Russia has signalled an escalation in its war against Ukraine, but signs on the ground suggest it has limited ability for now to push through Ukrainian positions and that both sides are settling into a grinding war of attrition fought over increasingly small amounts of territory.
“We have not started anything seriously yet,” Russian president Vladimir Putin said earlier this month after his troops took Lysychansk, the last city in the eastern Luhansk province under Kyiv’s control. Then, last Saturday, Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu ordered his forces to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” of the war. Whether Moscow’s attack on Ukraine is entering a new phase of aggression is an open question. It could just as likely be a defensive move that reflects Russian concerns over recent Ukrainian counter-attacks enabled by the delivery of powerful western weapons. In particular, the American Himars precision-guided rocket systems have equipped the Ukrainians to hit Russian targets deep in occupied areas, including arms stores and fuel depots. After an exceptionally difficult period for Ukrainian forces, with estimated losses of up to 200 soldiers a day, that new capacity to break Moscow’s supply lines will give an important boost to morale.
Yet both sides face significant challenges. Russia has an advantage in heavy weapons supplies but its armour is heavily degraded and its soldiers are exhausted and over-stretched. Putin appears reluctant to call a general mobilisation, indicating the Kremlin’s fears of provoking a domestic backlash against a war that has already claimed between 25,000 and 37,000 Russian lives, according to various estimates. And while the Russians must advance to project strength, the Ukrainians can dig in, defend and mount counter-attacks from heavily-fortified strongholds, all with the support of the population.
The more that Russian forces get stuck in Ukraine, however, the more likely Putin is to use the economic and hybrid tools at his disposal, for example by further reducing or even cutting off the supply of gas to Europe. He calculates that at some point, faced with rising energy prices and public anger at home, western governments will weaken in their resolve and begin to press Kyiv to end the war on terms favourable to Moscow. Europe and the United States have done well so far to prove Putin wrong in his cynicism about western commitment, first by pledging economic and military aid and then by adopting unprecedented sanctions against Russia. But even though Putin appears to have expected a rapid victory, his general approach, free as he is from internal dissent and democratic checks, is to play a long game. Western capitals should miss no opportunity to show, through their words and actions, that they too are in this for the long haul.