The Forest and the Trees: Ukraine’s Strategic Dissipation

Understanding the lofty extent of Ukraine’s framework for victory, we can articulate several different “theories of victory” that Ukraine has pursued. I am labelling them as follows:

• The Short War Theory: This was the overarching strategic animus in the opening year of the war (2022), which presupposed that Russia was anticipating a short war against an isolated Ukraine. This theory of victory relied on the assumption that Russia would be unwilling or unable to commit the resources necessary in the face of unexpected Ukrainian resistance and a blitz of military support and sanctions from the west. There was a kernel of truth underpinning this theory, in the sense that the resources mobilized on the Russian side were inadequate in the first year of the war (leading to significant Ukrainian successes on the ground in Kharkov, for example), however, this phase of the war ended in the winter of 2022 with Russian mobilization and the shift of the Russian economy to a war footing.

• The Crimean Isolation Plan: This theory of victory took primacy in 2023, and identified Crimea as the strategic center of gravity for Russia. Kiev therefore supposed that Russia could be crippled or knocked out of the war by severing its connection to Crimea - a plan which required capturing a corridor in the land bridge on the Azov coast through a mechanized counteroffensive, bringing Crimea and its linkeages within easy range of Ukrainian strike systems. This plan collapsed with the decisive defeat of the Ukrainian ground operation on the Orokhiv-Robotyne axis.

• The Attritional Theory: Presupposed that Ukraine’s defensive posture in the Donbas could impose disproportionate and catastrophic casualties on the Russian Army and utterly degrade Russia’s combat capability, while Ukraine’s own combat power was regenerated through western arms deliveries and training assistance.

• The Counter-Pressure Theory: Finally, Ukraine has postulated that a multi-domain pressure campaign on Russia, including the seizure of Russian home territory in Kursk oblast, a campaign of strikes on Russian strategic assets, and the continued strain of western sanctions, would promote the collapse of Russia’s willingness to fight.

Such “theories of victory” are critical to keep in back of mind, and should not be forgotten among all the discussions of the operational and technical particulars of the war on the ground (as interesting as they are). It is only when actions on the ground correlate to a particular animating strategic vision that they gain meaning. Excitement over the exchange of lands and lives in Kursk or in the urban settlements around Pokrovsk become meaningful when they are chained to a particular strategic concept of victory.

The problem for Ukraine is that, thus far at least, all of their overarching strategic visions have failed - not only in their own particular terms on the ground, but also in their connection to “victory” as such. A concrete example might be useful. Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region has failed on the ground (more details on this later) with the advance jammed up by Russian defenses early and now steadily rolled back with heavy losses. But the offensive also fails conceptually: attacking and holding Russian territory in Kursk has made Moscow more intransigent and unwilling to negotiate, and it has failed to meaningfully move the needle on NATO backing for Ukraine.

And this is Ukraine’s problem. It seeks the return of all its 1991 territories, including those that Russia now controls and administers, many of which are far beyond Ukraine’s realistic military reach. It is utterly inconceivable, for example, to contemplate Ukraine recapturing Donetsk with a ground operation. Donetsk is a vast industrial city of nearly a million residents, ensconced far behind Russian frontlines and fully integrated into Russia’s logistical chains. Yet the recapture of Donetsk is an explicit Ukrainian war aim.

Ukraine’s ongoing refusal to “negotiate” the surrender of any territory within the 1991 borders brings Kiev to a strategic impasse. It is one thing to say that Ukraine will not give up territories that it currently possesses, but Kiev has extended its war aims to be inclusive of lands that are firmly in Russian control, far beyond Ukraine’s military reach. This leaves Ukraine with no possibility of ending the war without losing on its own terms, because their own war aims fundamentally require the total collapse of Russia’s ability to fight.

