On these pages, I have in recent weeks expressed the hope that the war in Ukraine will soon be coming to an end. I have had in mind an imminent Russian military victory and Ukrainian capitulation. I came to that conclusion shortly after Russian Defense Minister Shoigu said publicly that the Ukrainians had used up all of their reserves in men and materiel. Separately, but pointing in the same direction, there were reports from credible sources that Ukrainians have suffered 400,000 deaths so far in the conflict plus a multiple of that number in those injured and hospitalized. Taken together, this suggested that the Russians could now safely launch their own massive offensive and sweep the table.
In the meantime, many commentators in the U.S. and European mainstream, beginning with CNN and Bild, appear to acknowledge that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has been a failure and that Ukraine cannot possibly recapture the territory it has lost in the Donbas, not to mention the Crimea. By consensus, the Ukrainians failed in their attempt at blitzkrieg and are now back to a war of attrition, for which Russia’s superiority in numbers of men and artillery pieces gives them the upper hand.
What is missing is a timeline for the Russian victory in a war of attrition.
The fact remains that even under conditions of disastrous Ukrainian losses of men and materiel these past two months, there are still Ukrainian soldiers coming out in many sorties across various points of the front every day. The Russian war correspondents visiting their tank officers and those manning the artillery and multiple rocket launchers (Grad), allow us to hear that the Russians must be quick to move their equipment within minutes of firing lest they be victims of return artillery fire from the Ukrainian side. The reports from the field sound very much as if a serious and deadly war is still going on, not a simple rout of one side.
Moreover, there is another nagging problem that puts in question the notion that a Russian victory is just around the corner. The problem is that after watching every day the artillery duels in which the Russians destroy Ukrainian artillery and multiple rocket launchers of U.S., Polish and other origin in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, in the Zaporozhie and Kherson regions and list the equipment models and numbers of Ukrainian soldiers killed at each location, I then listen to accounts of how the Ukrainians have just bombed residential districts of Donetsk city. Yes, every day there are multiple artillery and HIMARS attacks on the city, with destruction of buildings and daily deaths and injuries. How can this be? The Ukrainians are firing from just a few kilometers outside the city. Why are the Russians unable to locate and destroy these Ukrainian fortified areas across the line when they seem to be doing so well elsewhere on the thousand kilometer line of confrontation?
In conclusion, I find that we remain in the midst of the fog of war and nothing can be taken for granted.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Gilbert Doctorow 
You are absolutely correct in saying that the Ukrainians are still bombing residential districts of Donetsk city every day without fail – one might have thought, logically, that the Russian army, who are supposed to be fighting to protect The Donbas region, would have made the elimination of this problem an absolute priority, yet it goes on. They still have have not captured Avdiivka, a front line town since 2017 and a principal source of the problem – until the bombing of Donetsk actually stops we cannot start talking about the war ending anytime soon – sadly
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The cynical view is that Russia’s MOD / Defense Minister/ Putin care more about “meat grinding” Ukraine’s army and minimising Russia’s army casualties than protecting the long suffering people of Donetsk. Have any of Russia’s elites ever visited Donetsk to show their support ?Avdiivka is a heavily fortified hardened military target; Russia’s army is being focused on softer targets. Wagner should have been used against Avdiivka last year instead of being worn out in the long “meat grinding” in Bakhmut ( with its subsequent disputes & “mutiny”). It is hard to believe that Avdiivka cannot be cut off but the political will is missing.
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One big advantage the West has in the war is money and purchasing power. That is fueling the continuing fight by the Ukrainians. Russia is winning, but slowly.
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IMO there can be no lasting victory (denazifiction/deilitarisation) for Russia until there is a fundamental change in NATO’s disposition towards Russia – a long way off. Weaponised, agressive anti-Russian nationalists will lie just to the west of any ‘peaceline’, be it the current frontline, the Dniper River, the Polish border etc. menacing Russia. There seems to be some strategy for Russia to conduct a slow-motion protracted war – no major offensives on the cards, giving time for the multipolar order to develop and outflank US/NATO financially and econoically. If it suits Russia, – or more importantly China – the tempo in Ukr can be upped, this can be used to keep the West on its toes and exhausting itself. If tensions mount around Taiwan, and shooting looks like its going to break out there, Russia can up the tempo in Ukr, thus facing the US with a shooting war on two fronts. And each side can cause trouble for each other in other fora, like Africa. So a slow motion war in Ukr offers Russia/China a variable it can control to help stretch NATO out over the longer term.
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@Geoffrey — Well said!
Russia can’t achieve all its objectives on the battlefield, so they’re playing a longer game.
The West’s strategy to weaken Russia seems to have had the opposite effect. Russia build its military capacity while strengthening its diplomatic and economic ties with non-Western nations. Putin is far more popular in Russia compared to Western leaders in their home countries. The best bet for his leadership is to keep as low a profile as possible in the West while standing up to the West militarily.
China and other countries seem to have originally wanted the war to end as soon as possible. But now they may see, as Geoffrey suggests, that the war is a huge distraction for the West. So they may subtly enccourage Russia to drag this out. I would, if I were China. And other countries such as India and Pakistan can benefti by playing the West and Russia/China off against one another.
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Sound analysis, but I think Dr. Doctorow’s concern about the failure to deal with Avdiivka still remains pressing. Protecting the civilians in Donetsk has to be a higher priority, surely?
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Putin is nothing if not inscrutible: perhaps Avdiivka is too well defended – purposedly so by the Ukr, so it might lead to heavy manpower losses to take – something not wanted early in a protracted war, multi-faceted war. And the shelling of Donetsk might continue to instruct the waverers in the Russian population as to why the war is being fought…?
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It is not just the Ukrainian shelling of civilian areas in Donetsk. Reading the Russian daily “clobber lists”, the typical entry is that Ukrainian forces launched an attack at place X and were eventually beaten back to their starting positions with losses of men & equipment. Very few reports about Russians attacking or making advances.
Clearly, from the public reports by the Russians, the initiative still lies with Zelensky’s forces — and this despite all the reports of Ukrainian men being press-ganged off the streets and sent to the front with minimal training. There is obviously fight in the old Ukrainian dog yet! The war may continue as long as US/NATO/EU keep pumping money & weapons into their Ukrainian proxy.
It is a strange military challenge for Russia — they are fighting against Ukrainians, but the real enemy is in the Washington DC Swamp. How to make US/NATO back off, without triggering an all-out war with US/NATO? Maybe the Russians have decided that the best approach is to let Zelensky’s forces beat their face against the Russian fist until the Ukrainians decide they have had enough. The fighting could go on for a lot longer.
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@Gavin Longmuir re “There is obviously fight in the old Ukrainian dog yet! … The fighting could go on for a lot longer.”
And then again, it might not. At what point do the Ukrainians simply refuse to obey the law? The West’s money can buy a lot of law and order, but when soldiers are being killed at the current rate, I think their could be a breakdown of social order.
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Hello Dr. Doctorow, thank you for another insightful article. To Russia’s credit, she has been remarkably restrained and disciplined. However, the West persists in its ill-advised brinkmanship toward Russia. Indubitably, the longer the Ukraine war continues, the greater likelihood of a direct conflict between Russia and Nato. Keep up the good work. Shalom, Marc
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Thank you for this clear problematisation.
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