The war in Ukraine is in its third year. Many people did not expect that Kiev’s armed forces would be able to defend themselves successfully for so long. They have ended up in an endless war of attrition and fatigue. But what happens next?
Ukraine is defending itself bravely, but the country has its back against the wall. What is the situation in the individual areas that are crucial to the war?
Naval war – surprising successes of Ukraine
Ukraine has achieved great success at sea, but it does not have the upper hand. The Ukrainian destroyers and frigates were destroyed by the Russians at the beginning of the war. Psychologically, this has the advantage that Kiev cannot lose any more warships. The Russians cannot use their superiority at sea. Their large ships are valuable targets and are regularly attacked by missiles and floating drones. The Russian fleet then suffers losses just as regularly. Their counterattacks against the small drones, warehouses and operators do not make up for the loss of the combat ships. The Russians have little choice but to hide their ships at the other end of the Black Sea.
Superior power humiliated: How Ukraine is putting Russia’s fleet in trouble
Strategic air offensive of the parties
Both sides attack the enemy’s strategic targets and infrastructure deep within its territory. This is a success for Ukraine because it was not thought capable of it and it is thus taking the war onto Russian territory. Drones based on simple light aircraft are used for this purpose. They have an enormous range and are difficult to detect and intercept when flying low. The sheer size of the country is becoming a problem; Russian defenses simply cannot adequately protect all conceivable targets. Despite spectacular successes, the operations have no real influence on the course of the war. Only the hits on the oil refineries have a noticeable effect.
On the other side, the Russian strategic air offensive is underway. The Russians are capable of attacking any target in Ukraine. However, they cannot reconnoiter all zones with their drones. In almost two and a half years of war, they have not been able to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force, shut down the country’s electricity supply, or prevent supplies from reaching the front. But they are working on it, and Ukraine is suffering losses every day. In particular, the attacks on the energy supply have reached a new level in 2024. They are carefully planned and aimed at completely destroying the central facilities of the plants so that repairs are impossible.
While Russian weapons are becoming more lethal and accurate, Ukraine’s air defense outside Kyiv is becoming weaker. In some regions it is nonexistent. The Russians are knocking out more facilities than the West is supplying new ones. A major bottleneck is the number of defensive missiles. The Russians are launching more offensive weapons than defensive missiles are being produced.
Ground war – Kiev’s front gives way
For months, the Russians have been shifting the front in their favor, and they are pushing down the Ukrainian positions along the entire front in the Donbass. Now and then they are able to make real breakthroughs, but they are not very deep. It remains a positional war, and there is no real mobile battle with large-scale maneuvers. Because of the nature of the war in Ukraine, this is not likely to happen any time soon.
The Russians have enough troops to be active in other sectors as well. There they are tying down the Ukrainians, but the Russians are also suffering from a shortage of personnel. Despite the size of the country, their superiority in troops is limited. The opening of a new front north of Kharkiv has only led to insignificant gains in territory there. But since Kiev had to move troops to the north, the Ukrainians have found it noticeably more difficult to stabilize the front in the east.
It is sometimes argued that the Russian advance is so slow that it will take them over ten years to reach the Dnieper. This is not wrong, but it misunderstands the nature of the fighting. Kiev cannot maintain this delaying resistance for another ten years. The Russian calculation is based on the fact that the constant losses will sooner or later lead to the collapse of larger units and sections of the front.
Armaments production and finance – dependence on the West
In this area, Moscow has surprised the world. The West assumed that its “unprecedented” sanctions would bring Russia to its knees, that both the financial system and the arms industry would collapse. The production of precision weapons, for example, was supposed to end within a few months. None of this has happened. Putin is financing the war with income from raw materials, and the Russian arms industry is stronger than ever.
Kiev, on the other hand, is almost entirely dependent on aid from the supporting states. It cannot wage the war or finance the state budget on its own. This is an extreme imbalance, because it is not Kiev but the supporting states that determine the amount of aid.