And thus, we come to Zelensky’s tenuous “victory plan.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the plan is little more than a plea for the west to go all-in on Ukraine. The planks of the victory plan, as such, are:

• An official promise of NATO membership for Ukraine

• Intensified western assistance to shore up Ukraine’s air defense and equip additional mechanized brigades

• More western strike systems and the green light to attack targets deep inside prewar Russia (something Ukraine has been doing anyway)

• A nebulous pledge to build a “non-nuclear deterrent” against Russia, which ought to be interpreted as an extension of the request for western assistance launching deep strikes on Russian territory

• Western investments to exploit Ukrainian mineral resources to economically rehabilitate the country

When you put it all together, the “victory plan” is essentially a plea for more help, asking NATO to rebuild Ukraine’s ground forces and air defenses, while providing enhanced strike capabilities, with long-term integration with the west via NATO membership and western exploitation of Ukrainian natural resources. When you add in a few ancillary requests (like integrating Ukraine into NATO’s real-time ISR), it’s clear that Kiev is pinning all of its hopes on some eventual trigger for direct NATO intervention.

Zelensky pitches his “Victory Plan” to the Rada— Are all these people delusional?

And this, ultimately, is what has created Ukraine’s unsolvable strategic dead end. Kiev clearly wants NATO to intervene directly in the conflict, and this has put Ukraine on an escalatory path. Ukraine’s foray into the Kursk region, and their continued strikes on Russian strategic assets like airfields, oil refineries, and ISR installations, are clearly designed to draw NATO into the war by intentionally violating supposed Russian “red lines” and creating an escalatory spiral. At the same time, Zelensky has argued that Russian de-escalation would be a prerequisite for any negotiations - though, given his refusal to discuss ceding Ukrainian territories and his insistence on NATO membership, it’s not clear what there is to discuss anyway. Specifically, he said quite recently that negotiations are impossible unless Russia ceases its strikes on Ukrainian energy and shipping infrastructure.

We end up with a picture where Ukraine’s overarching strategic concept would appear to be pulling in two directions. Verbally, Zelensky has tied the prospects for negotiations to a de-escalation of the war on Russia’s part (while excluding categorically any negotiations relevant to Russia’s own war aims), but Ukraine’s own actions - attempting to double down on both long range strikes and a ground incursion into Russia - are escalatory, as are the various demands made of NATO in the peace plan. There’s a certain measure of strategic schizophrenia here, which all stems from the fact that Ukraine’s own concept of victory is far beyond its military means. Western observers have suggested that a prerequisite for negotiations ought to be the stabilization of Ukraine’s defenses in the Donbas - which in substance means containing and freezing the conflict - but the Ukrainian effort to expand and unlock the front with the Kursk incursion runs directly contrary to this.

The result is that Ukraine is now waging war as if - as if NATO intervention can eventually be provoked, as if Russia will crack and walk away from vast territories that it already controls, and as if western assistance can provide a panacea for Ukraine’s deteriorating state on the ground. It all adds up to a blind plunge forward in the abyss, hoping that by escalating and radicalizing the conflict either Russia will break or NATO will step in. In either scenario, however, Ukraine is counting on powers external to it, trusting that NATO will provide a sort of deus ex machina that rescues Ukraine from ruination.

Ukraine stands today as a stark example of strategic dissipation. Having opted to eschew anything less than the most maximalist sort of victory - full re-attainment of the 1991 borders, NATO membership, and the total defeat of Russia - it now proceeds full speed ahead, with a material base and a gloomy picture on the ground that is utterly unmoored from its own conception of victory. The “victory plan”, such as it exists, is little more than a plea for rescue. It is a country trapped by the two myths that animate its being - on the one hand, the notion of total western military supremacy, and on the other the theory of Russia as a giant with feet of clay, primed to collapse internally from the strain of a war that it is winning.

