Russia’s New War of Attrition

A battle is raging in Pokrovsk, located in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. It is part of Russia’s attempt to encircle Ukrainian forces stationed there. The intent is to take control of a strategic area near the Black Sea, outside the region that Russia occupied during the more stable phases of the war.

What’s more interesting than the strategy is the tactics Russia is employing – far different from what it has used in the past. The initial invasion in 2022 consisted of several separate and relatively narrow thrusts designed to achieve a rapid victory. One was meant to seize the capital of Kyiv, while the others were meant to penetrate central Ukraine. The strategy was designed to shatter and sever Ukrainian forces and, ultimately, occupy the country. Though the central thrust failed, the eastern thrust yielded the 20 percent or so of Ukraine that Russia had already occupied in recent years.

These failures forced Moscow to adopt a new strategy of massed forces in an attempt to overrun and destroy Ukrainian defenders along the front held by the eastern thrust. In other words, what began as rapid movement on multiple fronts became a battle of mass warfare that stalled in equal parts because of effective Ukrainian defenses, drone strikes against Russian forces and logistics problems that halted advances.

The battle that is now raging is different. The intent here is to systematically destroy Ukrainian forces in smaller, multiple engagements consisting of commensurately smaller forces.