“Don't Spit Into the Well” or Ukraine's Lesson for Americans

The Russians have stepped up their offensive in Ukraine, capturing more territory in recent months than they did during entire previous year. The Ukrainian army is melting away and Ukraine is losing the war. There is an acute crisis on all fronts and a collapse could happen at any moment.

Why is this happening and when did it start?

Main reason for the retreat.

Ukrainian sources cite the incorrect organization of Ukrainian troops, the absence of ready fortifications, insufficient and untimely assistance from the West, sanctions against Russia that do not work…. All of this is true. However, I want to focus on the main reason for the retreat: Ukraine is catastrophically short of soldiers. Why?

Ukrainian society is divided into the parts: a smaller one (200-300 thousand) which has been fighting for the whole nation for almost 3 years, the majority which does not participate in the war and lives as if there is a peacetime, and civilian and military elites which keep profiting from the war and try to force everyone else to fight. The nation is divided and that is why Ukraine is losing the war. It cannot be otherwise and it is not about the organization of the Ukrainian army, weak assistance from the West, etc.

The volunteer soldiers who have been fighting continuously for almost 3 years are partially killed or wounded, and the survivors are tired of bearing the burden of war on their own. There is no replacement for them, the Ukrainians in the rear live their normal civic lives and hide from mobilization en masse, so there is no demobilization. In such a situation, active volunteer soldiers have begun to go AWOL (“absent without official leave”) from their military units, because they feel they have already fulfilled their military duty. They have been tried for this, but now they are even forgiven for their “crime.” Apparently, because there are too many such cases:
«… Prosecutors opened 60,000 cases against soldiers for leaving their positions between the start of the year and October, according to the report, totaling nearly twice the number in 2022 and 2023 combined.»

Many recruits, who were caught on the streets by method of "busification" and forcibly conscripted into the army, often deserted. Ukrainian military experts say, that there are enough weapons for the infantry in Ukraine and local authorities have even built fortifications in some places, but there is no one to be armed and put in these trenches.

The Russians' "cockroach" tactics have been working because the Ukrainian front is "leaky."

The Russians have been using the so-called "cockroach" tactics for about 9 months now: small groups (5-10 people) penetrate the defense line by cars, motorcycles, or simply running. This happens because Ukraine does not have enough soldiers and the front line consists of many "holes". The Ukrainians cannot counter this tactic and it works in any weather conditions, because the attackers do not even need tank support in this case.

One platoon of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (it should normally have about 30 soldiers, in reality there are only 10-12 of them now) defends a front of 0.7-1 mile instead of 400 yards stipulated by textbooks, i.e. the distance between soldiers is 100-150 yards. These are the holes in the Ukrainian defense, through which small groups of Russians can penetrate. Some of these groups are knocked out while approaching, but this does not bother the Russian commanders - the main thing is that some groups get through. If the first group succeeded, the Russians send the next one of 30-50 soldiers into "the hole" immediately after the first group which tries to gain a foothold.

Now imagine yourself in a trench, alone, the friends are 100-150 yards away, somewhere nearby there is a firefight and you see how a small group of Russians passes behind you. Another one follows it after. If there is no artillery and drone support, no communication with the commander, then even experienced soldier will retreat for not being surrounded.

Yevgen Dykyi, former company commander of Ukrainian battalion «Aidar», shared the information he recently received from the front: "We are talking about a platoon strongpoint where should be 30 people. At the platoon strongpoint there are three old men, all of them around 60. And how will they fight?"

This is why the Ukrainians have been retreating along almost the entire front line for the last 9 months.

"Don't spit into the well from which you drink yourself."

At the very beginning of the war there was a huge patriotic upsurge among the people and many Ukrainians volunteered to fight. Now the volunteer soldiers are gone and other Ukrainians do not want to die for their corrupt elites who own everything in Ukraine, but do not fight themselves. The elites fill their pockets even during a brutal war and try to force the people to fight for free, appealing to the patriotism and Article 65 of the Constitution which obliges citizens to defend the country.

I have already written on this topic here and here. It has always been like this in Ukraine - the elites lived at the expense of the people and have always "spit into the well" from which they constantly "drank water." Russia started the war and the people became very much needed to the elites because someone had to die. However, the elites have "spit into the well" so much over the last 30+ years that the country fell into decay and the war just exposed this fact. Now it is a question of life and death, and apparently many Ukrainians feel they owe nothing to such a Ukraine. They are starting to solve their problems themselves by hiding from the army, deserting from the front or leaving Ukraine. The fate of the country is not interesting to them. The Ukrainian authorities respond with closing the borders, "busification" and courts which basically do not work.

Another confrontation between elite and people leads Ukraine to the defeat in the war or to a truce on Mr. Putin’s terms, which is basically the same.

