The Evolution Of War: The Russo-Ukrainian Conflict Two Years On

This week marks the second anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

The battle is, in reality, a proxy war between Russia and the West, led by the United States (US), in which Russian forces entered Ukraine in February 2022 to prevent the puppet regime in Kiev from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — a red line that would severely prejudice Russia’s security.

It was a new kind of war, as bloody as any in history, with hypersonic missiles at one end of the kill spectrum, and low-tech, low-cost drones at the other. In this period, the war has gone through six major phases:

1. February 2022 to April 2022: The Russian invasion was followed by a withdrawal due to supply chain issues and a hearty Ukrainian defence.

2. May 2022 to August 2022: A stalemate occurred, and the principal theatre of conflict shifted to the southeastern sector of Ukraine, where the four Russian-majority provinces were located.

3. August 2022 to December 2022: The first Ukrainian counteroffensive in the southeast, in Kherson and Kharkiv, saw Russia cede space to conserve manpower.

4. December 2022 to June 2023: A long and desultory second stalemate ensued.

5. June 2023 to September 2023: A second Ukrainian offensive failed badly and led to horrendous Ukrainian losses.

6. September 2023 to February 2024: A third stalemate with limited Russian offensives and gains, during which the Ukrainians suffered significant losses. The standout event of this period was the Russian victory at the Battle of Avdiivka earlier this month.

While much of the war has been attritional, and new technologies and tactics have rewritten the rules of modern warfare, the evolution of the Russian approach to this war at a strategic level is central to our understanding of the mechanics of this change (the Ukrainian approach, limited as it has been by the military materiel its patrons in the West have managed to supply them, has been more reactive and largely static, and will be studied in a separate article).

Russian military history is replete with occasions when it began a war in a very disadvantageous position, forced to trade space for time (withdrawing from territory to buy time for its defence), radically aligning its strategy, and only then emerging victorious.

A good example is the Swedish invasion of Russia in 1708 by King Charles I. In the first six months, the Russians lost six battles, kept retreating, lured the Swedes in too deep, and then, eventually, turned the tables on the invaders by winning the Battle of Poltava in 1709.

It is different in Ukraine, where Russia initiated advances on multiple points along a thousand-kilometre (km)-long front in February 2022, at the time and at places of its choosing.

There was even a dramatic thrust by helicopter-borne Russian special forces, south down the Dnieper, towards the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. But they lost the advantage due to supply chain issues and a robust Ukrainian defence, following which the war evolved a pattern of its own.

The Russian approach in 2022 reflected their military thinking of the 1990s, wherein any war they fought would be characterised by dynamic, high-tempo, high-intensity land-air operations which extended over vast expanses; tactical combat even more destructive than any in the past; and traditional, clear-cut frontlines being replaced by nebulous zones of combat.

Unfortunately, Russia underestimated Ukrainian morale and defence in the initial phase of the invasion. In a variation of Hitler’s "all we've got to do is kick the door in and the whole edifice will come crumbling down," Russia attacked on a wide front thinking that the political structure in Kiev would crumble, and be forced to the negotiating table. But a stout Ukrainian defence coupled with potent NATO armaments forced a strategic rethink.

The Russian response was to modify and adopt an older doctrine from the Cold War, in which the emphasis shifted to strategic assaults aimed at the destruction of Ukrainian high-value command targets, long-range fire assets like rocket launch sites, and critical infrastructure.

At the strategic level, this devastation was carried out relentlessly by long-range bombers and cruise missiles.

At the theatre level, this doctrine was dominated by artillery, ‘the gods of war’. At the operational, sectoral level, it meant the prosecution of a defensive war at multiple points using smaller formations, to attrit Ukrainian formations and keep them at bay, and only then, creating the conditions for limited, successful counteroffensives with major strategic implications, such as at Bakhmut last year, and at Avdiivka recently.

Applying this theory to practice also meant ceding time for space, as seen in the Kherson and Kharkiv counteroffensives, witheringly degrading Ukraine’s capacity to make war, and in the end, forcing Ukraine to disastrously go on the offensive in desperation, more than once, across heavily fortified Russian defensive lines, resulting in heavy losses for Ukraine.

This is where things stand at the moment, with the Russians having recovered most of the four Russian-majority provinces of Ukraine. The Ukrainian will to fight has been severely weakened, and Russia is in a much stronger position. One might surmise that Russia is now creating the right conditions for another large-scale offensive, to once again force Ukraine to the negotiating table.

Although the old cliché about the fog of war still holds true, and it would be hubris to predict a Russian victory in any brief timespan, it does appear that Russia holds all the cards and is simply biding its time to land the killer blow.