50 Days into the War in Ukraine: Where Things Stand Today, and Where They Might Be Headed

After 50 days, it is fair to say that the war has not been "going as planned," as Putin used to claim regularly. Major defeats in the north near Kyiv have led to unprecedented casualties in the high thousands for Russia—more than the Soviet Union suffered in 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan. Its forces have also lost significant weaponry and aircraft, and its conscripted infantry have demonstrated low morale and poor discipline. The world, including the U.S., had expected Kyiv to fall and the Ukrainians to capitulate quickly in the face of such a massive invading force, but against all expectation and odds, the Ukrainians have not only endured but have retaken key parts of the north and are now pressing their gains in the hopes of stopping Russia’s advance in the east and south of the country.

Putin has also rather astonishingly lost at least seven of his top generals on the battlefield. The generals had been forced to head to the front lines to try and fix myriad, dysfunctional chain of command issues and address the lack of basic supplies such as ammunition, fuel, and food. The generals' locations had regularly been compromised, however, because the Russian army, again rather bafflingly, was not using encrypted communications channels, rendering their leaders vulnerable to sniper, drone, and missile attacks as they sent messages to their forces that inadvertently disclosed their whereabouts.

Russia's problems on the battlefield begin with Moscow, say experts. "The short answer to the question is that they are an epically incompetent army badly led from the very top,” said the former top NATO commander in Europe from 2009 to 2013. Bad intelligence led to extreme overconfidence in the Kremlin, which sent in troops who were expected to win the war in days, not fight a protracted one for months. Fear of being blamed for the failures in Ukraine then compounded the lack of candor and transparency from Putin's subordinates, and no one wanted to tell him how badly they had blundered until much later. Putin has now jailed leaders of his own FSB in retaliation for the poor information and incompetence. There are also reports that Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu is now more or less permanently out with a “disability” and that some 20 high level military leaders have been arrested for allegedly embezzling billions from the Ukrainian war funds.

The Russian military has also failed to halt a steady stream of armaments, munitions and supplies from the United States and its Western allies. To date this has included more than 12,000 anti-armor weapons, 1,400 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition. “The scope and speed of our support to meeting Ukraine’s defense needs are unprecedented in modern times,” said the Pentagon press secretary. Approximately $2.5 billion has been offered in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, the equivalent to over half of Ukraine’s normal defense budget.

Back in March, Russia said these arms shipments would be targeted. "We warned the United States that pumping weapons into Ukraine from a number of countries as it has orchestrated isn’t just a dangerous move but an action that turns the respective convoys into legitimate targets,” said a Kremlin spokesperson. Yet the Russians have failed to move aggressively to interdict the flow of arms, perhaps because their air force would be vulnerable to counterattack should they enter the contested airspace. Instead, Russia has struck stationary arms depots and fuel storage sites, but the effect of this has been quite limited.

Now Russia has refocused its attention on a part of the country called the Donbas, claiming in typically revisionist fashion that control of that region was the goal of the war all along. (Initially, Putin had insisted on “demilitarization” of the entire country and “denazification” of the regime, even through President Zelenskyy is a Jew, there are no Nazi parties in the government, and it is the Russians who have destroyed monuments to the Holocaust in Ukraine.) Moscow’s withdrawal from the north is giving it time and resources to concentrate its efforts in the east and south, where it already has footholds in the Crimea and in two breakaway self-declared “republics” that are home to many ethnic Russians. Moscow has backed separatists in those regions and controlled Crimea since it invaded and annexed it in 2014, so “control of the Donbas” is not as big a stretch as it might appear.

Still, both sides are gearing up for major battle in the east, where many of the advantages the Ukrainians faced earlier in the war in places like Kyiv and its suburbs will not be present. For starters, the terrain in the Donbas is flat and open, unlike the woody forests around Kyiv where Ukrainian forces more easily hid. Further, the Donbas is close to the Russian border, meaning the logistical and supply issues that plagued their Battalion Tank Groups around Kyiv won’t be as much of an issue. Russia is also pulling fresh forces from other regions such as Georgia and the Middle East who have more experience than the young inductees who died by the thousands in the initial campaign.

Russia has also finally figured out that it needs a single commander for the entire war, rather than separate ones who report independently to Putin. It has dispatched the leader of the Southern Military District, General Alexander Dvornikov, to head the war. Dvornikov has extensive experience fighting Ukrainian forces in the region, having supported the Russian separatists there militarily for the last eight years. He also is a battle-hardened veteran of urban warfare after he led Russian forces in the war in Syria, where he ordered atrocities against civilians including the bombing of hospitals and residential structures in cities like Aleppo.

