Keith D. Dickson and Yurij Holowinsky
After 1,000 days of war, there seems to be no end in sight. Ukrainian forces have pushed into the Kursk Oblast, occupying the Sudzhansky Rayon and have a tentative grip on the territory, creating a bulge that must be defended, while serving as an occupying force. Russian forces batter relentlessly against entrenched Ukrainian defenders from Kupyarsk to Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbas. Although both sides put their hopes in fielding a new weapons system or missile will change the course of the war, it is a false hope: this is a war of attrition. Despite Russia’s often admired sophisticated concepts of war at the operational level, the Russian armed forces are incapable of applying them. Their leadership has neither the imagination, nor do their combat units have the training, to conduct sophisticated joint operations or combined arms maneuver. Russian forces have naturally, almost unconsciously, reverted to the model of war their grandfathers and great-great grandfathers understood: simple, straightforward, uncomplicated, unsophisticated infantry assaults backed by mass artillery strikes with the belief that enough men and steel thrown against the enemy will eventually break them. It has been the approach from the Masurian Lakes to Grozny. The Russians accept casualties at a rate that has astounded their enemies for over 100 years; the Russian soldier is capable of enduring atrocious conditions that would destroy the morale of any other army. New wrinkles have been introduced, with mostly indiscriminate rocket and missile attacks and the arrival of thousands of mercenaries from around the globe along with North Korean combat troops. Yet, the model of simple attrition is unchanged. The enemy inevitably wears down before the Russian steamroller wears down.
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