Chapter 17: Year Three – The Battle for 2024 Begins

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The Bear and the Eagle

Volume 3: Year Three – Unfinished Wars and Uncertain Worlds (2024–2025)

January – March 2024
Kyiv – Moscow – Washington – Munich – Beijing – Warsaw

As 2024 began, the war in Ukraine entered its third calendar year, no longer a geopolitical shock but a protracted, structural crisis. The headlines now competed with other global flashpoints. The international media moved on.
But the war had not ended. It had simply matured into a battle of logistics, leadership, and long-term will.

Both the Eagle and the Bear entered the new year with battered wings—but neither was retreating.
This was not a sprint. It was a multi-front marathon, with 2024 set to determine not only the future of Ukraine, but of Western cohesion, authoritarian resilience, and the limits of American power.

Ukraine’s Winter Gamble

Despite the harsh winter and limited mobility, Ukraine continued tactical offensives in:

  • Zaporizhzhia oblast – Attempting to push south toward Tokmak and Melitopol
  • Kreminna and Svatove – In the northeast, trying to reclaim logistical hubs
  • Dnieper River raids – Small-scale Ukrainian marine incursions into Russian-held Kherson oblast, across the frozen riverbanks

Ukraine increasingly employed:

  • Small, mobile infantry teams, supported by drones and precision artillery
  • Night operations, designed to reduce Russian drone visibility
  • Use of homemade long-range drones to hit fuel depots and command centres inside Crimea, Kursk, and even near Moscow

Yet the counteroffensive stalled short of strategic objectives. Defence analysts described it as:

“Operationally impressive, strategically incomplete.”
— ISW, Jan 2024

Russia Holds the Line and Recruits the Poor

In response, Russia:

  • Fortified multiple defensive belts, with satellite images showing new trenches, bunkers, and minefields
  • Expanded recruitment through:
    • Regional conscription quotas, particularly in ethnic minority republics
    • Recruitment drives in prisons, echoing Wagner’s earlier tactics
    • Increased salaries and housing benefits to incentivise enlistment

Putin avoided a full second mobilisation, but Russia’s war economy became entrenched:

  • GDP redirected to military production (over 6% of budget by February 2024)
  • Factories converted to tank and drone assembly
  • Education and healthcare budgets slashed to sustain defence contracts

U.S. Politics and the 2024 Election Loom

The war’s third year began under the shadow of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

  • President Biden, having just turned 81, reaffirmed support for Ukraine: “As long as it takes is not a slogan. It’s a commitment.”
    — Biden, State of the Union Address, Feb 2024
  • Yet pressure mounted from:
    • The Republican-controlled House, which stalled new aid packages
    • “America First” factions, led by Donald Trump, who regained dominance in GOP primaries
    • Polling data showing voter fatigue with foreign commitments amid domestic inflation

The $60 billion Ukraine supplemental aid bill passed only after a bitter compromise tying it to U.S. border security reforms.

Europe Rallies but Recalculates

At the Munich Security Conference (February 2024):

  • Germany, Poland, and the UK recommitted to long-term support, launching the Kyiv Compact, a multi-year funding and arms supply initiative
  • But France and Hungary signalled more caution, citing energy strain and public fatigue

NATO leaders acknowledged that:

  • Ukraine would not join NATO during wartime, but
  • Permanent defence guarantees were being designed under a “Security Umbrella”, involving:
    • Intelligence-sharing
    • Joint production of arms
    • Long-term military training

China’s Quiet Encroachment

While Russia and the West wrestled, China continued a silent expansion of its global influence:

  • Hosted the “Eurasian Security Dialogue” in January, drawing representatives from Central Asia, Pakistan, Iran, and even Turkey
  • Increased exports of:
    • Dual-use technology to Russia
    • Heavy machinery and microchips to circumvent Western sanctions
    • Military drones to Russia via intermediaries in the Gulf and Southeast Asia

Xi Jinping, in his New Year’s address, emphasised:

“China supports peace through multipolarity and stability—not bloc confrontation.”

Yet U.S. analysts saw clear signs of deeper alignment with Russia, even as China avoided overt military supply lines.

Strategic Assessments and Global Anxiety

By March 2024, Western military experts concluded:

  • Ukraine had reclaimed ~54% of territory occupied since Feb 2022, but
  • Russia still controlled ~18% of Ukraine, including:
    • Most of Donetsk and Luhansk
    • Much of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson
    • All of Crimea

Ukraine’s defensive strategy had worked, but its offensive potential was limited without air superiority.

Requests for F-16 fighter jets, longer-range ATACMS, and more advanced drones continued to face political bottlenecks.

Meanwhile, the Global South called for a ceasefire, not escalation.

The UN General Assembly’s March 2024 resolution saw:

  • 122 countries voting for immediate negotiations
  • 13 opposed (including U.S., UK, Ukraine, Poland)
  • 34 abstaining, reflecting fatigue, not neutrality

Conclusion: The War Enters Its Third Year

By spring:

  • Ukraine remained resilient but exhausted
  • Russia remained aggressive but stretched
  • The West remained united—but politically vulnerable

The Bear had not broken, and the Eagle had not abandoned the field.

But both now flew under heavier skies—clouded by economic anxiety, electoral risk, and diplomatic fragmentation.

2024 would not end the war,
But it would define the world it continued in.

References

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