They say that humans evolve over time, grow an extra finger and that sort of thing. Well the Russia Ukraine conflict seems to indicate that they are acquiring smaller brains and smaller balls too. Clearly this thing is going nowhere, the Ukrainians have been denied the means for a breakthrough and the Russians are holding their own. Everyone, even the Russians agree that it must end in a negotiated agreement, but the slogging continues. What am I missing? Is the strategic genius aiming at wearing both down and reducing the world’s population a teeny bit? Testing new weapons? War is peace? The only sense to be made of this from the Western point of view is teaching Russia a lesson, but beware Ukraine doesn’t lose heart while you toy with them.
Fortunately Ukraine has a rather large vote in its future - one it has been exercising vigorously for a year and a half. This war won't end until either Ukraine or Putin (deliberate distinction between country and leader) decide the cost is too great to continue. It is one of the reasons I find Trump's bloviating about ending the war in 24 hours so ridiculous.
The tactics that they are using now are a unique adaption of German tactics in the spring of 1918 when they almost won the First World War. They are infiltrating Russian defensive belts with light infantry. Because they have no close air support, they are using drone dropped munitions to support those assaults. Because they have relatively little artillery munitions, they are using those rounds for pinpoint strikes against particularly well defended positions and especially for counterfire.
Another similar historical example, though much smaller in scale than the Ukraine frontage, is Montgomery's assault at El Alamein. There he used his infantry and engineers almost exactly as Ukraine is doing now. They infiltrated into the German Italian defensive belts destroying strong points and clearing lanes through the mine fields for the eventual British armor exploitation. That effort took ten days to create a penetration.
Ukraine is facing a defense in depth far deeper than Montgomery did. Montgomery also had the advantage of local air superiority to strike German troop and armor concentrations before they could counter attack. Ukraine is forced to attempt the same with rocket artillery.
One thing that is different is that the Russians seem to be trying to counter attack every Ukrainian advance. Though this does indeed slow that effort down, it is also hugely wasteful of Russia's remaining assets - particularly its armor and infantry. Daily losses are approaching those of the first weeks of the war.
In any case, such tactics are, by definition slow. The advance moves forward at the pace of dismounted infantry. What waits to be seen is if Ukraine has the power to create the rupture Montgomery did in Rommel's lines that led to the breakthrough and race for Tunisia.
It has to happen before the fall rains return are the attritional struggle will simply go on. I am cautiously optimistic. The correlation of forces continues to shift in Ukraine's favor and their will seems to be increasing rather than slowly collapsing.
