OSW Commentary - A war not won, a war not lost. The military situation after 100 days of the Russian aggression against Ukraine

Some of the operations carried out in cooperation with the Americans, which resulted in the deaths of top-ranking leaders in command positions, seri- ously discredited the aggressor.6 The losses of regimental and brigade commanders, who joined the fight as commanders of battalion tactical groups delegated by their subordinate units (instead of the command being assigned to the commanders of the ba. [...] The Russians moved from manoeuvring activities to trench warfare, mustering their forces in the south between the border of the Kherson & Mykolaiv oblasts and the eastern part of the Kharkiv oblast, focusing on the capture of the Donbas. [...] Russia’s defeat in the first period of the war should be seen within the context of the strategic concept devised by Vladimir Putin (it is hard to attribute it to anyone else), in which the political requirements regarding the shape of the military operation were given unquestionable priority over the actual needs in terms of its conduct as based on the principles of the art of war. [...] If the current level of support (in terms of the amount and nature of the armaments & military equipment provided by the West) remains at the present level, then the Ukrainians have no chance of levelling the imbalance in equipment and tak- ing the military initiative, not to speak of halting and displacing the enemy from Ukrainian territory. [...] A full-scale evaluation of the state and possibilities of the Russian army is thus premature (leaving aside the lack of reliable information), just as it was incorrect to assess the potential of the US army through the lens of the war in Vietnam.15 To change the military situation in Ukraine’s favour requires a significant increase in the supply of heavy weapons (including offensive weaponry) to t.