Ukraine might be having a tough summer, but it doesn’t mean they’re losing the war.
Ukraine had a difficult few weeks: a paused Patriot license, a Starlink restriction, a fired defense minister, and a wave of coverage is reading that as proof Ukraine is losing the war. I use the same tactical/operational/strategic framework every U.S. military officer learns, plus 2,200 years of battlefield history from Cannae to Vietnam, to show why Russia is winning exactly one of those three levels, tactical, and it's the one that doesn't decide anything.
I agree completely Russia is losing, but that became evident pretty early on IMO. With long Russian columns that didn't move, parachutes that were shot while still in the air, and tanks blowing up left and right shot by agile small and cheap manpads. And of course the giant failure of not being able to take Kiev which was supposed to fall within a few days.
The incompetence of Russia in this war was very clear I'd say already from day one. Of course they could have won despite the incompetence, because of the massive attack. But Ukraine showed impressive resilience, and that they could fight smarter.
And that's basically how it's been for 4½ years now.
And now Russia is so exhausted they can't keep up with Ukraine on equipment either. The drone war is a very clear example. Drones became a factor pretty quickly, and Russia managed to outproduce Ukraine early on, and have a steeper trajectory for the number of drones used on the battle field and for long range attacks. But that trajectory stopped about 1½ year ago, and has been about static for Russia since then. While for Ukraine it really began to take off about 2 years ago, and already a year ago Ukraine surpassed Russia, and today they have 3 times more drones than Russia!
So are there really still people that think Russia is winning?
But still interesting perspective to show historical precedent.
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