Matt Bush, FISM News
According to the Institute For The Study of War (ISW), Ukrainian forces have stopped Russia’s initial campaign aimed “to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine.” Their prediction is that the stall in this initial Russian campaign is creating conditions of stalemate throughout most of the country.
Many people, associate the word stalemate with a ceasefire or armistice, but the assessment attests that this is far from the reality. According to the ISW, “It is a condition in war in which each side conducts offensive operations that do not fundamentally alter the situation. Those operations can be very damaging and cause enormous casualties.”
The institute predicts that the stalemate will, in fact, be “very violent and bloody,” as the Russians will “continue to bomb and bombard Ukrainian cities, devastating them and killing civilians.”
The ISW compared the stalemate conditions now being seen in Ukraine with WWI battles Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele, none of which broke the stalemate and all of which caused large loss of life.
The Russians could hope to break Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting under such circumstances by demonstrating Kyiv’s inability to expel Russian forces or stop their attacks even if the Russians are demonstrably unable to take Ukraine’s cities. Ukraine’s defeat of the initial Russian campaign may therefore set conditions for a devastating protraction of the conflict and a dangerous new period testing the resolve of Ukraine and the West.
The report continues by saying, “The doctrinally sound Russian response to this situation would be to end this campaign, accept a possibly lengthy operational pause, develop the plan for a new campaign, build up resources for that new campaign, and launch it when the resources and other conditions are ready.” This response would call for a Russian pull back and potentially even a chance for the two sides to sit down and bring an end to the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has continually called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet in order to negotiate an end to the unprovoked invasion of his country. In this situation, however, Putin does not seem concerned with a “doctrinally sound” responses, opting instead for the emotional response of pressing forward and killing anyone who gets in his path, children and civilians included.
In an interview with CNN, Zelenskyy stated, “We were losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground. Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us.” In spite of that, he repeated his desire to meet with Putin stating that the situation could quickly escalate into “a third World War.”
The mission of the ISW, as stated on their website, is to “advance an informed understanding of military affairs through reliable research, trusted analysis, and innovative education.” The organization has conducted research all over the globe since its inception in 2007.