WASHINGTON. For the Russian military, the hardest part came quickly.
On the first day of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, his generals and troops followed a textbook strategy for land invasions. They attacked the country’s military installations and air defense systems with missiles launched from the air, sea and land, seeking to take over the skies, and rushed to Kyiv, the capital, with the aim of decapitating the government of the democratically elected president. , Vladimir Zelensky.
But then things slowed down. It is one thing to cross the border of another country with tanks and artillery under the cover of warplanes, Pentagon officials and analysts say. It is quite another thing to lay siege to cities and an army populated by people willing to risk their lives to defend what they consider to be their sovereign right to self-determination.
During the day after entering Ukraine, Russian forces lost some momentum as Ukrainian fighters put up resistance, according to senior US and British officials. Not a single locality was taken, a senior Defense Department official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. Russia also failed to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, partly because the Ukrainians use mobile systems and partly because Russian missiles hit old air defense sites, which may be indicative of Russian intelligence shortcomings. According to him, the Ukrainian air and missile defense systems have degraded, but the country’s air force is still flying planes and blocking Russia’s access by air.
In addition, officials said Russia conducted most of its initial operations during the day, suggesting that its ability to fight at night—a hallmark of the US military—was less effective.
“The Ukrainian armed forces continue to put up strong resistance,” said Lieutenant General Jim Hockenhull, head of British military intelligence.
At the same time, Pentagon officials warned that Russia sent only one-third of the 150-190,000 troops it has concentrated near the borders of Ukraine, so Moscow can increase pressure at any time. Military officials said Russia is still in the early stages of an operation that could take two to three weeks to take over most of the country.
Officials said Russia had launched an amphibious landing from the Sea of Azov, near Mariupol, to the south. Thousands of Russian marines are landing there, and the military estimates that the plan is to move towards the city. The Russian army, with its decisive advantage in cyberwartanks, heavy weapons, missiles, fighter jets, warships and sheer numbers overshadow Ukraine.
But wars are fought not only on paper. While Russia established lines of attack on three cities “Kyiv in the north, Kharkiv in the northeast, and Kherson in the south—Ukrainian forces are fighting to hold all three. Remarkably, a senior US Department of Defense official said, Ukrainian command and control remains intact.
Russia’s lines of attack are blocked as Ukrainian troops are engaged in heavy fighting with the Russians, a second official said. The resistance, according to the official, is the reason why Russian troops concentrated near the border have not all crossed the border. But the official warned that more of those troops would be quickly deployed to the cities, especially Kyiv, if the forward units defeated the Ukrainian forces that had held them up.
“It is not clear to us that the Russian forces over the past 24 hours have been able to carry out their plans as they hoped,” top Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said later Friday. “But it’s a dynamic situation.”
When part of the Russian troops entered the northern region of Kyiv, rocket attacks were launched on the city, rockets hit residential buildings. If Russian intelligence has figured out where Mr. Zelensky and the rest of the Ukrainian leadership are hiding, the Russian military will likely try to destroy them with missiles and airstrikes, a senior Biden administration official said in an interview. But if that doesn’t work, Russian forces could resort to urban combat, which is a more difficult task.
“The easiest way is to attack with missiles and strike at airfields,” said retired Colonel David Lapan, a 30-year Marine Corps veteran. “But the narrative that they have taken over Ukraine is very premature. We’re only a couple of days into this and it could go on for a long time.”
Senior Pentagon officials echoed this view. According to a senior Biden official, Russian troops are encircling Kyiv with the aim of isolating and possibly besieging the capital. He said Russian forces have a list of Mr. Zelensky’s leadership team and will seek to kill or capture these officials if targeted airstrikes fail to achieve Mr. Putin’s goal of eliminating the government. But Ukrainian troops and citizens are resisting, he said, meaning that Russia, for all its military might, may have a hard time achieving its goals. He said it would get bloody.
