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WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 (Conversation) As Ukrainian forces fight back in late summer to wrest the southern province of Kherson from Russian control, Russian President Vladimir Putin is drawing on what many political leaders have previously learned. Lesson: Wars tend to be longer and more expensive than expected.
In the six months since Russia launched its attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin and his military leaders have encountered unexpected resistance from Ukrainian troops.
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Such was the case in the southern province of Kherson, where the Ukrainian army launched a counterattack on 28 August 2022. Oleksi Arestovich, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian president, described the offensive as a “slow move to crush the enemy”.
In fact, there seems to be no end in sight.
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As a career U.S. Special Forces officer operating and deploying in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Africa, and South America, I conducted field research on the wars in Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014.
In my opinion, due to poor planning, poor execution and stubborn Ukrainian resistance, Russia’s initial plan to quickly enter the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and quickly surrender Ukrainian forces did not happen.
In fact, many believed that Kyiv would fall within months of the initial invasion. But Russian military leaders were forced to withdraw all troops from the Kyiv region in March 2022.
Ukraine’s counterattack near Kyiv also saw them recapture important territory around Kharkov, a region in northeastern Ukraine and the third most populous in the country.
A change in combat strategy
As the war dragged on – as they often did – they went through different stages. The war in Ukraine was no exception.
The first weeks of Russia’s offensive against Ukraine were largely a maneuver war, in which the military used movement to off-balance the enemy, fighting when and where the enemy had the upper hand.
It is clear that in a mobile war, the Ukrainians maintain a slight advantage despite the overwhelming size of the Russian army compared to Ukraine.
For example, Russia’s 2022 military budget of $45.8 billion is about 10 times larger than Ukraine’s $4.7 billion.
Even more shocking is Russia’s advantage in active duty personnel – from 900,000 to 196,000 – and in armored vehicles – from 15,857 to 3,309.
But mobile warfare requires a well-trained, well-commanded combat force to execute synchronized actions.
Over the past six years, with the help of Western allies, Ukraine has built a well-trained, well-commanded combat force capable of conducting synchronized combat maneuvers.
As a result, Ukraine has defended where it had to go — such as in Kyiv — and abandoned terrain where it had no choice but to retreat, such as Donetsk and the Luhansk region in the industrialized southeastern Ukraine.
After a poor start, Russian military leaders learned that they lacked the combat capability to win a maneuver battle and turned to a war of attrition.
In such wars, the movement of troops and equipment is restricted, and instead soldiers and military equipment are concentrated in relatively fixed locations to destroy enemy forces and weapons.
In these types of warfare, the goal is to weaken the enemy over time. The battle was characterized by massive shelling and a slow advance reminiscent of World War I, where both sides were dug into trenches and unable to advance their forces.
This style of warfare favors Russia’s only advantage: overwhelming combat power, backed by a large army.
Ukrainian resistance and urban fighting
In 2014, Ukrainian volunteers played a key role in defending the country as they poured into the Donbas region against a Russian attack.
Volunteers played a similar role in Kyiv’s defense during the opening stages of the recent Russian offensive.
Tens of thousands of civilians took up rifles and any other weapons they could find – including captured Russian weapons – to help win the battle in their nation’s capital.
The volunteers also played a role in providing intelligence and launching raids and sabotage in Russian-occupied territories.
The nearly three-month battle of Mariupol, between February 24 and May 20, 2022, shows how thousands of Ukrainian soldiers can hold out for more than a month in a battle with a force 10 times their size .
Despite the challenges posed by urban battles, Russia cannot simply bypass metropolitan areas. Local governance and political power exist in cities. If the war is for the occupation and control of territory, then Russia is forced to fight in urban areas, arguably the most difficult combat environment.
There are countless hiding places for well-trained and aggressive defenders.
What’s next?
At Russia’s current rate of progress, it would take decades for Russian troops to reach Kyiv.
Given the daily erosion of its economy and arsenal, Russia seems unlikely to wage a conflict of this magnitude over the next decade.
Most likely, in my opinion, this war of attrition will continue until one side is defeated or exhausted, and that may be a few years from now.
Neither side seemed capable of defeating the other. So a military victory seems unlikely, and the war may be too costly for Russia, forcing it to leave as it did in 1989 after 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
In my opinion, the Ukrainian government will also not surrender or enter into any agreement to give Russia control of any land that Russia now occupies, such as the Donbas region.
Instead, time may favor Ukrainians. The arrival of new weapon systems, such as the HIMARS artillery-rocket system, is eroding Russia’s slight advantage in the current war of attrition and helping Ukraine launch a massive counterattack.
But only time will tell.
Ukrainian resistance depends on continued Western aid. Ultimately, the military needs weapons to destroy the enemy, and the need for the West to support Ukrainian resistance cannot be overemphasized. (dialogue)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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