Russia’s initial campaign to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and other major cities failed, an assessment by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) found.
The culmination of the initial Russian campaign is creating conditions of stalemate throughout most of Ukraine, ISW said. Russian forces are digging in around the periphery of Kyiv and elsewhere, attempting to consolidate political control over areas they currently occupy.
Stalemate will likely be very violent and bloody, especially if it protracts. Stalemate is not armistice or ceasefire. It is a condition in war in which each side conducts offensive operations that do not fundamentally alter the situation. Those operations can be very damaging and cause enormous casualties, ISW said.
If the war in Ukraine settles into a stalemate condition Russian forces will continue to bomb and bombard Ukrainian cities, devastating them and killing civilians. The Russians could hope to break Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting under such circumstances by demonstrating Kyiv’s inability to expel Russian forces. The Russians will fail at that, experts say.
The Russians appear to have abandoned plans to attack Odesa at least in the near term.
Russia may openly assemble forces for active duty. The Russian troops continue to take heavy losses in personnel, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said. Russia might amend the legislation to openly begin mobilization to recruit people to fight in Ukraine. There is a possibility that Russia will stage a series of provocations that will result in civilian casualties, “similar to what they did ahead of the second Chechen war,” the General Staff said.
Chernihiv, another martyr city. The Russian troops continue to attack Ukrainian cities and villages. A humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Chernihiv, the city mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said on March 19. There is no electricity, heat, and water. The Russian forces shelled the city hospital no. 2, the mayor added.
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Attack on nursing house in Luhansk region. On March 11, in Kreminna, in Luhansk region, the Russian troops fired from a tank on a nursing house. Fifty-six people were killed, and 15 more were abducted, head of the Luhansk regional military administration Serhiy Hayday said.
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