Strangling the Southern Donbas

A brief look at the state of the front reveals the dire state of the AFU’s defenses. Ukrainian lines in the southeast were based on a series of well-defended urban fortresses in a change, running from Ugledar on the southernmost end, to Krasnogorivka (which defended the approach to the Vovcha Reservoir, to Avdiivka (blocking the main line out of Donetsk to the northwest), all the way up to the Toretsk-Niu York agglomeration. The AFU lost the former three at various points in 2024 and are currently holding on to perhaps 50% of Toretsk. The loss of these fortress has unhinged the Ukrainian defense across nearly 100 kilometers of front, and subsequent efforts to stabilize the line have been stymied by a lack of adequate rear defenses, inadequate reserves, and Ukraine’s own decision to funnel many of its best mechanized formations into Kursk. As a consequence, Russia has advanced steadily towards Pokrovsk, carving out a salient some 80 kilometers in circumference.

Southern Donbas frontlines, January 1 and October 29, 2024

The picture that has emerged is one of highly attrited Ukrainian units being steadily driven out of poorly prepared defensive positions. Ukrainian reporting in September revealed that some Ukrainian brigades on the Pokrovsk axis are down to less than 40% of their full infantry complement, as replacements fall far short of burn rates, and ammunition has dwindled with the Kursk operation being given supply priority.

During the summer, much of the reporting on this front implied that Pokrovsk was the main operational target for the offensive, but this never really passed muster. The real advantage of the bursting advance towards Pokrovsk, rather, was that it gave the Russians access to the ridgeline to the north of the Vovcha River. At the same time, the capture of Ugledar and the subsequent breakthrough on the very southern end of the line puts the Russians on a downhill drive. The Ukrainian positions along the Vovcha - centered around Kurakhove, which has been a centerpiece of the Ukrainian position here for years - are all on the floor of a gentle river basin, with Russian forces coming downhill both from the south (the Ugledar axis) and the north (the Pokrovsk axis).

Southeastern Front: General Situation and Expected Russian Axes of Advance

The Ukrainians are now defending a series of partially enveloped downhill positions, with the Vovcha River and reservoir acting as the hinge between them. On the northern bank, Ukrainian forces are quickly being compressed against the reservoir in a severe salient (particularly after the loss of Girnyk in the final week of October). Meanwhile, the Russians have forced multiple breaches on the southern line, reaching the towns of Shakhtarske and Bogoyavlenka. This advance is particularly important due to the orientation of Ukrainian defensive emplacements in this area. Most of the Ukrainian trench lines and strongpoints are arranged to defend against an advance from the south (that is, they run on an east-west orientation), particularly on the axis north of Velya Novosilka. What this means, in essence, is that the capture of Ugledar and the advance to Shakhtarske have outflanked the best Ukrainian positions in the southeast.

It is likely that the coming weeks will see Russian momentum continue, parsing through the thin Ukrainian defenses on the southern line while simultaniously advancing down the ridgeline from the Selydove-Novodmytrivka axis towards Andriivka, which forms the center of gravity pulling in both Russian pincers. Ukraine is facing the loss of the entire southeastern corner of the front, including Kurakhove, in the coming months.

Artillery duels occur along a long front, but the Russian barrages are insurmountable.

The current trajectory of the Russian advance suggests that by the end of 2024, they will be on the verge of completely wrapping up the southeastern sector of the front, pushing the frontline out in a wide arc running from Andriivka to Toretsk. This would put Russia in control of some 70% of Donetsk Oblast, and set the stage for the next phase of operations which will push for Pokrovsk and begin a Russian advance eastward along the H15 highway, which connects Donetsk and Zaporozhia.

Frontline Shifts

The methodology of the Russian advance has furthermore upset Ukraine’s calculations around attrition, and there is little evidence that the Russian offensive is unsustainable. Russia has increasingly turned to smaller units to probe Ukrainian positions, followed by heavy bombardment with guided glide bombs and artillery before assaulting. The use of small probing units (often 5 to 7 men) followed by the physical destruction of Ukrainian positions limits Russian casualties. Meanwhile, the constant presence of Orlan drones (now flying unmolested due to the severe shortage of Ukrainian air defense) gives the Russians unimpeded ISR, and increasing availability of ever larger and longer-range glide bombs has made the reduction of Ukrainian hard points much easier.

