The first six months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine have resulted in an asymmetric stalemate, an outcome few predicted.
Russia had spent 10 times more on its military than Ukraine and the weapons gap in artillery, tanks, armored vehicles and military aircraft meant Kyiv's only hope was to hold out long enough for sufficient foreign military aid to arrive.
This was accomplished, in part by the tenacious resistance of Ukrainians fighting for their homeland, the poor planning by the Russian Army and its weakness in logistics and the reality it lacked the manpower to occupy Kyiv, population three million, much less the entire country.
Despite deciding to launch a new offensive in the more open landscape of the Donbas Basin, Russia has not achieved a decisive breakthrough. The stalemate has led RealClearDefense's Robert Purssell to compare the ongoing fighting to the First World War and, in particular, the Battle of Verdun.
Verdun came 18 months after the possibility of a quick German victory collapsed with the failure of the Schlieffen Plan. The failed knockout blow had turned into a war of attrition. Though neither side had gained the upper hand, the longer the conflict dragged on, the greater the Allied advantage in industrial and military resources would become.
Knocking the French out of the war by inflicting a decisive defeat just might turn the tide.
Purssell explains:
By January 1916, the German General Staff realized that their initial plan to rout the French forces, seize Paris, and defeat France had failed, consequently stalemating the German army in France and Belgium. Erich von Falkenhayn (Chief of the German General Staff) introduced an alternative strategy of using massive artillery bombardments to attrit the French army. Implemented in and around Verdun, the German attack launched on 21 February 1916 inflicted casualties and pushed the defenders back.
During the spring of 1916, the German attacks at Verdun, devoid of the element of surprise, produced a high German casualty rate for fewer and fewer gains. In June, the Russians launched their ‘Brusilov offense,' quickly devastating the Austro-Hungarian army. On 1 July, the Battle of Somme began. The demands of both Entente attacks forced von Falkenhayn to redeploy artillery and infantry away from Verdun. In the summer and fall of 1916, the initiative shifted away from the Germans to the French.
In late August 1916, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff replaced von Falkenhayn. The new leadership soured on the Verdun offense, and, with the trench lines approximately where the fighting had begun, the battle of Verdun ended on 18 December.
The Western Front's unalterable stalemate vexed commands on both sides of the trenches. Heralded as solutions, new weapons (poison gas) and tactics (mining under enemy positions) failed to deliver. Not until 1918, with the advent of massed tank formations, did the offense once again become a practical reality.
The ongoing offensive in eastern Ukraine began with a thunderous artillery barrage and initially significant gains, but Russia quickly lost the initiative.
Territorial gains along a front extending hundreds of kilometers have become minuscule. The use of portable anti-tank missile systems and suicide drones by Ukrainian forces to halt Russian advances draws comparisons to the silent images of machine guns pouring lead onto waves of infantry attempting to cross no man's land.
Historical comparisons are a matter of debate, but it is undeniable that the fighting is defense dominant between the U.S. and European-supplied Ukrainians and the larger but less advanced Russian Armed Forces.
So, what do you think? Will either side end the stalemate soon, like the Allies in 1918? Tell us in the comments below and while you're at it, let us know what other defense-related news you'd like to hear about!
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Ukraine & Zalenski & Nato Need to Accept that They are Guilty of Crimes against Humanity & the United State’s & Nato need to STOP Supplying Military Aid, since depleting the Military Arsenal put’s them in a Position of not being able to fend off an Attack by China & their Allie’s! The United States Needs to STOP Pushing the lgbt Agenda, of which is even turning the United States Allie’s against them. Everything Evil that has been done to the People is closing in on the Guilty & the sooner They acknowledge their error’s, the faster We will be able to End WWlll! The raising of the Violent Hand as in Hitler’s( Drug Experimentation) time need’s to be Put Down & chained to a Cannon Ball until they feel the heaviness of the Burden their way has been! They Cannot wash away the Blood on their hands any other way except to assume their Guilt, where a claim of Stupidity does not exist, for They knew better then that!
Go peddle your vile Kremlin propaganda somewhere else. Talk about “blood on their hands” — that is Putin and his supporters in spades. They have killed at least 150,000 Ukrainian civilians, 12,000 Ukrainian military, and (stupidest of all from their standpoint) 40,000 members of the Russian military.
Nice try comparing the current stalemate between Russia and the Ukraine and Verdun of WWI are a bit tenuous. The Ruskies are still on the losing end and the Ukrainians seem to be making slow but steady progress in pushing them back. It’s amazing what an armed populace will do in defending their country against superior forces. Biden and his minions might take note.
I agree. We need to stand together and at the ready. United we stand.
Yes I see the similarities here and how it may be going the same way. But since it is 100 years later, there are some other factors at play here that need to be addressed.
(1) The Navy is involved via the Black Sea more so than in WW1.
(2) Air fighting was brand new in the great war, now superior air power is a must. With the help of the Americans and Europe it may be possible for Ukraine to knock the Russian Air Force out of the sky much like the Allies did in WW2.
(3) Ukraine has the advantage at least for now with global communications of having the world on its side. Continuous rearms by America and a united Europe can keep it going. This war has brought on new fears in Europe of the big black bear making war in Europe and how the EU must be united and defend itself.
(4) Economic sanctions are seriously at global play here unlike 100 years ago.
