[Analyse] After a month, will the conflict in Ukraine turn into a war of attrition?

A month after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nothing is going well for the Kremlin’s armed forces which, far from having waged the blitzkrieg hoped for by Moscow on February 24, are getting bogged down in the face of resistance from the former Soviet republic.

However, the unexpected turn taken by this unjustified aggression of Ukraine by the Russian cousin, even if it gives hope daily to the Ukrainian fighters on the ground, is far from being a good omen for the future. It could announce, in fact, the beginning of a war of attrition in Ukraine, a scenario from which neither party is likely to come out a winner.

“It’s more and more likely,” drops retired Colonel Pierre St-Cyr, ex-Canadian Defense Attaché in Ukraine during the 2014 conflict, on the other end of the line. It doesn’t have the thrust it had in the early days. It has lost 30% of its equipment, 20% of its human capacity and finds itself with impoverished and inefficient logistics. This leads him to take more defensive positions and to review his strategy, the time to regain strength and refuel.

After the failure of the rapid capture of kyiv to install a government in the pay of the Kremlin, after the destruction of Mariupol without having succeeded in taking complete control of the port city, “the Russian operations have changed”, indicated on Wednesday , the head of British Defense Intelligence, Jim Hockenhull, at a press briefing in London.

In the process, he assured that the Kremlin was now pursuing “a strategy of attrition”, in the face of Ukrainian resistance, and this, after having been unable to achieve its “initial objectives”. “This will involve the irresponsible and indiscriminate use of firepower” and “will result in more civilian casualties, the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and intensify the humanitarian crisis”, he warned.

War of attrition ? The term was born at the beginning of the last century, during the First World War, the toll of which, with more than 40 million dead and wounded, was as heavy as it was appalling. Faced with the blocking of the advance of some by the resistance of others, the staffs of the parties involved then devised this strategy aiming not to retreat, but rather to maintain their positions, with the sole objective of reducing the forces of the adversary by attrition.

An enemy repelled

This is what appears to be happening around kyiv or Kharkiv where this week scattered and localized fighting did not allow Russia to make advances aimed at encircling the country’s two largest cities, according to the American Institute. for the Study of War (ISW). “Effective and limited counterattacks” by the Ukrainian military have also relieved pressure on the capital this week, leaving the conflict in a stalemate that some have tried to see this week as the start of a victory.

“I eat khinkali [des raviolis géorgiens très populaires dans la cuisine ukrainienne] in downtown kyiv at the moment, summarized on Thursday on Twitter the journalist of Kyiv Independent, Illia Ponomarenko. I don’t know what could be a better indicator that Ukraine is winning this war”.

A scene of calm, before another storm: the war of attrition also doing much more damage among civilians, warns Mr. St-Cyr. “In this type of war, the way to maintain its presence is by reinforcing its aggressiveness, by destroying the country to affect the morale of the civilians until the other gives in. This is the vicious side of such a strategy”.

“The Ukrainian forces certainly continue to be impressive, summarized in an interview with the Homework political scientist Bohdan Kordan, a specialist in Eastern European geostrategy at the University of Saskatchewan, but a war of attrition remains possible, unless significant security assistance is provided to Ukraine”.

He adds, “The United States has provided 100 Switchblade attack drones, but the country would need 4,000 to 5,000 more for a decisive turn on the battlefield.”

Chemical threat

On Thursday, NATO member countries, meeting in an extraordinary summit in Brussels, agreed to send Ukraine protective equipment against chemical, biological and nuclear threats, a risk deemed increasingly high. by Westerners.

But French President Emmanuel Macron also called for “discretion” and “strategic ambiguity” on actions that could be interpreted by Moscow as Western intervention in Ukraine, while the stalemate of positions comes to light after increasingly explosive conflict.

“In the medium and long term, the advantage will always be with the Ukrainians, says Bohdan Kordan. Russia might be able to capture Mariupol, Mykolaiv, Izium and even Kharkiv, but they can never control these urban centers. As in Baghdad, they will then have to create green zones in these cities which will give the illusion of being controlled during the day, but which will be dominated by fear at night. »

According to him, a long-term occupation of Ukraine, in such a context, “is not desirable” for Moscow, which could then above all seek to “obtain a decisive result in the short term”, he says.

On Friday, a Ukrainian intelligence report pointed to May 9 as a Russian target to end this war, with a Kremlin victory, according to Ukrinform, the press service of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This date is symbolic for the Russians. It is commemorated each year as the day when, in 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered to Russia. But the goal might be difficult to achieve.

“The Russian higher command is either atrophied or seriously incompetent. Demoralization and fear are high among Russian troops. This is at least what the numerous interceptions of communication show. You can sense the panic among the infantry battalions that accompanies an unsustainable level of loss for the Kremlin,” continues Mr. Kordan.

Last stand and frustration

This week, NATO estimated between 7,000 and 15,000 the number of Russian soldiers who had fallen in combat on the Ukrainian battlefield — Moscow publicly acknowledges 1,351 — this is almost as much as the losses recorded in 10 years by Vladimir Putin’s army in the conflict in Afghanistan. Among them the deputy commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Andrei Palii, who died in action near Mariupol, and who came this week to extend the list of senior Russian army officers who perished at the front, a sign that the Kremlin’s military operation is far from taking the direction envisioned by Vladimir Putin.

“Given these losses, the Russians are likely to resort to the strategy of greater lethality, of which chemical weapons can be a part,” Kordan believes. And if that were to happen, it’s hard to predict what will follow. But one thing is certain, Westerners will have no other choice but to oppose a rapid and severe response, since this would be perceived as an existential threat”, and perhaps also as the beginning of the end.

“What puts an end to the war, just like the war of attrition, says Mr. St-Cyr, is the attrition of the armed forces, on one side or the other, but also the call populations who, in the face of the massacre, end up no longer supporting their government. This is what ended the First World War. This is what also influenced the end of the Vietnam War”.

An end still uncertain for the Ukrainian conflict because of the irrational character of the Russian leader who initiated the confrontation, says Bohdan Kordan. “Putin is an old-school imperialist. His whole worldview is based on the use of force, on the acquisition, consolidation and application of power”. Attributes, which in the context, are necessarily conducive to disaster, as much by prolonging a war, as by plunging it even more into horror and destruction.