The shifting tactical-technical nexus of the Russian offensive has scuttled Ukrainian hopes of a winning attrition calculus. Western officials estimate that the Russian Army continues to intake some 30,000 new recruits per month, which is far more than they need to replenish losses. With Mediazona counting some 23,000 Russian KIA thus far in 2024, Russian margins on manpower are highly sustainable. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s pipeline for manpower is becoming ever thinner: even after passing a new mobilization law in May, their pool of replacements in training has fallen by more than 40%, and they currently have just 20,000 new personnel in training. The lack of replacements and rotations has left frontline units exhausted in both material terms and in their psychological state, with desertions and insubordination increasing. Ukrainian attempts to redouble their mobilization program have had mixed results, and have inadvertently increased casualties by prompting Ukrainian men to risk drowning to escape Ukraine.

In short, Russia’s 2024 South Donetsk offensive has thus far succeeded in driving the AFU out of its frontline strongpoints which it had defended doggedly since the beginning of the war: Ugledar, Krasnogorivka, and Avdiivka have fallen, and Toretsk (the northernmost of these fortresses) is contested with Russian control over half of the city. The two cities that formerly acted as vital rear area hubs for the AFU (Pokrovsk and Kurakhove) are in the rear no longer, and have become frontline cities. Kurakhove in particular is likely to fall in the coming weeks. The Russians are, in a word, poised to complete their victory in Southern Donetsk.

It is important not to understate the operational and strategic significance of this. In the simplest terms, this will be a significant advancement towards Russia’s explicit war aims of capturing the Donbas oblasts (putting Russia in control of some 70% of Donetsk and 90%+ of Lugansk).

Ukrainian artillerymen on the Pokrovsk Axis

We do not want to give the impression that the ground war in Ukraine is anywhere near over. After consolidating in southern Donetsk, the Russian Army will move off its springboards at Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar to advance on Kostyantinivka, all as a prelude to a major operation aimed at the massive Kramatorsk-Slovyansk agglomeration. As a prerequisite, they will not only need to capture Kostyantinivka but also regain previously lost positions on the Lyman-Izyum axis, on the northern bank of the Donets River. These are all complicated combat tasks that will drag the war on until at least 2026.

Nevertheless, we do clearly see the Russian army making significant progress towards its goals. It will be able to write off much of the southeastern sector of front, with the AFU evicted from their powerful chain of prewar fortresses around the city of Donetsk. These losses raise an uncomfortable question for Ukraine: if they could not successfully defend in Avdiivka, Ugledar, and Krasnogorivka, with their long built-up defenses and powerful backfields, where exactly is their defense supposed to stabilize? We must also ask another salient question then: on the precipice of losing South Donetsk, with a full 100 kilometers of front unraveling, why are many of Ukraine’s best brigades loitering 350 kilometers away in Kursk Oblast?

Operation Krepost: Status Check

Three months later, the enthusiasm has faded and it has become clear that the Kursk Operation (which I nicknamed Operation Krepost as an homage to the 1943 Battle of Kursk) has failed not only in the operational particulars, but also conceptually (that is, in its own terms) as an attempt to alter the trajectory of the war by changing Russia’s political calculus and diverting forces from the Donbas. Krepost has not “turned the tide”, but has in fact caused the tide to come in faster for Ukraine.

A brief refresher on the progression of the operation on the ground will help us understand the situation. Ukraine attacked on August 6th with an assortment of maneuver elements stripped from their dwindling roster of mechanized brigades, and managed to achieve something approximating strategic surprise, taking advantage of the forest canopy around Sumy to stage their forces. The forested terrain around Sumy affords one of the few places where it is possible to conceal forces from overhead Russian ISR, and stands in stark contrast to the flat and mostly treeless south, where Ukrainian preparations for the 2023 counteroffensive were well surveilled by the Russians.

