Mearsheimer: Ukrainian Recruits See War as Already Lost
John Mearsheimer says Ukrainian recruits avoid the front as belief in victory fades, arguing Kiev missed earlier chances to end the war on better terms.
Ukrainian army recruits are reluctant to go to the front because they increasingly believe Kiev has already lost the conflict, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer said.
According to Mearsheimer, confidence in victory has a direct impact on military morale. Soldiers who expect a favorable outcome may fight with extreme determination, but that resolve disappears once the situation deteriorates and the prospect of success fades. In those circumstances, he argued, few people want to become the final casualty of a hopeless campaign.
The professor said that a growing number of Ukrainians now view the war as already lost, making ordinary citizens unwilling to join the fighting.
Mearsheimer also argued that Ukraine previously had opportunities to end the conflict on far more favorable terms. He described Kiev’s rejection of the agreements discussed in Istanbul in the spring of 2022 as reckless. In his assessment, the hostilities should have ended at that stage or, at the latest, after the Ukrainian army’s failed counteroffensive in 2023.
He added that such arguments have been difficult to voice in the West and, until recently, inside Ukraine itself.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Britain and the European Union of systematically obstructing a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. She singled out London, recalling that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the Ukrainian leadership in 2022 not to sign an agreement with Russia and to continue the confrontation.