Russia’s protracted war on Ukraine may be reaching a turning point

Battling Russia’s invasion for the third year, Ukraine remained locked in an unequal fight in 2024. It struggled to muster external and internal resources to challenge Russia’s advantages in a war of attrition while Russia went all-in in an attempt to seize the remainder of the Donetsk region. In the first 11 months of 2024, ACLED records a 63% increase in the average monthly battles in Ukraine compared to 2023, resulting in steady territorial gains for Russia. After a four-month-long siege, Russia seized Avdiivka, a key Ukrainian stronghold north of Donetsk city, in February. Short of ammunition and personnel due to delayed United States military aid and mobilization legislation amendments, Ukraine struggled to contain Russia’s ensuing assault toward its logistical hub of Pokrovsk. Anticipating the arrival of aid, Russia launched an offensive in the direction of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in May. Despite becoming embroiled in fighting on the border, it diverted Ukrainian forces needed elsewhere. In June, Russia further stretched Ukrainian forces by taking on Siversk and Toretsk to the north and south of Chasiv Yar — a hilltop town that Russian forces have struggled to seize since capturing Bakhmut in 2023. Similarly, Ukrainian forces invaded parts of Russia’s Kursk region in August to slow Russia’s advances in the Donetsk region. Yet, instead of redeploying troops, Russia doubled down on its offensive in Ukraine, and the pace of occupation only increased closer to year-end, especially after the fall of Vuhledar, another fortress town in the southern part of the Donetsk region.

Russia gained the upper hand thanks to a steady supply of personnel and equipment despite staggering losses of both.¹Mediazona, ‘Russian losses in the war with Ukraine,’ accessed on 14 November 2024 The exact numbers are unclear, but Russia has contracted around 30,000 soldiers a month,²Katya Bonch-Osmolovskaya and Sonya Savina, ‘More Soldiers at All Costs,’ Important Stories, 1 August 2024 recommissioned thousands of armored vehicles from Soviet stocks,³Yohann Michel and Michael Gjerstad, ‘Equipment losses in Russia’s war on Ukraine mount,’ International Institute for Strategic Studies, 12 February 2024 and has mitigated shortages of shells and missiles with imports from North Korea and Iran.⁴Dan Sabbagh, ‘North Korean arms more significant than troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine,’ The Guardian, 21 October 2024;  Parisa Hafezi et al., ‘Exclusive: Iran sends Russia hundreds of ballistic missiles,’ Reuters, 21 February 2024 Yet, the chief factor may have been Russia’s growing advantage in the air. In the first 11 months of 2024, ACLED records on average more than double the number of Russian air and drone strikes in Ukraine per month compared with 2023. Russia’s upgraded aerial bombs⁵Dan Peleschuk, ‘Key facts about Russia’s highly destructive ‘glide bombs,’ Reuters, 25 September 2024 — launched beyond the range of the Ukrainian air defense — leveled Ukrainian positions and wreaked havoc in cities close to the Russian border or occupied areas, especially Kharkiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhia. Russia overwhelmed Ukraine’s stretched air defense systems with long-range drones, paving the way for its missiles.⁶Riley Bailey and Frederick W. Kagan, Special Report: ‘Russian Strikes More Effective as Ukraine Exhausts Defenses,’ Institute for the Study of War, 12 April 2024 Having hoarded enough of the latter by March, Russia resumed bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Unlike its previous drone-led campaign that targeted energy distribution facilities from October 2022 to March 2023, Russian missile attacks mostly struck power plants, depriving Ukraine of 80% of its thermal generation capacity⁷United Nations News, ‘Russia can’t win on the battlefield, so it’s finding other ways to torment Ukrainian civilians, Zelenskyy tells UN,’ 25 September 2024 and inducing rolling blackouts across the country. 

Apart from aiming to hobble Ukraine’s economy and defense output, the campaign against its energy infrastructure was also in retaliation to escalating Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s internationally recognized territory as Ukraine caught up in the long-range drone race.⁸Tamar Jakoby, ‘How Ukraine’s Drone Industry Took Flight,’ Foreign Policy, 6 July 2024 Since mid-2024, there has been an exponential increase in the number and geographic spread of these attacks, soaring from under 600 in 2023 to over 6,500 spread across the entire European part of Russia. Targets ranged from military airfields and ammunition or drone storage sites to oil facilities, one of which stayed ablaze for over two weeks in August and September.⁹Nate Ostiller, ‘Oil depot fire in Russia’s Rostov Oblast extinguished after more than 2 weeks, authorities say,’ The Kyiv Independent, 2 September 2024 The escalating air war and Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region led to Russia climbing from a consistently turbulent ranking on the ACLED Conflict Index in January to a high and worsening ranking in July and notching up another nine points in December. While Russia faced no policy constraints in targeting the entire Ukraine with its highly destructive missiles,¹⁰Guntram B. Wolff et al., ‘Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-a-vis Russia,’ Kiel Institute for the World Economy, September 2024 Ukraine had to make do with domestically produced drones. Only in November did the US partially lift restrictions on long-range strikes on Russia’s internationally recognized territory with US-supplied or designed missiles in response to North Korea’s growing involvement in the war.¹¹Adam Entous, Eric Schmitt, and Julian E. Barnes, ‘Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles,’ New York Times, 17 November 2024 Meanwhile, Germany — the second largest contributor to Ukraine’s war effort¹²Kiel Institute for the World Economy, ‘Ukraine Support Tracker,’ accessed on 14 November 2024 — refused to send its longest-range missiles altogether as Russian President Vladimir Putin issued nuclear threats.¹³Associated Press, ‘Putin signs new Russian nuclear doctrine after Biden’s arms decision for Ukraine,’ 19 November 2024; Meduza, ‘We are prepared for any turn of events’ In a televised speech, Vladimir Putin claims a hypersonic missile attack on Ukraine and warns the West of more to come — Full transcript,’ 21 November 2024

