occupy everything Ukraine to increasingly localized offensives to conquer city by city. From two weeks at the most to a military campaign with no deadlines: reality on the ground and strong resistance from Ukraine forced Russia to do so redefine your strategy twice in a hundred days of warfare.

“Ukraine forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to do it twice to lower their military targets, ”the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said this week.

The battle for Kiev

First, Ukraine defeated Russia in the battle for Kiev, as Russian forces were unable to take the Ukrainian capital and depose President Volodimir Zelensky in a lightning-fast operation.

The first bath was actually suffered by Putin and the Russian General Staff with the attempt to do Hostomel Airport, 35 kilometers from the capital, with 200 paratroopers, who were surprised by the Ukrainian armed forces, who were aware of their plans and managed to quickly regain control of the airport.

The second blow to the Kremlin and to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is the destruction of armored cars, artillery and other Russian vehicles by the Ukrainian troops when the convoy tried to advance into the kiev region in a kilometer column e exposing completely towards the capital.

At the end of March there was no other way than to give up on the goal occupy the capital and with it the seats of government and parliament, e the Russian army withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernikov regions, both in the north of the country.

First change: retreat to the North

Withdrawal revealed the terrible devastation and mass graves in what Ukraine has denounced as “war crimes” in cities around Kiev, such as Irpin, Bucha or Borodyanka, massacres that Moscow has categorically denied.

That was the first time that Russia had to change strategy.

“The military potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which will allow us to focus our attention and major efforts on achieving the main goal,” the liberation of Donbas“, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu justified the withdrawal on 29 March.

At the same time, on the southern front, Russia was more successful. At the beginning of March, the Russians took control of the city of Kherson – the only provincial capital taken in the 100-day military offensive – with Berdyansk and Melitopol.

They also began the siege of the strategic port city of Mariupol, key to the creation of the long-awaited land corridor from the Donbas to the annexed Crimean peninsula.

At the end of April, Russia declared Mariúpol, in southeastern Ukraine, to be taken -belonging to the Donetsk region, in Donbas-, a symbol of Ukrainian resistance and of the largest humanitarian catastrophe so far special military operation.

With the commercial and fishing port in Russian hands, Russia actually had its own earth corridordespite the more than 2,400 Ukrainian soldiers and fighters who would have resisted until May 20 at the Azovstal steel plant, keeping around 20,000 Russian soldiers busy to delay the final offensive on the Donbas.

The change of strategy to “free” everything in the Donbas -an important industrial and mining belt- it has not even achieved the expected results.

Second change: further narrow the focus

Ukrainian resistance stopped the alleged large encirclement of Kiev troops by Russian forces in multiple directions simultaneously in Lugansk and Donetsk, from the south, north and east.

“We are not rushing to meet a specific deadline,” Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said last week in justification of the slow Russian advance in Ukraine, while Shoigu said the pace of the offensive was “deliberately” slowed down to save civilian lives.

Putin has been forced to focus in recent weeks complete the seizure of the Luhansk region alone, where pro-Russian separatists controlled about a third of the territory before the military campaign. Now they make 95%.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine which was supposed to take and occupy the whole country has been transformed a desperate and bloody offensive capturing a single city while defending important but limited conquests in the south and east “of the country, ISW said.

Refers to the current Russian offensive a take the city of Severodonetsk, in Lugansk, and to the three defensive lines set up by Russian forces in the south, currently the subject of a Ukrainian counterattack in some places.

The fall of Severodonetsk, the last major city still in Ukrainian hands in this region, it would allow Russia to declare full control of Luhansk.

Russian troops they have not been able to advance on any other axis for weeks.

The Russians are making very limited progress in the territories still under Kiev’s control in the Donetsk region, and they found it difficult to break the line of contact established before February 24, when Putin launched the Russian military intervention.

The initial plan to descend from the city of Izium in the south towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, – the two main cities of this region under Ukrainian control – it has been standing still for weeksalthough the General Staff is already warning of Russian preparations to resume the offensive.

If Putin will have to change strategy a third time it will depend on developments on the battlefield, but Ukraine has already warned that it only hopes to have enough heavy and powerful weapons from the West for a counter-offensive.

EFE

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