Where is the Winter War of 2022 going? Will Russia launch a Final Offensive? If so, where? Can Ukraine stop it? And does Ukraine have the reserves to exploit a culminating Russian ground offensive to change the trajectory of the war in Ukraine's favor?
So something seems looming in the Winter War of 2022. Putin claims Russia has a juggernaut inside Ukraine:
More than 700,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
If Russia has so many troops already inside Ukraine, why has Russia needed to strip troops from much of the front to concentrate on one section, presumably Pokrovsk but who knows?
Who is counted and who is counting?
Something big has been expected all year as Russia recommitted to breaking Ukraine's army. Yet the ground war remains a war of Russia grinding forward very slowly at a high cost in lives for Russia. Ukraine loses men, too, but far fewer. Russia is getting hammered.
The air war escalates as Ukraine and Russia expand their capabilities. But so far neither seems poised to deliver victory through air power.
So we're back to the ground war for decisive events. Maybe it's going to be the same old thing. But maybe something changes as I suggested two years ago after reviewing the World War I stalemates:
One side or the other needs to:
Find new weapons.
Or develop new tactics.
Or exploit a major enemy mistake.
Or get more troops--from outside of the current front or from new allies.
Or conduct decisive economic warfare.
Or expand the front so the troop-to-terrain ratio is low enough to allow movement and exploitation.
Or break the morale of enemy troops.
Or destabilize the other side's government.
Or flip an ally.
Or open a totally new front.
Any one or a combination of them could finally provide battlefield victory in the Winter War of 2022.
Germany's long siege of Verdun--while failing in its immediate objective to break the French army with attrition--bled France enough to push its army to the edge of the French troop morale crisis in 1917. Maybe Ukraine is doing this to Russia while under siege.
Whether such a battlefield victory leads to a real peace or mere reloading is another issue altogether.
And here we are more than 43 months into the Winter War of 2022 with the front line barely moving despite massive Russian efforts. And this despite a number of the means listed above being introduced to the war to change that territorial stalemate. But something will change, even if the war simply runs out of steam and seamlessly becomes a so-called frozen conflict as Russia reconstitutes its military to invade again.
Or the change could be dramatic.
UPDATE (Thursday): Details of the Russian 90th tank division massing in Pokrovsk direction is interesting:
“With around 25,000 personnel, it’s by far their biggest division,” analyst Moklasen reported. The division oversees three tank regiments and two or three motor rifle regiments, each with six battalions.
Is Russian command and control effective enough to command a division that large? Or does the size doom it to piecemeal employment and potential destruction?
NOTE: ISW updates continue here. Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump.
NOTE: You may also read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.