Updated
February 25, 2022 8:52 pm ET
It has already happened. In a conversation recorded on an audio recording that was circulated around the world and posted on Twitter, a Russian warship ordered 13 soldiers defending tiny Snake Island in the country’s south to “surrender” or “be bombed.” The Ukrainian border guard responded defiantly: “A Russian warship,” and then dismissed the demand with a curse.
The warship opened fire and killed all 13 border guards. This small Russian victory on the battlefield could inspire Ukrainians and cost Mr. Putin the public spotlight at home, one Pentagon official said.
“Ukrainians are vastly inferior in technology and sheer combat power, especially in the air and at sea, but are fighting in their homeland to protect their children and families,” said Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander. Europe. “The motivation is much higher on their side and intangibles can help.”
The Russian military attack continued on Friday as it began the day before, with a terrifying rumble of artillery strikes on airports and military installations across Ukraine.
The Pentagon said the Russians, using rockets and long-range artillery, faced particularly strong resistance near Kiev and Kharkov.
Understand Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
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What is at the heart of this invasion? Russia considers Ukraine a part his natural sphere of influence, and is unnerved by Ukraine’s proximity to the West and the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO or the European Union. Although Ukraine is not part of either, it receives financial and military assistance from the US and Europe.
Are these frictions just beginning now? Antagonism between the two countries has simmered since 2014, when Russian troops crossed into Ukraine after an uprising in Ukraine replaced a Russian-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and inspired separatist movement in the east. A ceasefire was signed in 2015but fighting continued.
How did Ukraine react? February 23, Ukraine declared a state of emergency for 30 days. when cyberattacks took out state institutions. After the attacks began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky martial law declared. The foreign minister called the attacks a “full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
But Russian forces have also stepped up their cyberattacks against media websites and other means of communication, as well as against a major dam that supplies power to southern Ukraine, a senior Pentagon official said. However, he added that Mr. Zelenskiy and his top civilian aides are still in contact with Ukrainian commanders.
Why Russia did not launch even larger cyber attacks across the country and cut off virtually all communications to cut off military units from their commanders in Kyiv and from each other remained a mystery on Friday.
US military officials said efforts to protect Ukraine’s communications in anticipation of a major Russian attack may have helped. Or, since many Ukrainian Internet and telephone communications are believed to go through Russia, Moscow may leave some lines open for eavesdropping on Ukrainian civilian and military officials.
By Thursday evening, Russian special forces and airborne troops reached the outskirts of Kyiv. And on Friday, Russian airborne troops blockaded Kyiv from the west, the defense ministry said, after seizing an airfield in the area in an assault that used “more than 200 Russian helicopters.” If true, this could create an air bridge that would allow Russia to move hundreds of soldiers to help encircle the capital.
Ukrainian forces, which officials say shot down several Russian planes and a helicopter in the early hours of Thursday’s conflict, fought along a broad front to maintain control of their country.
By Friday afternoon, Russian forces had fired more than 200 missiles, mostly short-range ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles and missiles fired from the Black Sea, at targets inside Ukraine, according to a senior Pentagon official who asked not to be named. to discuss sensitive military assessments.
The targets were mostly military: barracks, ammunition depots and airfields, the official said, in an expected move to eliminate as many of the armed Ukrainian military as possible, as well as to help weaken any partisan movement that might rise from the ashes. defeated Ukrainian army.
Russia insisted that it did not bomb civilian targets and tried to limit the losses of the Ukrainian army. “There are no strikes on civilian infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
But a senior Pentagon official disputed that claim, saying the strikes targeted some residential areas of the civilian population, though the official could not say if they were deliberate strikes.
How the battle for Kyiv ends is likely to signal Mr. Putin’s larger plans for Ukraine.
“Putin’s mandate is to set up a new government and have it do all the dirty work,” said MP Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican and former Army Green Beret who visited Ukraine in December. “It’s unclear if he underestimates the level of Ukrainian nationalism that has developed since 2014.”
Mr. Waltz said that during that December trip he met with the Ukrainian high command. “He was very focused on developing a resistance organization,” Mr. Waltz said, “but I’m not sure he had enough time.”