The war in Ukraine is at a stalemate. Neither side has made any significant territorial gains in months, and Ukraine’s top military commander said there will “most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
It’s been five months since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive. Despite successful attacks on Russian supply lines, weapons depots, command posts, missile sites and other valuable targets, miles of Russian minefields and defensive trenches are not easy to overcome, especially without proper air support. From June through October, the Ukraine Armed Forces were able to advance a little over 10 miles. That’s far short of Western expectations.
The bulk of the fighting over the last few months has been focused along two main fronts: the southern front in Zaporizhzhia and the eastern front near Bakhmut.
Beginning in early October, the village of Avdiivka, also in eastern Ukraine, became ground zero to some of the fiercest fighting of the entire war. So far, Russia mounted two massive assaults against the village, which had a pre-war population around 30,000. The assaults used typical Russian tactics: throw as much armor and soldiers into the fight as possible, kill anyone who retreats.
The Institute for the Study of War said Russia lost hundreds of troops and more than 100 tanks and armored vehicles trying to take Avdiivka. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Britain’s Prime Minister that Moscow already lost a full brigade in the battle. Russian brigades have somewhere between 2000 and 8000 soldiers.
Even though Ukraine’s armed forces are holding out in Avdiivka, defending the village is coming at great costs. Ukraine doesn’t release casualty numbers, but videos on social media show just how gruesome the fighting is for both sides.
And Avdiivka, like Bakhmut before it, is a good microcosm of the war. Ukraine’s armed forces are fighting valiantly, punching way above their weight class, but Russia has more soldiers. And based on Russian battle tactics, the Kremlin doesn’t care how many Russians die if it means taking an objective.
Valery Zaluzhny, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukraine Armed Forces, said he can’t believe Russia is pressing ahead after more than 150,000 Russian troops died in battle. Zaluzhny said the war is at a stalemate, and the prospect of a years-long conflict only favors Russia. The President of Belarus and a staunch Putin ally, Alexander Lukashenko, also said the war is at a stalemate, adding that both sides need to start peace talks and come up with a diplomatic solution.
But neither Moscow nor Kiev seems too keen on that idea. At least not yet. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it’s beefing up production capacity on military goods and just took delivery of more than a million artillery shells from North Korea.
And Ukraine continues to find new ways to fight a much larger enemy. Take, for instance, the creation of a new remote-operated sentry gun. Accurate up to 500 meters, the machine-gun turret uses AI to increase combat effectiveness and can help protect troops from incoming attack drones.
But smaller weapons systems won’t be enough to turn the tide for Ukraine. For that, Zaluzhny said his military needs to take a technological leap forward. In an exclusive interview with the Economist, Zaluzhny said Ukraine’s keys to success are gaining air superiority, breaching mine fields, taking out Russian artillery and training new reservists.
Ukrainian pilots are currently training to fly F-16s, but Fighting Falcons won’t be defending Ukrainian skies until the spring of 2024. So, barring any major breakthroughs on the ground or diplomatic resolutions, it’s likely the stalemate in Ukraine will continue at least through the winter.
Reuters contributed to this report.