Taking advantage of this concealment, the Ukrainians took the Russian border guards by surprise and overran the border in the opening day of the assault. However, by Friday, August 9, the Ukrainian offensive had already been irreparably bogged down. Three important factors intervened:

1. The unexpectedly stiff resistance of the Russian motor rifle forces in Sudzha, which forced the Ukrainians to waste much of the 7th and 8th enveloping the town before assaulting it.

2. The successful defense of Russian blocking positions at Korenevo and Bol’shoe Soldatskoe, which jammed up the Ukrainian advance on the main highways to the northwest and northeast of Sudzha respectively.

3. The rapid scrambling of Russian reinforcements and strike assets into the area, which began to smother AFU maneuver elements and strike their staging and support bases around Sumy.

It is, unequivocally, not an exaggeration to say that the Kursk operation had been sterilized by August 9, after only three days. By this point, the Ukrainians had suffered an unmistakable delay at Sudzha and had failed completely to break out further along the main highways. The AFU made a series of assaults on Korenevo in particular, but failed to break the Russian blocking position and remained jammed up in their salient around Sudzha. Their brief window of opportunity, gained via their concealed staging and strategic surprise, was now wasted, and the front calcified into yet another tight positional fight where the Ukrainians could not maneuver and saw their forces steadily attrited away by Russian fires.

It initially appeared that the Ukrainian intention was to reach the Seim river between Korenevo and Snagost, while striking bridges over the Seim with HIMARS. In theory, there was the possibility of isolating and defeating Russian forces on the southern bank of the Seim. This would have given Ukraine control over the southern bank, including the towns of Glushkovo and Tektino, creating a solid foothold and anchoring the left flank of their position in Russia. In my previous analysis, I speculated that this was probably the best possible outcome for Ukraine after their lanes of advance were jammed up in the opening week.

Instead, the entire operation went sour for the AFU. A Russian counterattack, led by the 155th Marine Infantry Brigade, managed to completely crumple the left shoulder of the Ukrainian salient, driving the AFU out of Snagost and rolling back their penetration towards Korenevo. As of this writing, nearly 50% of the Ukraine’s gains have been retaken, and the AFU is still trapped in a confined salient around the towns of Sudzha and Sverdlikovo, with a perimeter of perhaps 75 kilometers.

Kursk: General Situation, October 31

Germany’s 1944 Ardennes offensive, and particularly the way that the American Army managed to render the German advance sterile by blocking up the major arteries of advance. In particular, the famous defense of the Airborne at Bastogne and the less well known and largely uncelebrated defense of the Eisenborn ridge managed to throw off German timetables and throttle their advance by denying them access to critical highways. The Russian blocking positions at Korenevo and Bol’shoe Soldatskoe did something very similar in Kursk, preventing the Ukrainians from breaking out along the highways and bottling them up around Sudzha while Russian reinforcements scrambled into the area.

The Russian counterattack on the left shoulder of the penetration put the final nail in the coffin here, and the Ukrainian operation has been firmly defeated. They still hold a modest chunk of Russian territory, but the strategic surprise that empowered their initial breach is long gone, and a series of attempts to unblock the roads have failed. Ukraine is now allowing a large bag of premiere assets, including elements of at least five mechanized brigades, two tank brigades, and three air assault brigades to loiter in the grinder around Sudzha. Ukrainian vehicle losses are severe, with LostArmour tracking nearly 500 Russian strikes using lancets, glide bombs, and other systems. The compact space, located on enemy territory outside of the dwindling Ukrainian air defense umbrella, has left Ukrainian forces extremely vulnerable, with vehicle loss rates far outstripping other sectors of front.

