Russia's ground forces were teetering in the autumn of 2022 in that first year of invasion after heavy casualties, faltering logistics, and the shock of being in a war rather than a victory parade. But even then I worried that failure to exploit that weakness would allow Russia time to repair its military. And here we are.
Russia continues to attack and Ukraine is trying to hold territory in the Donbas and even inside Russia at the Kursk salient until mud reduces the ability to move. I've long thought of the Kursk Incursion as a long raid that Ukraine would abandon when it attracted too much Russian firepower that otherwise could have been employed in the Donbas while the weather is good enough. Has Ukraine forgotten this is a raid and learned to defend it at all costs to justify losses so far? If so, that's a potential huge mistake.
On the other hand, I retain hopes that the real purpose of this raid is too soak up Russian troops to allow Ukraine to launch a major counterattack to pinch off the flanks of the Russian salient pushing toward Pokrovsk with such determination.
Or Russia simply has enough troops to keep up the pressure everywhere and Ukraine is simply holding on until next year when the situation will hopefully be better for Ukraine. Will it?
In October 2022 I was worried that Ukraine's advantage on the battlefield was fleeting:
Hell, if Ukraine can't press its hard-won advantage in the next few months to compel Russia to retreat from Ukraine, I don't rule out that Russia might eventually mobilize enough to achieve what I projected in that pre-war assessment.
Remember that I chose my term for the war because I worried that the template might be the Winter War of 1939-1940, when Finland initially humbled the Soviet military but in the end was ground down by the Soviets who regrouped and battered Finland down with firepower and troops, albeit while enduring heavy Soviet casualties.
My pre-war assessment was that Russia could plow its way to Dnepr River with a slow, firepower-reliant offensive. But Russia didn't do that. It was confident it could roll over a weak Ukraine without the will to resist; and that the West would do nothing of importance to thwart Putin's glorious plan.
But Putin has recovered from his autumn 2022 nadir. If Western support for Ukraine is insufficient to overcome Russia's continuing rebuilding effort, we shall see renewed calls to appease Russia under the guise that America and NATO "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A bright side is that Russia's failure to rapidly conquer Ukraine in February 2022 has given the West the gift of time to restore its military and military production capacity. And I can't imagine China is very happy with Russia for that bit of collateral damage to whatever plans China has for the PLA.
UPDATE (Tuesday): Ukraine committed its Abrams-equipped 47th Brigade to the Kursk Incursion salient. I suspect this is for the purpose of covering a retreat to more defensible positions. But who knows if Ukraine feels it has to hold any territory it has taken and refuses to take one step back. The latter risks losing troops as POWs.
In general, I've hoped Ukraine was starving the front, allowing Russia to broadly claw forward, in order to build a reserve for a significant local counter-attack. Time is running out for that hope. Maybe Ukraine has simply been hanging on with everything it has until winter, hoping it can prepare for next year.
UPDATE (Tuesday): Blowback: "South Korea is considering supplying 'offensive' weapons to Ukraine in response to the strengthening of military ties between North Korea and Russia, officials said on Tuesday."
UPDATE (Wednesday): War crime:
A Russian milblogger also posted footage and openly claimed on October 20 that Russian forces are using chloropicrin (a pesticide and lung damaging agent) against Ukrainian forces. The US Department of State announced on May 1 that it had determined that Russian forces are using chloropicrin and riot control agents (RCAs) in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to which Russia is a signatory.
I'll say again, the West is safer when Russia is as far east as possible.
UPDATE (Thursday): Interesting:
Russian and Ukrainian artillery fires is now about one-to-two in favor of Russian forces — a significant reduction from one-to-seven or one-to-eight in early 2024 and from one-to-three at the start of Summer 2024.
Ukrainian rear area strikes may have contributed to this. Unless Russian operations are slowing with the worsening weather conditions or other reasons.
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.
NOTE: You may also read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.
NOTE: The image was made with Bing.