Most of all, what about morale and support of the Russian people. Russian soldiers realized we were not attacked, instead we attacked our neighbor. The morale could be similar to the morale of Americans in the Vietnam War. ” What are we fighting for”? Could resistance at home knock Russia out of the war?
The problem is that Putin and his mentor have taken the attitude that they cannot afford a defeat and must win at all costs. The Russian World idea is that all the Slavic peoples must be united in it. Ukraine is first; then it will be the rest. The Russians have also framed this as a way to defeat the Western idea of democratic government which they see as unstable because we have elections and changes in government periodically. In this whole effort, they have the Russian Orthodox Church blessing their efforts, no matter what they do. In the Church’s eyes this has become a holy war to save Ukraine from decadent Western ideas and influence. So this war is far from over and may extend longer than our involvement in Afghanistan or theirs.
There is nothing “holy” about slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people in order to save them from becoming gay, or whatever kinky idea Patriarch Kuril may have had when he was encouraging Putin to invade. What Kuril has accomplished is the opposite of winning the allegiance of Ukrainian Orthodox. Instead, he has managed to alienate all Orthodox outside of Russia. except maybe for some in Serbia and Belarus.
That said, in just six months, Russia has already lost four times as many troops in Ukraine as we lost in 20 years of combat in Afghanistan. If the killing continues at the present rate, over such a 20 year span Russia will sacrifice the lives of 1.6 million young Russian men, to gain – what – perhaps 100 square kilometers of ground? Russians are not reproducing at replacement level as it is. Their society simply cannot afford to lose that many young lives, year after year. This is not 1946, when Stalin could persuade Russian mothers to pop out babies in assembly-line fashion.
That’s why I don’t care about Patriarch Kuril’s mania. Neither he nor Putin can long continue to send such a large proportion of the nation’s youth to die in a war of naked aggression without provoking a revolution.
Verdun was fixed forts, infantry & artillary for German win,
Today war is more Mobile, see Gulf War 1
IF the Ukraines have our weapons we sent them
The comparison is completely false. Russia has done what they sought and is now expanding on that. They have secured Crimea and ended the occupation of most of the Russian speaking portions of the land. They have a much stronger unification than before the war began which is an additional bonus. The Russian economy and currency is out performing the west.
Russia’s remaining objective is to denazify and and demilitarize the rest of the country. Can that be achieved? Time will tell.
There never were any substantial number of “Nazis” in Ukraine. The actual Nazis are sitting in the Kremlin, fomenting racial hatred against Ukraine and pretty much anyone else who doesn’t kiss Putin’s behind. As far as “securing Crimea” is concerned, you may not have noticed but Ukraine is effectively blowing up Russian military assets in Ukraine wherever and whenever it wants.
Also, there was no “occupation” of predominately Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine until Putin sent his goons pretending to be “separatists” into Donbas in 2014. Mariupol was majority Russian-speaking before the invasion. Russia has accomplished the deaths of about 100,000 civilians in Mariupol, and their city is now a sea of rubble. Congratulations. You don’t have to worry about them starting to speak Ukrainian.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by “unification,” other than having the police beat up peaceful demonstrators on the streets of Moscow and hauling them off to prison. You can have that kind of forced “unity.”
The claim Russia spent 10 times more on its military than Ukraine rings hollow. It fails to acknowledge America’s massive expenditures on Ukraine’s behalf. That is money America must borrow, further weakening its fiscal state to a point of strategic overextension. The final blow will be when America loses the reserve currency and must purchase Russian and Iranian energy with devalued currency because it also stopped producing its own energy. That will soon become known as The Green Raw Deal for Americans.
Yes, it is discouraging indeed. Mostly Democrats and sadly many Republican politicians I fear will never grow up and realize that they must NOT spend more money than they earn. Nixon was the devil in that he established ‘normal’ commerce with Communist China, from which they have benefited more than we have, and also he nixed the gold standard. The dollar is now floating in an abstract lala land with no visible means of support and we and our children and grandchildren will pay the bitter price. Look at what everything costs today. I feel sorriest for the younger generations seeking a house. It is simply not right to build new houses starting at $300K. Who can pay that? Who can pay the property taxes? Who can afford the utilities?
$300,000 will not even buy a vacant lot in my neighborhood, but I share your concern. The answer is that, with oil at $100/bbl, my son and anyone else working in the “fossil fuel” industry CAN afford a house at that price. In a free market, high prices spur increases in supply, which then act to bring prices down until equilibrium is reached.
Agreed 100% about Nixon, except that in terms of the gold standard and China, Humphrey would not have been any better, and McGovern would have been far worse.
What you are missing is the underlying strength of the US economy. I am no fan of the Democrats’ reckless deficit spending, but a $21 trillion economy can survive despite a bit of that. The key to the vigor of the US economy is economic freedom. We have it. You don’t. At $1.8 trillion, and rapidly shrinking, Russia is an economic lightweight. And having alienated most of its export market as well as those who supply Russia with high-value imports, Russia has no way to expand its economy any time soon.
The one valid point you make is the insanity of the Democrat plan to have the US “stop producing its own [carbon-based] energy.” But that piece of stupidity has a shelf life of only about three months. Democrat control of Congress is about to disappear, to be replaced by Republicans committed to expand US domestic energy production.