The Russian army is failing – but not enough to lose the war

There have been three major surprises for military analysts since the Russian military invaded Ukraine.

The first has been the extent of the difficulties faced by the Russian army in terms of logistics, coordination of forces, morale and mobility. The second has been the failure of the Russian air force to achieve air superiority over Ukrainian air defences, and to operate against Ukrainian ground forces at scale. The third has been the extraordinary unity and effectiveness of the Ukrainian resistance, which has significantly slowed the Russian advance in the north of Ukraine and inflicted major personnel and vehicle losses on Russian forces on all fronts.

Unfortunately, none of these factors change the overall prognosis that a military victory for Russia during the conventional combat phase of this war is very likely.

There is substantial evidence after a week of Russian military operations against Ukraine that its armed forces received little to no warning that the invasion was about to take place.