So, is this war really stalemated?

I do have to ask the question: is this war really stalemated? I see lots of commentators saying so, and even a few articles that the Ukrainians are winning. Yet, the situation on the ground sort of indicates otherwise.

First, Mariupol is about to fall. This is/was a city of 400K+ people, If Russia is still taking major cities, is this war really stalemated?

And then once Mariupol falls, this will certainly free up significant forces. Where do they go and what do they do?

Meanwhile, Chernigov is surrounded, Sumy is almost surrounded, Kharkov is half-surrounded, and Kiev is only open to the south. What would be the focus of the next Russian advance?

Russia still has:
1. Air Superiority,
2. Thousands of tanks, and
3. Lots of firepower.

They may have been attritted by 5 to 10%, but a lot that capability is still there. So, what is next?

My suspicion is that they will pursue one of two lines of advance.

1. Either advance from Mariupol towards Zaporizhzhya and Dnipro, or,
2. Complete the encirclement of Kharkov and start their next big siege of the campaign.

We will see what happens after Mariupol falls (which I am guessing will be in the next week), but I don’t think we are done with ground operations yet (meaning I don’t think this is really stalemated).

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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7 Comments

  1. Mariupol is their big connector with Crimea.

    I am doing a map exercise, I might shift my axis of advance further west. Pushing west along the coast or north into the interior. Now that you have Mariupol, your flank is more secure.

    But if I am military brass, worried about being arrested for failure, I think I’d do my best to shift what I could toward Kiev with a hope of accelerating operations there. Give the boss some quick good news.

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