Key Points – Russia is reportedly achieving its core objectives in Ukraine—securing annexed eastern oblasts, maintaining a land bridge to Crimea, and ensuring Ukraine’s non-NATO, neutralized status—through a disciplined war of attrition, not by holding back out of fear of Western escalation.
-Despite Ukrainian counter-efforts, like a recent bomber strike deep into Russia, Moscow advances by fighting “smarter, not harder,” leveraging superior artillery production, a resilient wartime economy, and Ukraine’s mounting manpower crisis.
-This approach, focused on limited, achievable goals rather than total conquest, suggests Russia is on track to win on its terms, a reality the West has yet to fully acknowledge.
How Russia Is Winning the Ukraine War
Russia is not holding back in Ukraine because it’s afraid. It’s holding back because it doesn’t have to do more to win. That’s the part no one in Washington or Brussels wants to admit.
Over three years into a war that was supposed to wreck Russia’s economy, fracture its leadership, and humble its ambitions, the Kremlin has done something far more dangerous than escalate: it has fought with discipline. And the results speak for themselves.
Even yesterday’s dramatic Ukrainian bomber strike deep inside Russian territory – a bold, almost theatrical move designed to reassure Western sponsors – does not change the reality on the battlefield. Russia is advancing. Ukraine is eroding. And the war is being waged on Moscow’s terms. The restraint we see is not weakness. It’s a deliberate choice, grounded in a coherent strategy and growing confidence that Russia is already on track to achieve what it set out to do.
That doesn’t mean Russia wants to conquer all of Ukraine. It doesn’t. The Kremlin’s war aims have been consistent since the earliest weeks of the conflict: secure the four eastern oblasts already annexed; maintain the land bridge to Crimea; and ensure that what’s left of Ukraine is kept permanently outside NATO – politically fractured, economically dependent, and militarily neutralized. These are not the aims of a state pursuing some neo-imperial fantasy. They are limited, achievable objectives grounded in traditional strategic logic.
And they are being achieved.
Western commentators still insist that Russia’s goal is the total absorption of Ukraine. That belief is not just mistaken – it’s dangerous. It blinds policymakers to the nature of the war that’s actually being fought. Clausewitz reminds us that war is a political act, not a spasm of blind aggression. Russia’s campaign, for all its brutality, reflects this principle. Moscow has used violence to serve a specific political purpose. It has fought to shape the map, not redraw it entirely.
That’s why so much of the Russian military remains uncommitted. The air force has not been unleashed in full. Long-range missile strikes are calculated and limited. Elite ground units are rotated and preserved. Mobilization has been partial and politically controlled. This is not a desperate lurch toward victory. It’s a slow, grinding campaign designed to break Ukraine without exhausting Russia.
The 1 June bomber raid doesn’t change any of that. It may generate headlines in Europe and fuel social media triumphalism, but it doesn’t reverse the long-term trends on the ground. Ukraine is running out of men. Mobilization is flagging. Draft resistance is growing. The conscript pool is aging. Meanwhile, the West – despite its promises – can’t manufacture manpower. It can send weapons, yes, but it cannot conjure an army out of thin air.
Russia understands this. And it has calibrated its entire campaign around it.
This is a war of attrition, and Russia is winning it by fighting smarter, not harder. It now produces more artillery shells than all of NATO combined. Its domestic drone production has exploded. Its defensive lines are deep, layered, and fortified. Sanctions have hurt, but the Russian economy remains functional. Trade with China, India, and much of the non-Western world has blunted the effects of Western economic warfare. The Kremlin has built a wartime economy that can absorb punishment and still deliver steel, shells, and soldiers.
On the battlefield, the payoff is becoming visible. Avdiivka has fallen. Ukrainian units are being pushed back in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. Russia is not sprinting toward Kyiv. It is digging in where it matters – securing territory it now considers part of the Russian Federation, fortifying the land corridor to Crimea, and reducing Ukrainian access to the Sea of Azov. These are not symbolic moves. They are strategic facts. And they are not being undone by sporadic long-range strikes or fleeting Western weapons packages.
Russia’s approach is ugly, but it is rational. Clausewitz’s core insight – that war must be subordinate to political purpose – is being played out in real time. Total conquest would be madness. Occupying western Ukraine would trigger endless insurgency and drain Russian resources. Moscow doesn’t want to own Lviv. It wants to eliminate Ukraine as a NATO proxy. That’s it.
And unless something changes dramatically, that is what it is going to do.
Still, Western leaders cling to the same old illusions. They tell themselves that because Russia hasn’t taken all of Ukraine, it must be failing. That because it hasn’t collapsed under sanctions, it must be on the brink. But Russia isn’t collapsing. It’s adapting. It’s fighting with just enough force to achieve its aims – and keeping the rest of its power in reserve.
If Ukraine’s manpower crisis worsens, and if Western support continues to arrive late or in insufficient quantities, Russia’s current gains will harden into a new status quo. A de facto partition of Ukraine will follow. Kyiv will be amputated, dependent, and unable to recover strategically. And Russia – having achieved its goals – will shift to consolidating the postwar order. Not in triumph, but with cold satisfaction.
Russia’s Ukraine Strategy Is Simple to Understand
This is not the war the West thought it was getting. It’s not a crusade. It’s not the Second World War. It’s a limited war for limited objectives. And Russia is winning it—not by unleashing everything, but by using just enough.
The comforting fiction that Russia is holding back because it fears Western escalation needs to be buried. Russia is holding back because it doesn’t need to do more. It is achieving its goals – carefully, incrementally, and on schedule.
If the West doesn’t wake up to that reality, it won’t be surprised by some sudden escalation.
It will be blindsided by the quiet truth that the war is ending – and that Russia got exactly what it came for.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.
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redmi
June 2, 2025 at 8:58 am
Right now, Russian ground forces are holding the initiative against their foe in eastern Ukraine, but it has nothing to do with Putin’s brilliance.
Putin has been an incompetent leader, now clearly showing his ineptitude in prosecuting the fight against the nazis horde.
But eventually, Putin will have to be replaced, by someone with guile and gumption.
Putin has gone past his use-by date and therefore he needs to step aside.
One look at Putin easily reminds one of Richard Nixon.
When Nixon resigned he said “I led the American people down.”
Unlikely Putin would display that rare show of grace made by nixon.
Most likely, Putin would leave only after some violent struggle. And no apologies.
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