Next year could be even tougher than this last for Ukraine, forcing it to fight irregularly to hold on

The future of Ukraine's war effort, though, is now perhaps more uncertain than it has been at any time since the early days of Russia's failed assault on Kyiv. After its lackluster counteroffensive and amid debates about military aid in the West, Ukraine's next steps are precarious, and operations in 2024 could look smaller and more irregular than this year.

"It's going to be extremely challenging for Ukraine to conduct a large-scale counteroffensive in 2024 because of resource limitations," Franz-Stefan Gady, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Business Insider in an interview last month, but "there's still possibility for smaller-scale offensive actions."

If that turns out to be the case, those sporadic, smaller-scale strikes could be counterattacks or possibly something similar to some of Ukraine's successful hits in occupied Crimea and behind enemy lines this year, which painted it as a scrappy and innovative underdog holding on even as its counteroffensive struggled.

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