Ukraine is not getting what it needs to win the war. The report from Sten Richard Larsen, Norway’s military attaché in Kyiv, is crystal clear: Now the West must establish red lines against Russia.
Alf Bjarne Johnsen
January 7, 2025
Oslo Military Society
“The West gives an unbelievable amount to Ukraine. But we are not giving them what it takes to win the war against Russia,” Larsen told the Oslo Military Society on Monday evening. After four months as military attaché at the Norwegian embassy in Ukraine, the experienced officer believes that the West lacks a clear strategy to help Ukraine against the Russian occupiers. “The years in the Armed Forces have taught me that if what you do doesn’t work, you have to do things in a different way. Now the Western strategy in Ukraine appears to be very unclear: Saying that we will support them as long as the war lasts is not a strategy that leads anywhere,” he says. “And if we believe that this war is about the security of all of us and the fight for our values, then we have to do things in a different way,” he continues.
Lack of will
Stein Richard Larsen has a long career behind him as a special soldier in the Armed Forces. He was head of the Coastal Hunter Command until he became Norway’s foremost military representative in Ukraine in the summer of 2024.
He argues that the support from Western countries is not in line with the assurances that the war against Russia is also about the security of all of Europe.
There is a lack of Western determination, and the willingness to give Ukraine what it asks for: weapons that enable Ukraine to attack Russia in depth, such as the headquarters, and the bases that Russia uses for its attacks against Ukraine. “What is happening in the trenches, where Russia is gaining millimeter by millimeter with enormous losses of soldiers and materiel, is only part of the picture,” he says.
Can’t answer
It is Russia’s capacity to attack targets throughout Ukraine with long-range weapons, drones, glide bombs and even ballistic missiles, that worries the Norwegian officer the most. “Ukraine does not have the ability to respond with the same coin,” he says. “Ukraine cannot allow the front line to collapse. The consumption of Ukrainian personnel will be unnecessarily large because Ukraine does not have the weapons needed to hit Russia,” says Larsen. He points out that Russia is also mobilizing far more soldiers than it is losing, even with heavy losses along the front line.
In the short term, Ukraine needs weapons that can hit Russia’s forces behind the front, and they need enormous volumes, he emphasizes. “If we don’t have weapons that we can give to Ukraine, then we can at least help them to produce these weapons. They will quickly be able to jack up their production significantly. But they lack the money,” says Larsen.
War fatigue
The Norwegian military attaché also fears for the exhaustion and war fatigue that is now hitting the Ukrainian population hard: “People are cold and live part of the day in woollen blankets,” he says.
“Ukraine is at a minimum of what is required in terms of energy to keep the population warm, and to run the industry. Many have electricity only half the day. “I don’t know how long the Ukrainians can continue to believe that one day the country will be a better place to live. But the country is approaching a demographic crisis. The opinion polls clearly show how more and more people are willing to give away parts of the country in exchange for peace, and how distrust of the authorities is growing,” says Larsen.
The Storting has decided that Norway will spend NOK 22.5 billion in military support to Ukraine in 2025.
Larsen’s job is, among other things, to map Ukrainian needs and ensure that the decision-makers in the government use the money to achieve the overall goal: To contribute to a solution to the war on Ukraine’s terms.