Update 53: Russia's war with Ukraine

30 November 2023

Overview

The Russia-Ukraine war, which began in the spring of 2014 with Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and was transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, shows no sign of ending. It has been for some months now widely characterized as a grinding war of attrition, as the casualties, destruction and collateral damage have reached proportions not seen in Europe since World War II. Russia is engaged in a slow-moving campaign in eastern areas of the 1,000km frontline. Ukraine has registered limited progress in a counteroffensive launched in the east and south in June.

In an intelligence update on 28 November, the UK Ministry of Defence said Russia had made small advances on the northern axis of a pincer movement as part of an attempt to surround Avdiivka, adding “Although Avdiivka has become a salient or bulge in the Ukrainian frontline, Ukraine remains in control of a corridor of territory approximately 7km wide, through which it continues to supply the town”. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army said on 19 November that it had pushed Russian forces back “three to eight kilometres” from the banks of the Dnipro river, which if confirmed would be the first meaningful recent advance by Kyiv’s forces. Ukrainian and Russian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the vast waterway in the southern Kherson region for more than a year, after Russia withdrew its troops from the western bank in November 2022. The president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak was reported as saying on 15 November that Ukrainian forces had secured a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. Russia’s military said on 10 November that its forces had thwarted such an attempt, killing about 500 Ukrainian soldiers in the process. The claim could not be independently verified.

Both the existence of the stalemate and its causes are contested. In an interview with the Economist published on 1 November, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Gen Valery Zaluzhny (arguably the best placed to opine on this matter) said the war in Ukraine was moving to a new stage of positional warfare involving static and attritional fighting. He warned that this “stalemate” could benefit Moscow and said his army needed key new military capabilities and technological innovation to break out of the new phase of the war. However, in an interview with the Guardian, Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and influential historian of eastern Europe, said Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help by “dropping five more queens on the board”, arguing that continuing high levels of military aid could allow Ukraine to prevail. Former NATO commander retired Gen. James Jones said that the offensive was hampered by its lack of airpower, which allowed Russia to put mines down in areas where it thought Ukrainian forces might try to advance. Other analysts suggest that having used up limited supplies of soldiers and weapons, and given that the West cannot provide what Ukraine needs, it is a formula for Ukraine's eventual collapse or capitulation, rather than stalemate.

The intensive use of armed drones by both sides in the conflict has been a significant feature of the war. This drone war intensified in November. Russia sent waves of kamikaze drones into Ukraine on 25 November in what Kyiv claimed was the most intensive drone attack since the start of the war. Five people were wounded by falling debris, the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said. Several buildings, including a kindergarten, were damaged and about 17,000 people in the Kyiv region were left without electricity. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 74 of the 75 drones launched in the attack. Meanwhile, in Russia a day later, 24 drones reportedly attacked the Moscow region and three other provinces to the south and west, while two Ukrainian missiles were launched over the Azov Sea. One person was injured in the city of Tula, south of Moscow, when an intercepted drone hit an apartment building, it was reported.

It was revealed this month that Russia offered to end Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022 if Ukraine agreed to drop its ambitions to join NATO, according to David Arakhamia, the head of the Ukrainian President’s political party, who was present at peace negotiations. Eighteen months later, and despite the bloody stalemate and a growing war weariness, diplomacy to end the war remains stalled.