The Ukrainian military has defeated Russia’s initial war campaign, setting up the possibility of a sustained “stalemate” throughout much of the country, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Russian forces had sought to utilize “airborne and mechanized operations” to seize various population centers, including the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the cities of Kharkiv and Odessa. After more than three weeks, the Russians “continue to make limited advances” but are “very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives,” according to the institute’s latest assessment of the war, released Saturday afternoon.
A senior U.S. defense official similarly told reporters on Friday that Russian forces have “largely stalled across the country.”
US UNDERWHELMED WITH RUSSIAN FORCES’ PERFORMANCE IN UKRAINE SO FAR: AUSTIN
Their lack of meaningful progress “is creating conditions of stalemate throughout most of Ukraine,” which will “likely be very violent and bloody, especially if it protracts,” the ISW report concluded. Russian forces are starting to create conditions to hold in their current positions for an “indefinite time,” the analysis added, noting that Maxar imagery shows them digging trenches and revetments over the past several days, seemingly supporting the assessment.
Should that happen, the ISW expects Russian forces would continue to bombard various Ukrainian cities, “devastating them and killing civilians, even as Ukrainian forces impose losses on Russian attackers and conduct counter-attacks of their own.”
“The Russians could hope to break Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting under such circumstances by demonstrating Kyiv’s inability to expel Russian forces or stop their attacks even if the Russians are demonstrably unable to take Ukraine’s cities,” they added. “Ukraine’s defeat of the initial Russian campaign may therefore set conditions for a devastating protraction of the conflict and a dangerous new period testing the resolve of Ukraine and the West. Continued and expanded Western support to Ukraine will be vital to seeing Ukraine through that new period.”
Russian forces have remained on the outskirts of most major cities, including Kyiv, for weeks now, though they’ve had more success in the south than in the north, in part because the infrastructure to resupply and reinforce has been in place since they invaded Crimea in 2014.
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It appears as though Russian forces have either begun deliberately targeting civilians or simply don’t attempt to avoid civilian casualties, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said days ago. “We’ve seen, most recently, appear to be focused directly on civilians,” he said, though he stopped short of accusing Russian forces of war crimes.
He also said the U.S. had expected more from the Russian military, alleging that the Pentagon has seen “a number of missteps.”
“They’ve struggled with logistics,” the secretary explained. “So we’ve seen a number of missteps along the way. I don’t see evidence of good employment of tactical intelligence. I don’t see integration of air capability with the ground maneuver. So there are a number of things that we would expect to have seen that we just haven’t seen. And the Russians really have had some problems. Many of their assumptions have not proven to be true as they entered this fight.”
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced on Saturday that there have been 847 civilians killed, while another 1,399 have been wounded, though they warned that the tolls are both likely “considerably higher,” but information can be hard to verify in the middle of a war. More than 3 million people have fled, according to the U.N. International Organization for Migration, and that number is expected to grow as well.
