Despite its lack of success in its planned blitzkrieg into Kyiv, Russian forces are now attempting to build on their more successful campaign along Ukraine's eastern frontier and its southern coastline. They may maintain a protracted offensive campaign. However, they will certainly demonstrate the same weaknesses and culminate well short of a strategic victory.

They may have improved some elements of their combat readiness, but it's very unlikely they learned enough from their pitiful performance so far, and many of their deficiencies (logistics and small-unit leadership) cannot be easily corrected in the near term.

More likely, another extended offensive will cost the Russian military dearly, and deplete their manpower and materiel resources. They are already facing significant losses in armored vehicles and manpower, attempting to pull in foreign fighters and mercenaries to augment the army. They also seem to be lacking a sufficient supply of precision munitions, thus the tendency to use massed artillery fire on fixed targets and civilian infrastructure.

Read the rest at Taylor & Francis here - 

Dr. Frank Hoffman is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, Center for Strategic Research at National Defense University. The views expressed are the authors own and do not reflect those of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.