What should Ukrainians do?

In theory: since the question is about the existence of the state, Ukraine should introduce recruitment (not mobilization) of all men from 18 years old and really pay soldiers or their families well for participation, injury (and rehabilitation) or death. But as usual, there is no money in Ukraine. Only the Ukrainian elites have it. This means that it is necessary to use authoritarian methods to collect money from the oligarchs into a state fund under the personal control of the president, conduct a constant recruitment of Ukrainians willing to fight for money (not only “patriots”), and set the dates for the demobilization of active soldiers. And of course, constantly ask the West for weapons and money. Then the war would have developed differently and there would have been no problems with "busification", unauthorized abandonment of the unit and desertion. And it would have been necessary to restore justice and somehow send at least a part of the elites and their relatives to the front line.

In practice: nothing can be done, much less quickly.
All of the above should have been done at the very beginning of the war, but then Ukraine would not be Ukraine. Even a brutal war cannot change the mentality of Ukrainian nation.

Of course, it would have been even better if the Ukrainian elites had not "spit into the well," but started building a new strong state together with the people after the collapse of the USSR, like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did. The initial conditions were almost the same. Then Ukraine would have also been in the EU, NATO and Mr. Putin would not have unleashed his bloody war. But…
The thievish mentality of Ukrainian elites got in the way, and the people allowed their elites to do almost whatever they wanted. "Ukraine never misses a chance to miss the chance" - this phrase has long been very popular in the country.

So now Ukraine can only fight back and wait until the end of January 2025 when the elected President Trump will start promoting his peace plan, which the Ukrainians will have to agree to (if Mr. Putin agrees). The world media are discussing several options of the plan, and all of them do not include an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, but do include a proposal for the warring parties to stop at the current line of contact. This deprives Ukraine of almost 4 regions and allows Mr. Putin to pass off his “special military operation” as a victory inside Russia. The presence of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region of Russia may slightly change the balance of power in the negotiations if the Ukrainians hold their positions there until February.

Thus Ukraine will lose war not only because of the Russians, but mostly due to the greed and betrayal of Ukrainian elites, and ignorance and connivance of Ukrainian people. The nation is divided, weakened and therefore unable to resist external aggression even with Western assistance.

Why do Americans need all this?

To see their own problems. The American nation is also divided, weakened and nothing good will come of that.

The visible and secondary part is the division of American society into Democrats and Republicans. Let me remind you that 77+ million citizens voted for the Republican Mr. Trump, and almost 75 million voted for the Democrat Ms. Harris on November 5. It is practically equality, the country is divided approximately in half and there is no unifying idea for ​​the nation yet.

Both parties claim they are a part of the people and so far the people believe them (since they go to vote). However, this faith will end when the Americans understand that both major US parties are well settled at the helm of the country, work only for their own pockets and therefore against the interests of the country and the people. Thus, the stagnation of the US will continue and the elected new old president Mr. Trump "will not fix it".
Why?

Because the invisible and main internal conflict of the US - the division of the nation (the same as in Ukraine) into a rich minority and a poor majority - remains. That’s the current way of existence of Democratic and Republican elites and in that sense they also “spit into the well” from which they constantly “drink water.” They also live, work, rest, study, get treated, etc., separately from the people, stating they are a part of them. This is real division of the nation which did not start yesterday.

Harvard professor Michael Sandel is right by saying: ”… for decades Democrats and Republicans alike had carried out a kind of neoliberal market friendly globalization project that delivered enormous rewards to those at the top but left the bottom half of the country basically with stagnant wages and outsourced jobs so there was widening in equality of income and wealth...”
And further: “Increasingly those who are affluent and those of modest means live separate lives. We send our kids to different schools, we live and work and shop and play in different places. This isn’t good for democracy because democracy is about more than just voting on election day, it's about sharing a common life that reminds us that we are all in this together.»

I have been observing the same in Ukraine for a long time.
Ukrainians have divided into several sorts or castes which also "lived separate lives in different places" and rarely intersected. Previously, Ukrainian elites needed the people only for working, paying taxes and voting for them (if it were possible, they would gladly remove the voting, but the West would stop giving them money then.)
Now the elites badly need the people to fight instead of them, but the people became smarter due to the war and also did not want to give their lives for the elites. And now Mr. Zelensky and Co. will have to sign a truce with Russia on behalf of all Ukrainians, because “they are all in this together.” Of course, on Mr. Putin’s terms, Mr. Trump can easily arrange this. Thus, all Ukrainians together - the elite and the people - are losing their country. The long-awaited peace in Eastern Europe – despite it is joyless and unreliable - is coming, but the evil is not punished, which means it will return.


Ukraine is a great example of what and how not to do, and those few countries which can understand that will be able to keep wholeness in our common very turbulent future.