As the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches on Friday, the picture looks very different to the first weeks of the war, when hundreds of Russian tanks poured over the border and airborne forces attempted to capture Hostomel airfield, outside Kyiv, as a springboard to take the capital. Here we look at the status of the conflict and what might happen next.
Is Russia already conducting a new offensive?
There have been contradictory assessments of Russia’s ability to conduct a significant new offensive. Although senior Ukrainian officials have warned repeatedly since before Christmas that Russia was planning a big new effort this year, evidence of preparations for a push similar to that of February 2022, involving a large-scale armoured attack, remains thin.
Recent claims, sourced to Nato officials, that Russia was amassing aircraft, were also largely discounted by the UK’s Ministry of Defence. And while Russia has greatly increased infantry numbers – some estimates suggest more than 300,000 troops are in Ukraine – there is no evidence of hundreds of tanks mustering in a region heavily surveilled by spy satellites.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has pointed to increased Russian efforts in the east as evidence that a “new offensive” has begun, but others see it as a continuation of efforts that have been going on for months. Russian shelling is less intense that it was in the summer around Sievierodonetsk, when Moscow was expending 60,000 shells a day.
Despite last year’s mobilisation, analysts such as Phillips O’Brien of St Andrews University believe Russian capabilities are degraded by the war and that those expecting a rerun of the initial invasion last year are wrong.
“What has happened since February 24 is that Ukraine has got stronger and has acquired better systems and is about to get more,” O’Brien says. “The Russians have been getting weaker. They have more soldiers but their equipment is worse, their soldiers are less well-trained than they were, and their ammunition supplies are getting lower.”
O’Brien and others say there is little evidence Russia is any more capable of conducting complex combined arms operations, integrating air power, armour and other elements, than it was a year ago.
What is going on in the east?
One view of fighting in the east – the hottest sector in the conflict – is that increased Russian efforts around the city of Bakhmut amount to so-called shaping operations for a future offensive, perhaps in the spring.
Another is that Russia fears a major new Ukrainian offensive and has increased the tempo of attacks – at an extremely high cost – to tie down Ukrainian forces. A third view is that Russia wants to capture Bakhmut before the 24 February anniversary for propaganda purposes, rather than anything meaningful.
There is probably a little truth in all these views. One caveat is that Russian efforts are not focused solely on Bakhmut but at points along the eastern front, from the border with Kharkiv region down to the occupied south, perhaps to probe for weakness.
Michael Kofman, the head of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, in Virginia, US, underlined this point on Twitter recently, tweeting: “The Russian offensive consists of about 5-6 axes of attack focused on the Donbas. Rather than a major push along one part of the front, it is instead a series of distributed battles running north-south from Luhansk, to Bakhmut, and southern Donetsk.
“At this stage it doesn’t seem that Russia has employed reserves, and is likely using those units to replace casualties, or perhaps waiting for a breakthrough to exploit. That said, there’s not much evidence of a larger additional Russian force in the waiting.”
What is clear is that the current Russian efforts show the poor leadership, logistics and tactics that have been the hallmark of its operations over the past year, with high casualties for very modest territorial gain.
What about a Ukrainian offensive?
Since its offensives last summer in Kharkiv and Kherson provinces, the pace of Ukrainian operations has been subdued, although Ukraine is continuing to attempt make progress on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River opposite Kherson city.
Moscow has also long anticipated further Ukrainian efforts, especially a push south in the area of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s political leadership has made no secret of its ambitions to retake Ukrainian territory, including occupied Crimea, and much of its recent diplomacy to secure western arms has been aimed at that.
It has been reasonably effective at misdirecting Russia about its objectives, but it is clear Ukraine has been amassing materiel, including fighting vehicles, and training up forces for its own anticipated operations, while looking for tanks to spearhead some of those assaults.
While Kyiv has made much of its need for 300 main battle tanks, it is worth noting that it conducted effective offensives during the summer that took back large areas without them.
However, some in the west have questioned the advisability of Kyiv committing so much to the defence of Bakhmut and potentially limiting its abilities to conduct a counteroffensive.
That was reflected in briefings to the Washington Post earlier this month expressing concerns that it was “unrealistic to simultaneously defend Bakhmut and launch a spring counteroffensive to retake what the US views as more critical territory”
Who is winning?
There are different ways to assess this. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is close to achieving its stated war aims, which in Ukraine’s case involves liberating all occupied territory.
However, during the past 12 months Moscow has had to repeatedly retreat from its maximalist ambitions – not least deposing the Ukrainian government and imposing a puppet regime – to focus on capturing all of the Donbas, in the east.
Moreover, Russian losses have been huge. A recent estimate by the IISS suggests it has lost 40-50% of its prewar tank fleet. Casualties have also been enormous, with claims last week that Russia was losing 2,000 soldiers for every 100 metres gained in the east. While these figures should be treated cautiously, anecdotal evidence does suggest Ukraine has a lower rate of attrition.
America’s top general, Mark Milley, recently said Russia had already lost tactically and strategically but suggested it was unlikely either side was close to achieving its stated objectives.
It is probably safe to say that the current trajectory of the conflict is going much better for Ukraine than for Russia – and that the continuing influx of new weapons from the west will maintain that trajectory.
But Ukraine, as the EU’s head of foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, warned recently, is heavily dependent on the west for arms, including artillery ammunition, which has exposed a potential vulnerability for Kyiv in the east, where artillery has dominated the battles.
What is also unclear is how much of a gamechanger weapons such as main battle tanks are likely to be in bringing the war towards a close, or how quickly.
So for now, the war grinds on.
