After all, the Russian army outnumbered the Ukrainian army by about ten to one. Moscow enjoyed a double advantage over Kyiv in ground forces; and nuclear power had ten times the plane and five times its neighbor’s armored combat vehicles. A visibly angry Russian President Vladimir Putin had appeared on television a few days earlier, offering a rambling historical monologue that made it clear that he expected nothing more than a regime change in Kyiv. The Kremlin leader seemed to be betting that Zelensky would flee his capital, just as the US-backed president of Afghanistan had left Kabul just a few months earlier, and that Western outrage would subside, though with the temporary pain of new sanctions.100 days. later, all plans that Putin had for a victory parade in Kyiv are on hold indefinitely. Ukraine’s morale did not plummet. Ukrainian troops, equipped with modern anti-tank weapons delivered by the US and its allies, devastated Russian armored columns; Ukrainian missiles sank the Moskva guided missile cruise, the pride of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet; and Ukrainian planes remained in the air, against all odds. In late March, the Russian army began withdrawing its battered troops from the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital, alleging that they had shifted their focus to the capture of the eastern Donbas region. Three months after its invasion, Russia no longer seems to be aiming for a short and victorious war in Ukraine, nor does it seem capable of achieving one.
The problem with the forecast
Does this mean that Russia is losing? It is tempting to take a snapshot of the situation on a given day and draw compelling conclusions.
The Ukrainians have managed to kill Russian generals at an astonishing rate; Moscow has been forced to reorganize its military command after the initial disorder; and the Russian casualties, however difficult the official figures may be, are surprisingly high.
But Russia now controls a crescent of Ukrainian territory that stretches from the vicinity of the second Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, continues through the separatist cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, and reaches west to Kherson, forming a land bridge linking the Crimean peninsula (forcibly annexed by Russia in 2014) to the Donbas region.
Russia’s main direction of effort is now in the Donbas region, where things have settled into a war of attrition. The latest fighting has centered around Severodonetsk, an industrial city where Ukrainian forces have the last part of the eastern Luhansk region.
Ukrainian troops have ceded most of Severodonetsk to the Russians. The fall of the city will be a symbolic loss, but military analysts say it saves Ukrainian forces from a prolonged – and likely lost – siege.
“Kyiv may have devoted more reserves and resources to defending Severodonetsk, and failure to do so has drawn criticism,” the U.S. Institute for the Study of War said in a recent analysis.
“Both the decision to avoid jeopardizing more resources to save Severodonetsk and the decision to withdraw were strategically sound, however painful they may be. Ukraine must manage its more limited resources and focus on regaining critical ground. instead of defending the ground whose control will not determine the outcome of the war or the conditions for the renewal of the war. “
In the midst of the offensive in Severodonetsk, Oleksandr Motuzianyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said that Russian forces were now “trying to encircle our troops in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” and regrouping to launch an offensive in the direction of Sloviansk, a strategic city that could be setting itself up as the focus of the next fundamental battle.
Battles in eastern Ukraine are being fought on much more open ground than the denser urban environment of Kyiv. This explains the urgency with which the Ukrainians have called for heavier weapons, especially artillery systems that can hit longer-range targets, from the US and its allies.
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the U.S. will send more advanced rocket systems, including high-mobility artillery rocket systems with ammunition that can launch rockets around 49 miles, a far greater range than anything else. has been sent to Ukraine so far.
This is good news for Kyiv, but Russia’s offensive in the east is unfolding as international media attention on Ukraine moves away from the headlines. And that may be what Putin is counting on, perhaps considering that high energy costs and rising consumer prices, both exacerbated by the Ukrainian war, are more likely to concentrate. public opinion (and boosting election results) in the United States and elsewhere.
Putin may also have short periods of diplomatic attention. This is the same Russian leader who doubled his support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015 after Damascus suffered a series of defeats. This war, now in its 12th year, has continued even though the world’s attention has shifted to Ukraine.
In this sense, Zelensky has been one of the most important assets of Ukraine in the information war. He has made a number of virtual appearances before parliaments around the world, while reminding other world leaders that they may be inclined to appease Putin by urging Ukraine to cede territory to the Ukrainian people, not him. results.
In Zelensky’s appearances with wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, the Ukrainian leader takes selfies and projects a warm, humane and modest leadership style. This contrasts with the Russian leader’s only public visit to a military hospital: Putin, wearing a large white lab coat, met with wounded soldiers and officers who stood rigid in front of their commander-in-chief.
But Putin, who has wiped out all domestic political opposition and effectively controlled his country’s waves, is not facing the same internal pressure as Zelensky. Nikolai Patrushev, head of Putin’s Security Council, said in recent statements that Russian forces are not “pursuing deadlines” in Ukraine, suggesting that Putin has a much more open schedule for his war in Ukraine. Ukrainians, on the other hand, fear that international fatigue will set in, leading the international community to pressure its government to make concessions to Putin.
“You have the clocks, but we have the time.” This saying, sometimes attributed to a captured Taliban fighter, summed up the U.S. dilemma in fighting the war in Afghanistan, a reluctant acknowledgment that the insurgencies operated on different political horizons and chronologies, and that the insurgents only needed to endure, not defeat, the technologically superior. US military.
To re-use this phrase, the decisive factor in Ukraine may be who has the time: a Russian dictator who will probably hold power until he dies, or a Ukrainian people who are fighting for their national survival.