Converting disappointment to ‘something productive’

Military expert Dara Massicot discusses Ukraine’s elusive battlefield breakthrough and the long war ahead

Earlier this fall, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief told The Economist that the war with Russia has reached a “stalemate.” General Valery Zaluzhny said military technology has resulted in a deadlock that he compares to the First World War, arguing that next-generation weapons and methods are needed for the “deep and beautiful breakthrough” many hoped for at the outset of Kyiv’s 2023 counteroffensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has challenged General Zaluzhny’s assessment, though members of his administration admitted in an interview with TIME magazine that Western allies have left Kyiv “without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it.” To understand why Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive went as it did and what to expect from Russia and the West in the months ahead, Meduza spoke to Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasia Program and a former senior analyst for Russian military capabilities at the U.S. Defense Department.

“The UAF [Ukrainian Armed Forces] are fighting in terrifying combat conditions there that few can fathom,” said Dara Massicot, when asked why Kyiv’s troops failed to make significant progress in this year’s much-hyped counteroffensive. General Zaluzhny is right, explained Massicot, that any deep breakthrough is unlikely “for now.” She pointed out that Russian troops had nearly a year to dig in, building multilayered defensive belts, mining the terrain extensively, and “adding density” with mobilized personnel. Russia also leveraged its airpower, jamming equipment, and drones against advancing Ukrainian units.

Given the role of military technology (particularly Russian airpower), many of Ukraine’s most outspoken supporters criticize leaders in Europe and the U.S. for taking too long to deliver F-16 fighter jets and long-range ATACMS missiles. “Western weapons perform well in the hands of UAF operators, but a greater quantity is needed,” agreed Massicot. However, she stressed that “neither F-16s nor ATACMS can clear minefields or take down the drones that guide artillery fire onto UAF units.”

Massicot said she can’t assess the hypothetical outcome of earlier weapons shipments to Kyiv. Still, she observed that the Russian Air Force has demonstrated a capacity to change tactics as the reach of Ukraine’s weapons grows. Now, it avoids flying too close to Ukrainian air defenses. “It stands to reason that they could adopt similar conservative tactics if confronted with airborne F-16s,” she said.

Massicot also acknowledged that Western audiences might find it difficult to hear assessments that “the Russians are capable of learning and improving, are resilient in their own way against multiple economic and military setbacks, and have been preparing for a long war since last fall.” She urges anyone disappointed by these revelations to “convert it quickly into something productive” by rethinking “how the West can support UAF military strategy” and how it can help “build the future force of Ukraine.” “There is time and opportunity to do this,” Massicot told Meduza.

What direction should Western support take Ukraine’s “future force”? According to Massicot, “an enduring vulnerability for Russia is the relatively small number of its launch platforms that are capable of firing precision munitions, such as ships, bombers, and ground-based systems like the Iskander.” She explained that Ukraine is already targeting ammunition on trains and in depots before it can reach the front, but the UAF cannot reach many of these assets except for the Black Sea Fleet. While Ukraine hopes to diminish Russian strike capacity by “destroying the archer and not his arrows,” Moscow seeks to keep its adversaries “fixed in an attritional battle of defensive positions, artillery fires, and long-range missile strikes,” believing that it can win such a war over time.

In recent weeks, Russia has shown its “willingness to expend resources at high cost for small territorial gains” in limited offensives in Donetsk and Luhansk (especially in the assault on the city of Avdiivka). Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continue to pressure Russian forces in the south near Zaporizhzhia. Massicot told Meduza that both Ukraine and Russia could carry out more long-range strikes soon, whether or not there is progress on the ground. Meanwhile, over the last two months, Russian troops have fired fewer missiles at Ukraine, leading to concerns in Kyiv that Moscow is “stockpiling them for large barrages this winter that will stress Ukrainian air defenses,” said Massicot.

The biggest surprise this fall in Russia’s invasion has been the Israel-Hamas war, which has diverted the world’s attention from Ukraine and worried Kyiv about U.S. resolve. Still, Massicot told Meduza that Washington can manage the two crises because they belong to “different staffs and experts at the working level.” “Militarily, there is not much overlap in the crises, with the exception of certain types of artillery munitions. Unfortunately, those inventories are already under strain,” she explained.

Strained weapons inventories have exposed shortcomings in current Western commitments to Ukraine, said Massicot, but she argued that it would be a mistake for Moscow to believe that Russia can overcome NATO’s military-economic potential. “To be clear, the entire military-economic potential of NATO has not been activated for this war. Russian security officials presumably know this,” Massicot said. At the same time, Russia’s ramped-up production of missiles, artillery systems, and drones (if we assume the reported figures are accurate) makes it clear that “the Russian government is preparing for a long war as best they can without upsetting domestic stability.”

Returning to the dangers of disappointment when hearing such assessments of Russia’s military resolve, Massicot told Meduza that she thinks it is nevertheless too soon to conclude that the war is turning in favor of the invaders. “There are some matters of political will in the West and production trends that need to be addressed, but they can be addressed,” she said.

Interview by Kira Kiseleva

Adapted and abridged for Meduza in English by Kevin Rothrock