() – The bad news keeps coming. Wherever Kyiv looks, Moscow seems to have the advantage.
Russia is making gains at key points along Ukraine’s eastern and southeastern front lines, while unleashing wave after wave of aerial terror against Ukrainian cities.
At the same time, Moscow is preparing to launch a counteroffensive in Russia’s southern Kursk region, the site of Kyiv’s only major military success this year. Moscow has deployed almost 50,000 troops to Kursk, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, numbers that were augmented by newly arrived North Korean troops.
“The Russians have the initiative on all front lines right now, they have successfully exploited tactical gains and they are reinforcing those tactical gains,” said George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). ) to .
Barros, who leads the Russia and Geospatial Intelligence teams at the Washington-based conflict monitoring group, said Russia’s battlefield advantage makes it impossible for Ukraine to prepare for a possible counteroffensive.
“The Russians are the ones taking action, and they are forcing the Ukrainians to respond. That’s not good, because you lose wars by constantly being on the defensive. … They just corner you and you have to choose between bad options,” Barros added.
The situation is particularly serious around Kupiansk. The key northeastern city is again at risk of falling into Russian hands after it was liberated by Ukrainians in September 2022 after more than six months under Russian occupation.
Kupiansk lies at the intersection of two important supply roads and the Oskil River, which forms an important defensive feature in the area. Taking control of Kupiansk would make it much easier for Russia to advance further into the Kharkiv region. That, in turn, would put more pressure on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city that has been hit by Russian drones and missiles almost daily.
Russian state news agency Tass reported Friday that Russian troops entered the outskirts of the city, although Ukrainian officials insisted that Kupiansk remained under the full control of their forces.
At the same time, Ukraine is struggling to contain the Russian advance further south, around the city of Kurakhove, which has been surrounded on three sides for months. Earlier this week, Zelensky called the situation around Kurakhove “the most difficult area” of the front.
But although Russia appears poised to take the city in the coming days or weeks, Barros said this may not be a strategically significant loss for Kyiv, as it will not significantly affect its ability to defend the broader region.
Ukraine put up a fierce fight in the area in recent months, although it lost some ground.
Kurakhove is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub that has been in Russia’s sights for many months. At the end of summer in the northern hemisphere, Pokrovsk seemed almost certain to fall. However, Kyiv’s forces managed, for now, to repel Russia’s advances there, forcing Moscow to redraw its plans.
Barros said the Pokrovsk situation is just one example of Russia’s failure to achieve its own publicly stated goals.
“They were working to try to take Pokrovsk this fall, but they have abandoned this operational objective and have actually started attacking in a different direction,” Barros said.
“It’s not just the Russians who are failing. “Actually, it is part of a very strong Ukrainian defense,” he added.
Since taking Avdiivka in early 2024, Russia has only managed to advance about 30 to 40 kilometers (18 to 25 miles) further into Ukrainian territory. That is a very small advance given the enormous cost to the Russian military.
Moscow lost about five mechanized equipment divisions, amounting to many hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers, in the Pokrovsk region in the last year alone, according to the ISW’s assessment of battlefield visual evidence.
“Losing five tank divisions and other personnel carriers over the course of a year to advance only about 40 kilometers, you can compare this to all the other major mechanized offensives of the 21st century and even the major battles of World War II… that’s actually a really terrible performance,” Barros said.
Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, and despite the assistance of its allies, Ukraine has always been at a disadvantage in terms of material and manpower.
Russia has more weapons, more ammunition and more personnel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy still appears to be to slowly wear down Ukraine by outgunning and outspending it and wearing down its Western allies.
But several analysts have said Putin has a limited window of opportunity to achieve this goal, given the staggering losses Russia is suffering to make even the smallest gains.
The strain that the conflict is putting on Russia’s economy is clearly growing. Russia has massively increased its military spending over the past two years and its economy is now showing signs of overheating: inflation is high and companies face labor shortages. Trying to control the situation, Russia’s Central Bank raised interest rates to 21% in October, the highest in decades.
And although Russia has many more people than Ukraine, it is suffering significant losses and recruiting new troops is already a problem; The last time the Russian army introduced partial mobilization, hundreds of thousands of men fled the country.
The recent influx of North Korean soldiers into Russia will help for a while, but the material losses could be harder to offset.
“Between the economy, the shortage of men in Russia, and the loss of the many vehicles the Russians require for their current style of warfare, these are strategic resources that are going to pose serious problems for the Kremlin if the current pace is maintained for the next year.” year,” Barros said.
Whether Ukraine could take advantage of these problems will depend primarily on the willingness of its allies to continue supporting it, and former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House certainly puts a big question mark on that.
Zelensky said this week that the war will end “faster” once Trump returns to the presidency.
“If the Western international coalition, including the United States, continues to support the Ukrainians over the next maybe 12 to 16, 18 months, there will be opportunities to really disrupt the way the Russians have been supplying this war,” Barros said. “(They) can decide if the Russians win or lose.”
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