As we see the war flow from failed initial Russian invasion and successful local Ukrainian counter-attacks in 2022, the big failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023, and Russia regaining the initiative in 2024 to plow forward using mass and firepower to overwhelm smaller Ukraine, a path to even more stages across more years must be found if Ukraine is to win.
Russia expanded their frontage to areas north of Kharkiv, advancing into Ukrainian areas that Russia's invaders retreated from in the latter part of 2022. On the rest of the front, especially in the Donbas closer to Russian sources of supply, Russia claws forward at a slow but worrisome rate. And Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
Ukraine expands its own strategic warfare with long-range but low-payload suicide drones deep in Russia; and strikes Crimea with new weapons from America and Europeans in addition to using their own surface and aerial drones.
So the war continues as American aid starts to fill the gap left by America's failure to authorize more aid. European aid continued, but does not yet have the ability to produce the volume that America can generate. As insufficient as America's production still is, it is significantly better than allies.
This is a good starting point for planning in the West for support to Ukraine:
For Ukraine, the ideal end state appears clear: (1) restore its sovereign territory (i.e., the 1991 borders), (2) rebuild the country in a manner that promotes deeper Western integration, and (3) hold Russia accountable for war crimes.
The war might not end on those terms, but it's a good objective to base planning on.
And of course, Ukrainians will ultimately decide what they are willing to die for. Just as Russians ultimately must decide what conquests they are willing to die for. For Ukraine, my guess is that liberating areas of the Donbas occupied by Russia since
2014-2015 will not be worth it since those guys are clearly willing to
kill Ukrainians. I have no idea what the pain level is for Russia. I once thought I did. Nor do I know if the pain level is at the level of soldiers, military-age recruits and their families, Putin, or the amorphous wealthy supporters and senior security apparatus leadership.
Strategypage says Russians are increasingly anti-war as news of the reality spreads. It is said that desertion from the Russian military is increasing. Whether this all leads to difficulties scooping up enough even unwilling recruits is beyond my ability to judge.
But Strategypage includes casualty statistics that are just odd. Nearly 180,000 dead Russian troops and 34,000 dead Ukrainian troops (with another 11,000 dead Ukrainian civilians); with the wounded twice those numbers. I'd like to believe the killed ratio is that lopsided for Ukraine. But I can't believe a 2:1 killed-to-wounded ratio when based on history it should be at least 3:1. It seems that medical advances should have improved even for the Russians with their horrible medical corps.
But I have no idea. And those who know aren't talking.
Anyway.
The planning for more years of war requires a path to something that will break the territorial stalemate where significant advances have not taken place since 2022.
If Ukraine endures the rest of this year (and if Russia can continue flinging men at their military problems), Ukraine needs to be able to emerge victorious over a larger enemy with a number of long-range efforts. Otherwise the war could fade into a simmering stalemate that some will wrongly call peace. This will allow Putin to reload and resume the offensive under better conditions from territory deeper inside Ukraine. Do this enough and Ukraine falls.
CSIS calls the long-range efforts "five strategic problems" to be solved to achieve the ideal end state of Ukrainian victory. The broad picture makes sense to me. This may break the stalemate by increasing Ukraine's relative defense capacity compared to Russia's.
The U.S. is working to increase Ukraine's own defense production:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced a $2 billion aid package for Ukraine largely intended to help the embattled country grow its indigenous defense capabilities and move away from Soviet-era equipment.
This is good. And as I've long said, Ukraine must reduce its corruption to compete with the even more corrupt but much larger Russia.
We do pay attention to this issue. The fact that we do does not mean Ukraine forfeits the right to exist free of Russian control. It just means Ukraine has to succeed to be better capable of remaining free of Russian control without the current level of Western assistance. Western assistance will always be vulnerable to changes in Western policy whether from strategic, fiscal, or Russian disinformation and influence reasons.
Tip to Instapundit.
UPDATE (Monday): Russia's Kharkiv attacks are petering out. Will Russia waste more ground power attacking than Ukraine does reacting to the Russian attacks?
If Russia truly has numerical superiority it makes sense to stretch the Ukrainian defenders. But if stretching the Ukrainians uses Russian reserves that might be used where a real effort could capture something significant, Russia is stretched, too. I've expressed my surprise that people were shocked that Russia could make initial rapid advances against weak defenses on a quiet sector of the front.
As I've observed, I'm starting to get the impression that the Russians are following the pattern of Germany's 1918 offensive. The Germans had a series of dramatic advances on the Western front. But the attacks seemed opportunistic without having any real operational focus to achieve victory. In the end, Germany failed to break the Allied line. The most significant result was that Germany depleted their army and wrecked their army's morale.
UPDATE (Monday): I don't quite agree with this:
If time is on Ukraine’s side, then it should avoid negotiations and drag out the war for as long as possible. If time is on Russia’s side, then it should act the same way.
Time is also a gift to the enemy if it is losing. Because you never know what an enemy will do with time to erase your edge.
Further, it is perfectly rational to want to win a war faster to reduce the price of victory.
And as the author notes, the judgment that one side has the edge could be wrong. Belief is not reality. Also, even if there is a long-term advantage for one side, if the side with that edge loses in the short term, the long-term edge is moot.
I don't know who has the long-term advantage. But I've never assumed Russia has the edge because of its size.
UPDATE (Wednesday): Interesting ISW special report on Russia's offensives the last six months.
My commentary in the first Monday update on the apparently aimlessness of Russia's attacks is answered by ISW's portrayal of the offensives as means to demoralize Ukraine and the West by making Russian victory seem inevitable.
Putin believed America would falter in aiding Ukraine. And Ukraine would lose hope. Leading to a Russian summer offensive to break Ukraine's army.
But America did resume aid. And Russian losses combined with a revived Ukrainian military will make Russia's plans for a summer offensive obsolete. So their plan must change.
That angle at least explains the apparent lack of a larger battlefield purpose to Russia's attacks that I saw.
Plausible.
But can Putin tolerate sitting on the defensive for long? A tiger-riding reincarnation of Peter the Great doesn't want to be Vladimir the Perfectly Adequate.
Or maybe that ISW report I linked Wednesday is correct that Russia will keep trying to grind forward under the limits of its recruiting efforts to replace casualties.
UPDATE (Saturday): Ukraine knocked out an important Russian radar in Crimea:
According to The War Zone blog, the station is part of Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile early warning system.
The blog said the station may have been targeted because it is capable of tracking U.S.-made ATACMS long-range missiles, which were recently approved for distribution to Ukraine by Washington.
A bit of caution is in order so we don't get the paranoid Russians worried about a Western nuclear first strike.
NOTE: ISW updates continue here. Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