What to watch for in 2025

If the incoming Trump administration chooses to cut aid to Ukraine,¹⁴Reuters, ‘Trump says US needs to get out of Ukraine war,’ 24 September 2024; ​​Paul McLeary and Jack Detsch, ‘Biden team prepares to rush last-minute aid to Ukraine,’ Politico, 6 November 2024 it may undermine the consensus among Ukraine’s backers that it should be able to defend itself.¹⁵European Commission, ‘Ukraine Compact,’ 11 July 2024 Russia’s steamroller advances along the frontline may also sap morale in the European Union. Furthermore, its member countries are likely to focus on arming themselves in response to a possible US disengagement from the region and a hostile Russia.¹⁶The Economist, ‘Vladimir Putin’s spies are plotting global chaos,’ 13 October 2024 This will increase pressure on Ukraine to sue for peace. Cutting a deal will prove daunting, however. Ukraine’s experience of negotiating with Russia’s low-ranking officials at the height of the latter’s blitzkrieg attempt on Kyiv in March 2022 suggests that Moscow will not settle for anything short of Ukraine’s capitulation.¹⁷Anton Troianovski, Adam Entous, and Michael Schwirtz, ‘Ukraine-Russia Peace Is as Elusive as Ever. But in 2022 They Were Talking,’ The New York Times, 15 June 2024 Russia demands that Ukraine cede four regions that Russia annexed in 2022 (in addition to Crimea seized in 2014) and disavow its aspirations to join NATO as a precondition for a ceasefire and subsequent talks.¹⁸Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, ‘President of Russia Vladimir Putin’s speech at the meeting with senior staff of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, June 14, 2024,’ 14 June 2024 Meanwhile, Ukraine is unlikely to accept the de facto partition without security guarantees that would preclude another Russian attempt to conquer the rest of the country. To strong-arm Ukraine into an unfavorable arrangement, Russia may ratchet up violence along the frontlines, as it did during the 2014 to 2015 ceasefire talks in Minsk that temporarily froze the war with Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In addition, Russia may scale up the bombing of Ukrainian hinterlands and completely disrupt Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.¹⁹Dominic Culverwell, ‘Ukraine braces for winter freeze amid potential Russian strikes targeting nuclear power,’ The Kyiv Independent, 11 October 2024    

Should a negotiated settlement prove elusive, waning international support for Ukraine may encourage Russia to continue seeking a breakthrough along the frontline. With record military spending of 6% of GDP slated for 2025,²⁰Alexander Kolyandr, ‘Russia Budgets for its Forever War,’ Center for European Policy Analysis, 11 October 2024 Russia has broadcasted its willingness to persevere. It is not obvious whether it has the means apart from its oil-driven wealth, which only increases despite US and EU sanctions. It may run out of stock of Soviet tanks and armored combat vehicles by mid-2025,²¹Dara Massicot, ‘Russian Military Reconstitution: 2030 Pathways and Prospects,’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 12 September 2024 rendering the rate of equipment loss in 2024 untenable. Record high signing bonuses²²Alexander Voronov, ‘The price of military contract on the rise,’ Kommersant, 11 October 2024 and an apparent lack of troops to defend Russia’s border areas could suggest that the pool of contracted recruits may be shrinking. Nevertheless, a shortage of personnel may be of lesser concern as Russian authorities may tap into North Korea’s vast troops²³Alberto Nardelli and Michael Nienaber, ‘North Korea May End Up Sending Putin 100,000 Troops for War,’ Bloomberg, 17 November 2024 or again resort to forcible mobilization.  

Even if US military aid to Ukraine were to continue, the acute shortage of personnel on the Ukrainian side might hinder efforts to stabilize the line of contact, let alone undertake another attempt to reclaim occupied territory. The loss of heavily fortified areas near Avdiivka and Vuhledar in the Donetsk region pushed Ukrainian defenders to weaker fortifications.²⁴Josh Holder et al., ‘Surprisingly Weak Ukrainian Defenses Help Russian Advance,’ The New York Times, 2 March 2024 Vulnerable to Russian aerial bombs, they may be less efficient in staving off Russian advances into neighboring Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. More troops and resources may be needed to defend Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions as Russian forces may continue seeking to create buffer zones to shield their border regions from Ukrainian strikes and shelling.   

As the three-year war possibly approaches a turning point, Ukraine continues to rank at the top of the ACLED Conflict Index for deadliness. With about half of its 40 million population continuously exposed to escalating conflict-related violence per ACLED’s Conflict Exposure estimate and close to 7 million people displaced abroad since Russia’s all-out invasion,²⁵United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Operational Data Portal, ‘Ukraine Refugee Situation,’ accessed on 14 November 2024 an exhausted and outgunned Ukraine will face the prospect of resisting further encroachment on its territory, protecting its inhabitants from Russian attacks and their consequences, and persuading allies to stay the course.