Riding Dirty

It ought to be abundantly clear by now that the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk has failed in operational terms, with the left shoulder of their salient collapsed, mounting losses, and a large grouping of brigades wasting away hundreds of kilometers from the Donbas. All Ukraine has to show for this operation is the town of Sudzha - hardly a fair trade for Russia’s impending capture of the entire Southern Donetsk front. Unfortunately, the AFU cannot simply walk away from Kursk due to its own distorted strategic logic and the necessity of maintaining a narrative structure for western backers. Withdrawing from the firebag at Kursk would be a conspicuous admission of failure, and Kiev’s preference is to instead let the operation by extinguished organically - that is to say, by Russian kinetic action.

In more abstract strategic terms, however, Kursk has been a disaster for Kiev. One of the strategic rationales for the operation was to seize Russian territory that could be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations, but the incursion has only hardened Moscow’s stance and made a settlement less likely. Similarly, attempts to force a diversion of Russian forces from the Donbas have failed, and Ukrainian forces in the southeast are on the ropes. A large grouping of forces that might have made a difference at Selydove, or Ugledar, or Krasnogorivka, or any number of places along the sprawling and crumbling Donbas front, are instead loitering aimlessly in Kursk, waging war as if.

Strategic Dissipation and Focus

Within the expansive reach of Kiev’s self-declared war aims, including the phantasmagorical return of Crimea and Donetsk, it has never been quite clear how these operations are correlated. Russia, in contrast, has pursued its war aims with consistent clarity and a great reluctance to take risks and allow its energies to dissipate. Moscow wants, at an absolute minimum, to consolidate control over the Donbas and the land bridge to Crimea, while trashing the Ukrainian state and neutering its military potential.

Strategic patience on Russia’s part - its reluctance to commit to a full de-energization of Ukraine, or to strike the Dnieper bridges - frequently exasperates its supporters, but it speaks to Russian confidence that it can achieve its aims on the ground without unnecessarily radicalizing the war. Moscow is loathe to either risk provoking Western intervention or create undue disruption to daily life in Russia. This is why, despite possessing significantly greater capabilities than Ukraine, it has consistently been the reactive entity - ramping up strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure as a response to Ukrainian strikes, embarking on the Kharkov operation in response to Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod, and adopting a wait-and-see attitude towards Western weapons.

Ukraine, in contrast, is increasingly waging war “as if”. It is dissipating its scarce combat resources on remote fronts which have no operational or strategic nexus with the war for the Donbas. It has awakened to the fact that the war in the Donbas is simply a losing proposition, but its attempts to change the nature of the war by activating other fronts and provoking an expansion of the conflict have failed, because Russia is not interested in unnecessarily matching Kiev’s strategic dissipation. Its attempts to radicalize the conflict have failed, as neither the West nor Russia has seriously reacted to Ukraine’s attempts to breach red lines. The idea of a settlement to the conflict now seems incredibly remote: if Ukraine is unwilling to discuss the status of the Donbas, and if Russia believes that it can capture the entire region by simply plowing ahead on the ground, then it would seem that there is very little to discuss.

Taken as a whole, the events of 2024 are immensely positive for Russia and frightening for Ukraine. The AFU began the year trying to weather the storm in Avdiivka. In the intervening time, the front has moved from the doorstep of Donetsk, where the AFU still held its chain of prewar fortresses, all the way to the doorstep of Pokrovsk. Cities like Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, which previously functioned as rear area operational hubs, are now frontline positions, with the latter likely to be captured by years end. Ukraine’s great gambit to unlock the front by attacking Kursk was defeated in the opening days of the operation, with AFU mechanized elements jammed up at Korenevo.

It has now been more than two years since Ukraine last managed to mount a successful offensive, and a recapitulation of events reveals a sequence of defeats: failed defenses at Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the collapse of their line in the southern Donbas, a much anticipated counteroffensive shattered at Robotyne in the summer of 2023, and now a surprise attack on Kursk scuttled at Korenevo. Unmoored from a coherent theory of victory, and with events on the ground souring at every turn, Kiev might take comfort in waging war as if, but a reckless thrust at Kursk and blind trust in the Deus Ex Machina of NATO will not save it from the war as it truly is.