Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine with the confident expectation of a quick and nearly bloodless victory.
But Putin underestimated the Ukrainians’ ability to resist and overestimated the capabilities of his military. It’s a ready combination that has already cost more Russian lives than they lost in the 2008 Georgian War, the takeover of Crimea, and the war in Syria combined.
Hard statistics have been difficult to come by, given that most of the Pentagon’s intelligence is coming from Ukraine and pro-Ukrainian western media. But the Pentagon has been able to extrapolate losses based on video evidence from the battlefield as well as estimates of the decline in Russia’s capabilities.
Russia’s number of dead and wounded in Ukraine is nearing the 10% benchmark of diminished combat effectiveness, Gorenburg said. The reported battlefield deaths of four Russian generals — out of an estimated 20 in the fight — signal impaired command, he said.
Researchers tracking only those Russian equipment losses that were photographed or recorded on video say Russia has lost more than 1,500 tanks, trucks, mounted equipment and other heavy gear. Two out of three of those were captured or abandoned, signaling the failings of the Russian troops that let them go.
Meanwhile, Russia needs to limit its use of smart, long-range missiles in case they’re needed in any larger war with NATO, military analysts say.
The losses Russia has suffered have almost certainly caused Putin to rethink his objectives in Ukraine. What once seemed a simple matter of taking the capital city of Kyiv and declaring a puppet government to replace the Zelenskyy administration has now become a grim war of attrition with Russian forces being forced to virtually level a city in order to occupy it.
It was always an unrealistic plan when looking at the numbers.
When it comes to the grinding job of capturing and holding cities, conventional military metrics suggest Russia needs a 5-to-1 advantage in urban fighting, analysts say. Meanwhile, the formula for ruling a restive territory in the face of armed opposition is 20 fighters for every 1,000 people — or 800,000 Russian troops for Ukraine’s more than 40 million people, Clarke notes. That’s almost as many as Russia’s entire active-duty military of 900,000.
On the ground, that means controlling any substantial chunk of Ukrainian territory long-term would take more resources than Russia could foreseeably commit.
So a negotiated settlement would seem to give Putin a face-saving way out — if President Zelenskyy will allow it. Zelenskyy may have become emboldened by Western support, and he could hold out for far more generous terms than he’s likely to get.
But the longer this war goes on, the bigger the danger of escalation to unthinkable levels. Zelenskyy is not going to get everything he wants — all Russians immediately out of the country. So in the end, it’s what Putin will accept as “victory” that matters.
Putin may need to look elsewhere to satisfy his theory of victory. The south and south-east of the country are probably where he will look to for his “victory”.
Russian forces have seized almost all of Ukraine’s coastline. This includes a large proportion of Ukraine’s ability to trade with the outside world. The only city remaining in the path of the Russian military in the south is Odessa. But the Russians probably don’t need to seize that city to declare a successful campaign in the south. It has already delivered a corridor from Crimea to Russia, and a larger defensive buffer for Russia north of the Crimean Peninsula.
And don’t forget that Russian forces and Russian-backed rebels in the southeast are making good progress.
In the south-east, the Russians have made steady progress. Russians, and their proxies, continue to pressure Ukrainian forces in Luhansk and Donetsk, while advancing from the north and the south in a pincer movement to encircle all Ukrainian forces east of the city of Dnipro.
If the Russians were able to achieve this – and it is no foregone conclusion that they can – they might then destroy Ukraine’s military forces defending the south-eastern part of the country. And it might give the Russians a large swathe of territory that can be a bargaining chip in negotiations over an armistice or peace treaty. Of course, they might also want to keep it, but it is almost certain they would then face a Ukrainian insurgency.
Why make an attempt to capture Kyiv when the cost in blood will be far less in taking the southeast — something the Russian-backed rebels have been trying to do for five years? Putin has to find a way to sell a military victory to the Russian people. And the “People’s Republic of Donetsk” might fill the bill nicely.