Russian forces planned to storm Ukraine’s main cities within a few days. After almost four weeks, they are bombing these cities from afar instead.
The big picture: As Russia’s military adjusts its tactics to a new battlefield reality, analysts are on the lookout for signs that Vladimir Putin is also changing his endgame.
Driving the news: The Pentagon believes the Russians are stepping up their missiles and airstrikes because, after failing to hit their ground targets, they are “baffled” and “frustrated” and desperate for some momentum, spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
- Russia’s advance on Kyiv has stalled for over a week, and Russian forces that seemed poised to advance on Odessa have been repelled. The front lines are largely frozen and Russian forces are consolidating the positions they already hold.
- In the east, however, Russian forces are trying to break through south of Kharkiv and use a pincer movement to pin down large numbers of Ukrainian troops. accordingly Michael Kofman, a senior expert on Russia’s military at CNA, a US-based think tank.
- Russia also continued a brutal bombardment of Mariupol in the south-eastern Donbass region on Monday after Ukrainian leaders rejected a demand to hand over the besieged port city. Lacking heat and power, civilians scavenge for scraps of food between explosions.
- Mariupol would be the largest city to have fallen so far, and taking it would free up some of Russia’s forces in the south, Kofman says. The symbolic meaning could be even greater, since Putin originally justified the war in part with a mission to “liberate” Donbass.
Remains of a shopping center in Kyiv. Photo: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty
What you say: “I’ve watched them revise the war aims and if they’re looking for something to claim victory and get out of this conflict, one of the things they would need is to have conquered most of the Donbass,” says Kofman.
- Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) tweeted that Putin’s aim was “no longer to take over most of Ukraine” but to reach a ceasefire “on terms he will call a strategic victory” by annexing the southern coast, Kyiv and other major northern cities besieges and degrades Ukraine’s military and industrial capabilities.
- A senior defense official also briefed reporters Monday that Russia may seek to “improve its position at the negotiating table.”
- Moscow is urging Ukraine to rule out future NATO membership and abandon all claims to Crimea and the Donbass “republics”.
President Volodmyr Zelenskyy has signaled some flexibility on the former, but not on the latter. It’s also not clear how serious Putin is about finding a deal.
For now, The war is likely to drag on.
Something to see: Russia’s weary and depleted armed forces need to be reinforced and resupplied, perhaps during a pause in operations or even a temporary ceasefire, Kofman says.
- A pro-Kremlin tabloid on Monday published and deleted a Defense Ministry estimate that 9,861 Russian soldiers had been killed and 16,153 wounded, while 96 planes and 118 helicopters were lost – staggering figures that have not been officially confirmed.
- Russia has additional forces and weapons, but “the best of the Russian military has already gone into this war,” says Kofman.
The scale of Ukraine’s losses is unclear, but a war of attrition would be difficult to win. It is becoming increasingly important for Western arms shipments to reach Ukrainian troops in the field.