Yesterday the Institute for the Study of War posted one of its longest-ever, and most optimistic, updates on the Russo-Ukrainian War. The summary paragraph of the March 20th post is more succinct:
Russian forces did not make any major advances on March 20. Russian forces around Kyiv are increasingly establishing defensive positions and preparing to deploy further artillery and fire control assets. Ukrainian forces repelled continuing Russian efforts to seize the city of Izyum, southeast of Kharkiv, and Russian forces did not conduct any other offensive operations in northeast Ukraine. Russian forces continue to make slow but steady progress on Luhansk Oblast and around Mariupol, but did not conduct any offensive operations towards Mykolayiv or Kryvyi Rih.
After ISW’s declaration yesterday that Ukraine has achieved a stalemate (not ideal when the war is being fought on your own soil but better than most observers would have forecast a month ago), I looked around for a more pessimistic view. Bill Roggio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, offers one:
On the actual battlefield, the Russian offensive has undoubtedly slowed over the past week. But what is being described as a ‘stalled’ takeover may be the result of the Russians taking time to reorganize their forces and improve their logistics.
On the Western side of the information war, we were told from the opening days of the conflict that the Russian military would break due to high casualties and defections, loss of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and aircraft, and domestic opposition.
Videos of Russian battlefield setbacks abound in the media, and strangely there is little reporting on Ukrainian losses.
And yet, over three weeks into the war, Vladimir Putin remains president and the Russian war machine has not collapsed but in fact continues its plodding, imperfect, and messy advance.
Ukraine certainly has won the war on social media and in the press. This gives the average Western viewer the impression of a lopsided victory in favor of Ukraine. . . . But the West should not delude itself into believing that the Ukrainians will be saved by wishful thinking.
Mr. Roggio highlights two key facts supporting his assessment. One is President Zelensky’s statement a few days ago, “For years we heard about the apparently open door [to membership in NATO], but have already also heard that we will not enter there, and these are truths and must be acknowledged.” That could be a sotto voce acknowledgment of inevitable defeat, though it sounds more like no more than recognition that NATO isn’t enthusiastic about expanding farther to east, whatever the outcome of the current conflict.
Second, and more substantively, Mr. Roggio points out that “Conventional warfare is a time, manpower and equipment consuming effort and quick victories are rare.” He notes “that it took the U.S. military three weeks to take Baghdad and 42 days to conquer Iraq in 2003”, notwithstanding that the American forces were far more proficient than Putin’s and Saddam Hussein’s forces less motivated than Ukraine’s. One can counterargue that Baghdad was farther away than Kiev and that the American advance was slowed by rules of engagement designed to minimize civilian casualties, concerns about encountering chemical weapons and an untimely sandstorm. Nonetheless, the argument makes sense as a generality. Russia remains much stronger than Ukraine and has the resources, if it can find the wit and will, to break the stalemate. We can hope that neither will be in sufficient supply to spare Tsar Putin woe.
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