Russia underestimated Ukraine’s resistance: US
Experts say Moscow still has formidable combat power it has not used, will learn lessons from the setbacks, and work through it to seek to achieve its military objectives.
The US believes that while Russia may have had challenges in the initial phase of its invasion of Ukraine - largely because it underestimated the nature of Ukraine’s resistance and overestimated its own ability to take over Kyiv - Moscow still has formidable combat power it has not used, will learn lessons from the setbacks, and work through it to seek to achieve its military objectives.
Experts suggest that it is precisely because of the setbacks that Russia faced over the weekend - it has not been able to capture a single city even as its aggression has drawn global flak - that Russia has begun deploying more destructive power in the coming days, with mounting human costs.
Stiff resistance from Ukraine: Pentagon
On Monday, John Kirby, Pentagon spokesperson, said, “We know clearly they have intentions with respect to Kyiv. What we have also seen is Ukrainian resisting quite effectively, around Kyiv. And Russians have not only experienced a stiff and determined resistance by the Ukrainians but also logistics and sustainment problems of their own.”
But, Kirby added, that it was day five of the invasion and it would be premature to arrive at any “sweeping conclusions” about the Russian military. “Make no mistake, Putin has still, at his disposal, significant combat power. He hasn’t moved all of it to Ukraine…Yes, they have faced setbacks…but they will learn from this. They have suffered setbacks, but I don’t think we can just assume they are going to stay set back, if you will. They will try to work through the resistance and…the challenges they have had on the logistics and sustainment front.”
The Pentagon said that in its assessment, Russia was a “few days behind where they expected to be at this stage”. But it once again underlined the dynamism of the situation. “It’s war and wars can be unpredictable. And I don’t think anybody, including, perhaps especially, Ukrainians are sniffing at Russian capabilities they are facing.”
Russian forces launch offensive in Kharkiv
On Tuesday, Russia appeared to have stepped up its offensive and adopted more lethal means, including a strike in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the world about Russia’s “war crimes”, in terms of targeting civilian population, and said, “Today, Russian forces shelled Kharkiv using rocket artillery. This is, without any doubt, a military crime. A peaceful city, a peaceful residential neighbourhoods, not a single military object in sight.”
Writing on Saturday, Lawrence Freedman, one of the world’s foremost strategic thinkers at King’s College London, noted that the coming days would be “rougher and rougher”.
He wrote that the first big surprise of the war had been the failure of the Russian leadership to take advantage of their prolonged military build up to design and implement an effective offensive. “Yet, when the moment came, instead of some Russian equivalent of ‘shock and awe’, there was a curiously haphazard and incoherent offensive.”
Freedman outlined what he saw as Russia’s mistakes - the failure to take out Ukraine’s air force and air defences, the dash into Kyiv to replace Zelensky which led to setbacks, the pressure on supply lines. But all of this meant that Russians now appeared to have opted for a “more ruthless strategy” relying more on artillery, which will add to cost to civilian life and property.
Freedman added that the next stage of the conflict would now be urban warfare.