The world is realizing that Russia will not defeat Ukraine in a swift rout. But even as articles appear detailing what is going wrong for the Russians, many still portray a Russian victory as inevitable. What follows here is not a guarantee of Ukrainian victory. I will even avoid giving odds or probabilities as this is war and things change quickly. I also have very little intel on what is actually going on. Rather I wish to lay out a path forward for Ukrainian military victory that does not rely on Putin getting ousted nor other large scale changes. Instead, if the Ukrainians are able to accomplish what I outline below, they can win outright.
1) Maintain junior officer initiative advantage. An age old basic military tactic is called shoot and scoot. When the enemy approaches, take your shots, cause as much damage and chaos in a brief period that you can, then get out before the enemy can focus firepower on the position you attacked from. If the terrain allows, you scoot to a position that allows you to attack the exposed enemy as they close in on your recently vacated position.
I bring this tactic up because it appears Ukraine is using it. We hear reports of Russians taking parts of cities only to be repelled shortly after. It’s also known as defense in depth. Let the enemy take maximum losses on each position and retreat to the next planned spot. Once the enemy is disorganized and drawn out, counter attack the weakened forces and drive them back. An organized attacker would counter this by bringing fresh ready troops into the recently taken ground to hold it against the counter attack. But this requires either detailed complex planning, or low level officers able and willing to take initiative to react to the situation without explicit permission.
Ukraine has a clear junior officer initiative advantage. They have trained their military to be cut off, out of command, and be dispersed while continuing to function. By doing this they have given their junior officers great flexibility to react on the fly to changing situations. The Russians, in contrast, have shown rigid command structure and little to no initiative. They are not moving quickly because when the Ukrainian forces present a weakness, the Russians don’t seem to be taking advantage of the window of opportunity.
This is how blitzkrieg type breakouts work. Officers on the spot choose to aggressively move forward. This takes both general permission to take initiative and trust that you will be backed up. The danger of exploiting a breakout and pushing forward is that you can more easily be cut off, surrounded, and potentially eliminated. An able junior officer with initiative who exists in a system that is likely to leave him hanging, is less likely to show that initiative. The Russians have already left their airborne troops hanging, so that’s in every officers mind.
2). Trade space for time and enemy attrition. Many of the websites keeping maps have made big deals on where Russia is taking territory and isn’t. It appear the Russians are more successful in southern Ukraine, but that isn’t necessarily true. Ukraine is mostly “tank country” i.e. big open plains with little cover for infantry. The key word is mostly. The Ukrainian military is rightly ceding large swaths of area in the South which is tank country and for which they would not be able to properly defend. Instead, they are using urban areas and other suitable terrain to defend in. Presumably they have stockpiled food and supplies in these areas anticipating they would be cut off.
Conversely, the more space Russia takes stretches their capacity to control it by removing units from the front line to police it while extending their supply lines. Long supply lines take more time and fuel to get supplies in while making them harder to defend. Bypassing enemy strongpoints only works if you dedicate enough troops to keep them penned in to prevent attacks on supply lines. The Russians don’t appear to be doing what needs to be done here.
3) Take advantage of overextending. Looking back at those maps, you can see several of those Russian controlled areas getting rather long and thin. Encirclements and breakouts are great, but only if the required follow up is handled. The longer and thinner those lines get the greater the chance they can be counterattacked, isolated, and eliminated. Russians appear to be operating with light supplies and poor morale. That makes them very vulnerable to getting cut off and then surrendering quickly. The Russian higher ups are only making this worse by demanding success quickly. More units will get ordered forward and without competent follow up this will lead to disaster. There will be a negative feedback loop as losses will discourage other units from pushing quite as hard making it more likely the units who are pushing to become isolated.
4) Continue to negate supposed Russian tech advantage. The common assumption of Russian dominance has revolved around a superiority in Russian technology and equipment. Such tech advantages help the owner of those advantages, but they don’t dictate success. As shown in Vietnam, it didn’t matter US troops moved around in helicopters if they didn’t accomplish the larger objective of maintaining security after those forces left. Back to Ukraine, it doesn’t matter if Russian tanks are superior to Ukrainian tanks in either quality or quantity if they are used poorly. Any tank doesn’t stand much chance versus a javelin and tanks become less valuable and more vulnerable used in Urban warfare. The battles are not being fought in the open plains where the Russians could take advantage of their tank superiority. The battles are being fought in Urban areas where the advantage is greatly muted.
5) Indiscriminate bombardment is militarily pointless. While Russians using their artillery to level a city is atrocious and awful for the Ukrainians, from a military viewpoint it does nothing. A building made of bricks can be a good position to defend from. A pile of brick rubble can also be a good strongpoint. If the barrage is not directly taking out important defensive points and killing defenders, it is a waste of ammunition. The Russians are already showing difficulty with supply, so they can’t afford this waste.
What could happen:
In the next few days and weeks Russian units will be pushed to take their objectives. These units will have light supplies, get cut off, and routed. As foreign supplies pile in, eventually the Ukrainian military will have attritted Russian forces in theater enough to take on larger scale offensive operations themselves. Once you see that, the Russian military may fold surprisingly quickly. This is the danger moment with regards to nuclear weapons as Putin sees everything falling apart. Hopefully the Russians with their fingers on the nuclear triggers realize that a radioactive Ukraine is awfully close to home and the fallout could severely damage Russia as well.
In the end, my hope is we will see a complete Russian military collapse by the end of March. No guarantees or likelihoods. But if Ukraine wins militarily, it’s possible it will happen as described above.