Putin’s inhumane war strategy is backfiring

The war in Ukraine changed fundamentally after Vladimir Putin failed to capture Kyiv and decapitate the regime there a year ago. His army settled into Russia’s traditional way of war: a slow, brutal, relentless slugfest. That strategy necessarily expends countless Russian lives. Human-wave attacks rely on untrained troops, dragooned from prisons or off the streets. The idea is to use these expendable men to weaken Ukraine’s front-line defences and then follow them with more sophisticated attacks by Russia’s battle-hardened troops.

This strategy has cost countless lives on both sides while producing only minor Russian gains. The big gains came immediately after the surprise invasion a year ago. Since then, Russia has only lost ground, sometimes gradually, sometimes swiftly, as when Ukraine retook Kharkov oblast in the north.

The losses have been horrendous. Russia has deliberately bombed civilian infrastructure: electric and water supplies, homes, schools, and hospitals.