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The largest military conflict on European soil since World War II, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ended two years ago this Saturday (24), bringing much news to defense strategists and arms sellers around the world.
A Sheet He spoke with Western, Ukrainian and Russian analysts and had access to an unprecedented study circulating in the academic community associated with the Defense Ministry in Moscow that provided a quick overview of the military legacy of the Ukrainian war so far.
BOTH SIDES COULD WIN
One of the most consensus conclusions is that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky were on the verge of victory, in the sense of a military checkmate that would force the other side to talk.
Russia, in a sense, repeated the socalled Operation Danube when the Warsaw Pact crushed the rebel government of what was then Czechoslovakia in 1968. A Soviet airborne force occupied Prague's Ruzyne Airport; In 2024, the Russians briefly captured Hostomel, near Kiev.
Afterwards, tank columns entered the country from multiple fronts, just as Putin did on three main axes in Ukraine. The war of the 21st century was initially reinforced by massive air strikes, a legacy of the American campaigns in the Persian Gulf.
The difference now was the arrogance of the Russians. While the Soviets invaded a small country of 14 million people with 250,000 soldiers, the Kremlin used perhaps 200,000 soldiers to take over a large country of 44 million people.
Nevertheless, they almost surrounded Kiev, fulfilling the American forecast of a 72hour fall of the capital. But they were stopped by artillery, few forces and logistical disorganization that exposed their tanks to portable fire. They left less than a month later.
Zelenski, on the other hand, lived a different reality. At the end of the first year of the war, the morale of his troops was high, with the recapture of the city of Kherson (south) and the occupied areas of Kharkiv (north). The Russians continued to mobilize, throwing mercenaries and amnestied convicts to the front.
“Now it was the Ukrainians’ turn to waste time waiting for training and the arrival of new Western tanks. By the time they arrived in small numbers, they had already wasted six months of 2023. We were prepared for them,” says the study conducted by two Russian experts connected to defense companies.
Adding to the lack of surprise factor was a tactical error modeled on the Russians': Instead of attacking Crimea directly and cutting Putin's connection with the peninsula, which was annexed in 2014, the Ukrainians divided their efforts into three parts. In the end they failed.
Drones have changed war, but not in the way we thought
The 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, ultimately won by Baku, established the fame of Turkey's Bayraktar TB2 attack drones as “game changers”, weapons that would change the playing landscape on the field. It is no coincidence that Ukraine bought dozens of them when the Russians arrived.
At first the film was repetitive: small robot planes destroy entire columns of tanks. The battle tank's death was taken for granted. But the Russians quickly deployed electromagnetic blocking tactics and calibrated their antiaircraft defenses, nullifying this scenario.
More importantly, they have started using their own drones. In the more than 4,600 attacks recorded by Kiev, Iranian Shahed136 models have often been the protagonists, but here the role is tactical: since they are easier to shoot down and cheaper, they are sent in waves to saturate Ukrainian air defenses.
The difference, however, was the small models used to observe the battlefield and fire small loads at soldiers. “There is no invisible place in war,” says Ukrainian soldier Valeri, codename Kong, who has just returned from the East and is resting at a friend's house in Kiev.
In the Russian document the reality is the same and even the role of the tank is put into perspective. “Throughout history, the secret has always been the line of fire on the horizon. Nowadays, no armored vehicle can hide, you have to constantly move, which is not always possible. In a year we will talk about the death of Tank again,” the text says.
In any case, Ukraine seems to be one step ahead of the Russians. It emerged a fleet of water drones that proved a terror to Putin's Black Sea Fleet, as well as several longrange models that, when they fail to reach refineries and airfields, have psychological repercussions within Russia. And he founded a military department specializing in robots.
Artillery is still sovereign
Last week's fall of the strategic Avdiivka to the Russians, a milestone in the war, came as both sides assessed Moscow's superiority in artillery: Every day the Ukrainians fired 2,000 shots, compared to 10,000 by Putin's forces.
This is one of the current dramas of the war with the withdrawal of Western support. Private Kong says his unit switched from using Soviet 203mm 2S7 Pion selfpropelled howitzers to sophisticated German PzH 2000s, which use NATOstandard 155mm ammunition.
“People have almost nothing to shoot with,” he said. The USA provided 2 million shells for these and other guns, such as the American M777 198 of which have been donated so far. Quantity is key, but technological factors speak volumes.
In this sense, the use of American HIMARS precision rocket launchers, 39 of which were donated, made a huge difference: it was the destruction of the bridges used by the Russians over the Dnipro River that made it possible to force their withdrawal from the capital of the same name Kherson, in 2022.
Longrange missiles, an area where the Russians are gaining ground, remain key tools in degrading supply lines, infrastructure and morale in Ukraine. But unlike newer American doctrine, the old guns (and their modern variants) are still louder for now.