As of the end of March, 2022, it looks like the war will go on for another month.
War in Ukraine
Right now, Russian forces are repositioning for an offensive into Donbass region, where the bulk of Ukrainian armed forces lie in wait. Russians know this, they deliberately avoided strong pushes thus far and only engaged weaker formations and reservists for the most part. Now, they’re about to take on the bulk of Ukrainian army.
Russia has three options here. The first is to attack an entrenched enemy frontally, akin to battles at Verdun (WW1) or Rzhev (WW2). Throw waves upon waves of your men into the grinder, until the enemy can’t fight any more. The problem here is you need to expect extremely heavy casualties, hundreds killed per day, every day, for weeks on end is the barest of minimums. Yet this is also their best option, the other two are worse.
Their second option is to try to encircle the Ukrainians immediately. The problem is you’re doing this with a depleted armored force that isn’t able to execute accurate maneuvers for the lack of training and you’re doing it during the mud season, when maneuver warfare in Ukraine is impossible, you need to stick to the roads, or else this happens:
It’s a tank, not a submarine
Their third option is barely any better. This is to wait for about two months, maybe ten weeks, for the spring thaw and rains to end, use that time to reconstitute your forces, give them whatever training you get and try to encircle Ukrainians come June. The problem here is by early to mid May, the economic fallout in Russia will damage the domestic front, Russia will have lost any and all initiative it still has, Ukrainian forces will be even better prepared than they already are and Ukraine is currently rising trained formations more quickly than Russia does. Furthermore, it is doubtful Russia can provide meaningful training in the time period. There’s also no telling what weapons might they obtain during this time and they will be on the offensive in the south too. That’s why this option may be the worst of them all and I doubt it will be chosen.
A month from now, when the dust from this offensive has settled, Russia will likely announce they have achieved their objectives and sue for peace. This is almost irrespective of the situation on the ground at the time. Russia is already scraping the bottom of the barrel for this offensive and may be unable to produce significant new war materiel (other than dumb bombs, artillery shells and the like) with all the sanctions.
There are some signs you can look out for:
- When people can take a plane from Kyiv to Warsaw and don’t have to rely on the land route anymore.
- The day the mayor of the German town where my friends live doesn’t fly the Ukrainian flag anymore in front of his office building.
- When the price for a level IV ballistic plate goes down to 100 USD (that was the price in January).
And, of course:
- When I’m back to answering questions about Kosovo on Quora.If you want to help me support Ukrainian volunteers (civilian and military, foreigners and locals), please use the contact email in my profile description
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