Ukraine stalemate sets stage for possible winter escalation

With the war in Ukraine grinding through its 10th month, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition, which could set the stage for a new round of escalation.

Many observers see the current deadlock as beneficial to Ukraine, allowing it to receive more state-of-the-art weapons from the West and prepare for new counteroffensives. In Russia, there is a growing sense of desperation among hard-liners about what they see as President Vladimir Putin’s hesitancy and lack of a clear strategy.

Military analysts note the fighting is likely to intensify again shortly as the soil freezes. Many point to Russian-occupied areas in the south as the most likely place for the next Ukrainian attack.

“The ground needs to properly freeze before you can move vehicles with more freedom,” Justin Crump, a former British tank commander who heads security consultancy Sibylline, told The Associated Press.

He noted that while it’s harder to sustain military operations in colder weather, it will reopen opportunities for more maneuvering, and “as the winter goes on, both sides will have a growing offensive capability.”

Crump argued the Ukrainian military could try to reclaim parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia region and push toward the strategic port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. That would allow Ukraine to cut Russia’s land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Mariupol fell to the Russians in May after a nearly three-month siege that left much of it in ruins.

Independent Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov also argued that the Zaporizhzhia region seems a likely target of the next Ukrainian offensive.

“The Ukrainian artillery and rocket systems have concentrated their strikes there,” he said, adding that the military has targeted Russia’s supply lines in the area like it did during a counteroffensive in the neighboring Kherson region that led to a Russian pullback from the capital of the same name.

Russia, which has suffered humiliating military setbacks in recent months, has called up 300,000 reservists to compensate for its heavy battlefield losses. Putin said last week that half of them were still being trained at firing ranges away from the front lines.

“Russia is trying to build up a better striking force rather than just throwing people into the front line,” Crump said. “They think they can last the course and come back in greater numbers next year and do something much more impressive then.”

While working to bolster its attacking force, the Russian military also has stubbornly pressed its effort to ram through the multilayered Ukrainian defenses in the eastern region of Donetsk in dogged trench warfare reminiscent of World War I, making slow progress in recent weeks.

Crump observed that Russia’s apparent strategy behind relentless attacks on the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region is to try to force Kyiv to keep a sizable number of troops there and inflict heavy losses.

“It’s all about buying time, lasting the course, grinding down the Ukrainians,” he said. “They want to just reduce the capability of the Ukrainian armed forces by … killing Ukrainian soldiers and destroying Ukrainian equipment faster than Ukraine can generate them.”

Ukraine, in turn, has tried to keep its opponent off balance with surprise attacks, some of them deep inside Russia.

In a watershed development last week, Moscow acknowledged that Ukraine hit its strategic air bases located more than 300 miles east of the border with modified Soviet-made drones. Ukraine hasn’t openly claimed credit for the strikes, but the country’s top security official said that Kyiv considers all Russian territory fair game for such attacks.

“Whether or not they have a significant impact on Russian military capability, they’re certainly shattering Russian morale and causing deep confusion,” Crump said of the Ukrainian strikes.

Since October, Moscow has particularly focused on pummeling energy facilities and other key infrastructure with missile and drone strikes in an apparent hope of breaking the will of the Ukrainians and forcing Kyiv to negotiate on Russia’s terms. On Friday, Russian forces launched a new barrage of missiles at several cities, Ukrainian officials said, resulting in significant power cuts.

“The strikes on the energy infrastructure are aimed at inciting social tension and raising pressure in order to push for talks,” Zhdanov said, adding they haven’t had much impact on the capability of the Ukrainian army, which has mostly relied on diesel generators. He noted Russia’s attacks have only strengthened Ukraine’s resolve by “causing anger and and a desire to take revenge.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the bombardments have destroyed half of his country’s infrastructure, urging the U.S. and other Western allies to quickly provide more air defense weapons to fend off the attacks.

U.S. officials said this week that Washington is poised to approve providing Ukraine with a battery of Patriot air defense missile systems, a potent weapon capable of shooting down Russian missiles.

The Kremlin argues that by providing Ukraine with such weapons, training its troops and sharing military intelligence, NATO has effectively become a party to the conflict. It warned Washington the Patriot systems and any U.S. personnel deployed to train Ukrainian troops on using them will be a legitimate target for Russia.

In remarks last week that reflected growing concerns about escalation, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the fighting could spin out of control and morph into “a major war” between the alliance and Russia.