A new Financial Times story gives a map-based, video-based summary of the Russian military campaign so far, including speculation on just why Russian forces appear to be doggedly continuing with the original plans for capturing major Ukrainian cities despite that campaign having already failed. Through most of Russian-held territory, Russian tactics have produced not just a territorial stalemate, but Russian equipment losses so severe that most current Russian efforts appear to be focused solely on shoring up what remains.
The Financial Times piece ponders, as we all are, why the Russian military has continued to carry out initial orders despite the seeming failure of the strategy—most famously represented, at this point, by Russia continuing to add vehicles to the already-gridlocked and endangered tens-of-kilometers-long convoy north of Kiev. One theory is that Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin is personally giving the orders, so his generals couldn't change strategies even if they wanted to; while it fits pleasantly with historic narratives of obsessed dictators running their own militaries into the ground in national attempts to create whatever imaginary victories Dear Leader has rattling around his own head, it is still not as likely as the other major hypothesis: an institutional failure.
It is not that the Russian military is stuck following the orders of a micromanaging incompetent, says that theory. It is that the Russian military is literally giving all it has to give, and cannot support alternative strategies. The logistical chains are not there. The replacement equipment is not there. The planes are not attacking timidly out of Russian caution, but because a good chunk of those planes are not airworthy to begin with—and because Russia has been unable to defeat Ukrainian air defenses.
We have little evidence for the micromanaging dictator theory, but we have great gobs of evidence hinting at the paper tiger theory. The seeming nonexistence of large-scale Russian tactical maneuvers has been baffling outside military analysts; abandoned Russian equipment speaks eloquently to the nation's inability to find fuel to send only a few kilometers across their own borders.
This does not absolve Putin, of course. It was his kleptocratic rule that prioritized corruption and sycophantic loyalty over competence and expertise, to the extent that the Russian military is subservient to that corruption rather than above it.
All parties expect the next phase of the war to look like past Russian campaigns. Rather than making tactical moves, the only effective Russian military attack strategy has been the use of artillery to level cities such that there are no more civilians there to resist—a strategy now being brought to bear in Mariupol. This is a strategy that best lets Russian military leaders ignore their military's inability to fight effectively in actual combat; while Russian troops take the defensive positions their battle groups are designed for, commanders can level civilian population centers from afar, achieving "victory" by erasing whatever they are supposed to be capturing while easing the burden of occupation by forcing the residents to flee as refugees.
But this is not and has never been a strategy. It has simply been the only path the Russian military has been able to use, in recent decades, to accomplish anything beyond minor tactical victories. It has long been noted as evidence of the Russian military's particular cruelty and predilection to war crimes, but we are seeing now that it may have become Russian doctrine solely because the corruption within the armed forces is so severe it has rendered the army incapable of doing anything else.
This tactic has not, however, been tried against a Russian foe that itself has enough military prowess to potentially dislodge those artillery positions. It has been used against cities whose military protection has been far slimmer than what Ukrainian defenders have offered up, and we do not know for absolute certain that even this rote Russian move will not itself collapse.
The supply lines to Kyiv are long, and Ukraine has its own artillery moving into position. Ukrainian air defenses are strong, and Russian planes are at great risk in each sortie. And Ukraine has shown considerable success in recent days in pushing back, and even potentially surrounding, Russian forward positions.
The Russian army appears to have one trick left—total devastation. But it relies not just on defending artillery positions, but defending the long, long supply lines bringing food and ammunition to the troops firing those weapons. Even Russian generals may be worried, at this point, about what happens to their war-crime trump cards north of Kyiv if Ukraine's defenders manage to recapture some of the ground behind them.
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