As long as it is bubbling, that may still be OK. But if major supporters – like the USA under a possible President Trump – drop out, the system will collapse. In addition, Russia has entered a war economy and is preparing a mental mobilization of the entire country. This is out of the question in the states that support Ukraine. France, Germany and Great Britain are still peace societies in which citizens are more concerned with the holidays than the war in the east. Our societies are mobilizing only a fraction of their theoretical capacity for the cause of Ukraine.
Losses – the big secret
The main narrative that is supposed to support a chance of victory for Kyiv is based on losses. Basically, it says that Russian losses are incomparably higher than those of the Ukrainians. For Ukraine to have a chance, Russia must suffer several times the Ukrainian losses. Just a few percent is not enough. This narrative is based on misleading propaganda terms like “flesh attacks” or “human wave attacks”. More factually, it is based on the fact that attack usually results in more losses than defense. Visually, it is supported by videos showing Russian attacks collapsing under Ukrainian fire.
This assumption is contradicted by the unparalleled superiority of the Russians in terms of firepower. They are far superior to the Ukrainians in light artillery such as 120 mm mortars and heavier artillery such as 152 mm howitzers. In some cases they were one to ten superior, but thanks to new ammunition deliveries it is now “only” one to five. In addition, there are weapons of destruction that Ukraine does not even possess. Such as the thermobaric TOS rocket launchers. And above all, there are the Russian glide bombs. They range from 250 kilograms to bombs weighing 3000 kilograms. Each of these bombs leads to casualties – a 3-ton bomb can destroy a fortified factory building and its crew in one hit. The Russians are currently said to use around 3000 glide bombs a month.
Strategic objectives
At first glance, this was a clear success for Ukraine: Putin wanted to destroy the independent, west-oriented Ukraine within a few days and replace it with a regime that was acceptable to Moscow. Now – almost two and a half years later – the free Ukraine still exists. If you look deeper, the picture becomes more confusing. NATO has continued to grow with Sweden and Finland. Putin now has another border with a NATO state, and the Baltic Sea has become an inland NATO sea.
But Putin can also claim successes. The first and perhaps decisive one: the Global South has rebuffed the West with its desire to join the economic war and the sanctions regime. And in doing so, it has made it clear that it will continue to pursue an independent course in the future. Western diplomats have massively overestimated their global influence and were rudely awakened in 2022.
In addition, the alliance of convenience between Moscow and Beijing has become much closer. Strategically, Russia will stand firmly by Beijing’s side in a possible conflict with China. In addition, the declared enemy states of the West (Russia, Iran, North Korea and, to a certain extent, China) have joined forces in terms of military cooperation. On top of that, France has lost its post-colonial grip on the countries of North Africa during this time. This position is now filled by China and Russia.
Outlook – no “Carry on as before!”
Since no one knows the exact situation at the front, any outlook is always speculative. That’s the first thing to say. Kiev has little time. As heroic as the defensive battle is, it cannot continue forever. In particular, developments in the Donbass are not static and orderly. The Russians’ creeping offensive is successful and is gaining momentum. The disintegration of the front is increasing.
Western experts hope that Russian arms production will drop significantly in 2026. But Kiev cannot continue the war into 2026 as it has done in the last six months. “Hold on and keep going!” will not be enough. Kiev will not go on the major offensive in 2024, but the conditions for the defensive struggle must be significantly improved immediately.
Ukraine needs much more air defense, currently most of the country is a “house without a roof”. The Russians can strike as soon as they have identified a target. Defense alone will not be enough. The Ukrainian Air Force must quickly get Western jets like the F-16 or the Mirage into the air in large numbers to stop the Russian glide bombs. The ground troops cannot withstand 3,000 glide bombs a month for two years.
At the same time, enough military equipment must come into the country to equip new units and compensate for losses on the front. If this does not happen, the situation will deteriorate massively – and that will happen before Donald Trump possibly moves back into the White House.
