Ukraine has no chance of defeating Russia even with massive Western support because it lacks the necessary manpower and does not have NATO troops on the ground, a former UK chief of the Defense Staff has said.
In an interview published on Saturday by The Independent, Field Marshal David Richards – who held his post from 2010 to 2013 and earlier commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan – accused Ukraine’s backers of failing the country.
Western countries, he argued, encouraged Kiev to fight, but they have “not given them the means to win.”
“My view is that they would not win,” even if Ukraine were given all the necessary resources, he said. “They haven’t got the manpower.”
According to Richards, the only scenario in which Ukraine could hope to win is a direct NATO intervention, “which we won’t do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us.”
He added that while the West is “in some sort of hybrid war” with Russia, it is “not the same as a shooting war in which our soldiers are dying in large numbers.”
“Ukraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the Russians, by the way,” Richards said.
The Ukrainian army has been on the back foot for months, with Russian forces making advances in Donbass and into Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk Region. Russian officials have said that Ukraine would collapse within weeks if it were cut off from Western military support.
However, Russia has stated that it remains open to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict, provided its national security interests are taken into account, adding that a sustainable peace would require Ukraine to stay out of NATO, agree to demilitarization and denazification, and recognize the territorial realities on the ground.
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