Putin very badly needs to take a military win back to the Russian people who, while still generally highly supportive of the war because of the drumbeat of state-run media, are beginning to feel the pain of sanctions and in some cases a disquieting sense of doubt. It is one thing to falsely believe that you are fighting against Nazis, but another to begin to understand that you are actually losing that fight and badly. Russians might have supported the war morally for all the wrong reasons, but it would be a mistake to assume they will continue to support it indefinitely in the face of massive incompetence and devastating casualties.

May 9 continues to be the date by which most observers believe Putin hopes to achieve that victory to take to his people. That day is a national holiday in Russia commemorating victory over Nazi Germany, and the thoughts of the nation will be directed toward the ongoing war, supposedly against the “new” Nazis in Ukraine. Another crushing defeat prior to that date, however, would be a blow to the Russia’s leadership and to its people’s faith in it, so the stakes are very high around the upcoming fight.

The U.S. and its allies are thus racing against time to supply Ukraine with the heavy weaponry, ammunition, and other war materiel the country says it needs to contest the Donbas. Any distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons has been abandoned as the U.S. moves to send howitzers and helicopters to Ukraine, on top of the drones, anti-armor weaponry, and anti-aircraft missiles it has already provided. Neighboring countries such as Slovakia have sent in whole Soviet-era missile defense systems, to be replaced at home by U.S. Patriot defensive systems.

Because the supply of weapons from the U.S. and its Western allies is in theory without limit, Russia needs to score a decisive victory soon or it will eventually lose so many troops and so much of its armor and aircraft that it could be pushed back again, just as it was in the north. Russia has no clear end-game here short of a decisive win, which means anything less would put Putin in a corner. From there, he could consider turning to his more deadly arsenals—chemical, biological or even nuclear—to force a draw before he loses even more. With peace talks off the table while the Ukrainians press their advantage and Russia indiscriminately bombs civilian targets, the Kremlin’s options for exiting the war are narrowing. In the near future, Putin may need to decide whether to accept a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement or double down and increase the destruction, misery, and death in order to claim some kind of win.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials continue to discover evidence of war crimes as more mass graves and countless stories of atrocities are uncovered. In Mariupol, the death count from the constant Russian bombardment is said to exceed 10,000 but is likely far higher. The mayor has accused Russia of hiding the true number of casualties by removing corpses to Russia or incinerating them in mobile crematoriums, a charge that has not yet been independently verified. Some 10 million Ukrainians remain displaced from their homes, with well over 4 million having fled to neighboring countries.

Despite the carnage and despair, there is reason for hope after 50 days of a senseless and brutal war. President Zelenskyy, who captured the hearts and imagination of the free world with his courage, eloquence, and determination, still remains in power. Kyiv has a functioning government that is receiving billions of assistance from the World Bank and Western allies. Residents of the capital are beginning to return to their homes despite warnings of continued danger from air strikes, mines and other booby traps.

The Ukrainian military, with fresh supplies and continued training from the West, continues to score improbable victories even as Russia pounds cities in the east and south to rubble. Just today, Ukraine announced that the flagship of the Russian fleet, the missile carrier Moskva, was disabled by Neptune missile strikes (though Russia claims it was only a fire on board that exploded ammunition). NATO is more united than it has been for decades, and formerly neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden are considering applying for membership this summer. And for the first time, military analysts and observers have begun to speak of the possibility that Ukraine actually could win the war against Russia, an outcome considered an impossibility even just a few weeks ago.

A lot would have to happen for such a victory to become a reality. But the Ukrainian people have demonstrated that they should not be underestimated in their resolve to repel the Russian invaders. Today, Ukraine holds not only the moral high ground and the support of the international community but the actual momentum in the war. It is Russia that will need to win some decisive victories very soon, or otherwise draw the sides to a stalemate, in order to preserve any semblance of gain from its fateful and catastrophic decision to invade its neighbor.

The words of President Zelenskyy ring defiantly and true on this 50th day of the war as hope remains alive. “Russia literally failed to account for one fact. The fact that it attacks the other largest country in the world: Ukraine. The largest by its courage.”

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Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/26/ukraine-russan-generals-dead/

Anders Åslund @anders_aslund

Putin appears to be running wild in his bunker, wherever it is. None of the news is confirmed, but this looks like Putin going for vicious recriminations. 1. Shoigu is allegedly out because of a heart attack. 2. General Beseda, the head of FSB foreign intelligence in arrest, ...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-nato-europe-e335d774954f6403c38e88a3a6bfbcff

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60555472

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/11/europe/ukraine-donbas-battle-russia-cmd-intl/index.html

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1

Zelenskyy: "Russia literally failed to account for one fact. The fact that it attacks the other largest country in the world — Ukraine, the largest by its courage. We are not afraid of massive missile strikes. Ukrainian courage has inflicted heavy losses on the Russian army."