Three war scenarios for Ukraine

Is Russia running out of troops?

Two recent developments have offered reason to wonder. First, Russia has had to turn to outside troops — like those from the Wagner Group, a private company — to replenish their units, as my colleague Thomas Gibbons-Neff explained in his recent analysis of the war. Second, Putin ordered some of the troops involved in recent victories in the Donbas region to rest, suggesting that those units were exhausted.

“American officials and outside analysts both agree if Russia wants to move beyond the Donbas, they will need to take a step they have been unwilling to do: a mass mobilization,” Julian said. “Russia will need to conduct a military draft, recall soldiers who previously served and take politically painful steps to rebuild their force. So far, Putin has been unwilling to do so.”

Russia has many more resources than Ukraine, including soldiers and weapons. But Russia’s resources do have limits, especially if Putin is unwilling to spend political capital on a mass mobilization.

These limits raise the prospect that Ukraine can hold Russia’s gains to the east and slowly exhaust Russian troops with counterattacks and internal resistance — as well as Western economic sanctions. That situation, in turn, could lead Putin to accept an eventual cease-fire that leaves most of Ukraine intact.