Russia is mobilising for a long war in Ukraine, with the West not doing so. The authoritarian regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin was overconfident in the months leading up to its February 2022 more comprehensive invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin discussed a two-week "special military operation" that would "demilitarise" Ukraine by destroying its armed forces and toppling its elected government. The two-week war became a two-year war as Ukrainian forces defeated the initial Russian thrust toward Kyiv and then counterattacked. Ukrainian counteroffensives in the spring and fall of 2022 rolled back Russian territorial gains to what is now a 600-mile front threading through southern and eastern Ukraine.
The late 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive was a strategic inflexion point for the Kremlin, and the war would continue through 2025. After the defeats of 2022, the Russian army in Ukraine shifted to the defence, digging three layers of trenches and seeding the land between and around them with hundreds of thousands of mines. These fortifications, particularly the mines, are why Ukraine's latest counteroffensive has advanced painfully slowly. The main objective is to liberate Russian-occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine. In four months of hard fighting, Ukrainian brigades have risen just 10 miles along the 50-mile road to Melitopol. Their advance might slow even more as the winter looms and the weather turns wetter and colder.
The fighting will grind into 2024, and the Russians are getting ready. As battlefield losses spiked last fall, the Kremlin organised a mobilisation effort that brought an additional 300,000 men into military service: enough to replace tens of thousands of casualties and expand the army with new regiments and brigades. Continuing heavy losses compelled the Kremlin to launch a second mobilisation of around 400,000 men last spring. A third mobilisation, aimed at bringing in 300,000 fresh troops, reportedly is in the works.
Russia has the men and weapons for a long war in Ukraine. There’s no evidence they lack the political will to keep fighting. The Ukrainians have no willpower shortage, as Kyiv has replaced its battlefield casualties and recruited enough fresh troops in the past 21 months to double the size of its armed forces. However, Ukraine doesn’t have even one factory producing brand-new tanks. An effort to centralise and expand drone production has yet to show accurate results.
The absence of a unified political front supporting Ukraine is also ominous. An election in Slovakia last month brought down the NATO country’s pro-Ukraine government. It replaced it with a coalition whose leader, Robert Fico, pledged to “not send a single bullet” to Ukraine.
