the Russian army is likely to deploy for defensive operations in the Kursk region.
However, ISW has not observed reports of North Korean troops engaging in combat operations. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on October 16 that NATO does not have a "definitive" information that North Korean troops are fighting in Ukraine.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on October 16 that unspecified US military and intelligence officials "expressed some skepticism" that a significant number of North Korean personnel were fighting in Ukraine, but said they had no doubt that North Korean engineers and observers work in occupied Ukraine and Russia.