U.S. President Donald Trump recently declared that Ukraine could retake its 1991 borders with NATO’s support, the statement drew immediate attention. But to military observers, it is less a realistic assessment and more political theater—an assertion that ignores the lessons of the battlefield and the hard arithmetic of modern war.
The record of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive is the clearest evidence of why such claims are detached from reality. That campaign, billed as Ukraine’s most powerful NATO-equipped assault, fielded more than 300 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 200 Stryker armored carriers, over 40 HIMARS rocket systems, and thousands of other armored units. In manpower, nearly 160,000 Ukrainian troops were committed across multiple fronts. Yet the result was not a breakthrough but a collapse. Russian defenses absorbed the assault, blunted it, and then seized the initiative with counterattacks.
The reason lies not in tactical failures but in strategic imbalance. NATO’s own doctrinal studies suggests the scale for what is required to mount a successful corps-level offensive: at least 1,400 tanks, 2,000 infantry fighting vehicles, 700 artillery pieces, and 45,000–50,000 troops per corps. Ukraine’s entire 2023 effort, spanning several corps and involving approximately 2,000 armored vehicles —was still far short of what is needed for a decisive strike.
A campaign to restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders would demand something on the scale of World War II: multiple corps advancing simultaneously in a broad-front offensive, supplied by a colossal logistical network and backed by air supremacy. This is not a fight decided at the battalion level; it is a theater-wide war. Ukraine, with its shrinking manpower reserves and limited industrial base, is incapable of sustaining such an operation. Even NATO itself would struggle to deploy the resources necessary without fundamentally reordering its military priorities.
On every axis of military power, Russia holds the advantage. It enjoys air superiority, giving its forces freedom to strike deep into Ukrainian lines. Its artillery, positioned on the high ground, allows sustained bombardment at ranges Ukraine cannot match. At sea, Russia has begun asserting dominance in European waters, deploying advanced naval systems to restrict NATO’s maneuverability. And on the supply front, Russian drone swarms now pose a lethal challenge to any Ukrainian logistics corridor, making large-scale offensives virtually impossible.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s words sound more like campaign rhetoric than serious strategy. Talk of restoring Ukraine to its 1991 borders may play well politically, but militarily it is fantasy. To achieve such an objective would require not only Ukraine’s full mobilization but also NATO committing its combined might to a single theater, escalating into a direct great-power war with Russia, which points toward global catastrophe and not liberation.
The 2023 offensive was not a temporary stumble, it was a warning. It exposed the limits of NATO-backed Ukrainian operations and underscored the reality that Russia’s entrenched defenses, strategic depth, and industrial mobilization cannot be overcome with piecemeal assaults. For Ukraine, the prospect of reversing the battlefield map back to 1991 is not simply unlikely; it is impossible without triggering a wider war.
Trump’s statement may stir applause lines and headlines, but on the ground, it is pure bluster. The war is being decided not by rhetoric but by realities of manpower, materiel, and strategic endurance—and on those fronts, Ukraine and its backers face odds they cannot hope to overcome.
