Key Points and Summary – As Russia attempts to distract its populace with festivals, a new strategy is emerging for Ukraine: take the fight directly to the Russian homeland.
-A retired U.S. Army Colonel argues that Kyiv should abandon its unsustainable “attrition game” and embrace “mobile warfare.”
-This bold new approach would use drones and air-delivered minefields to strike deep into Russia, disrupting supply lines and making daily life difficult for ordinary Russians.
-The goal is to shift from a defensive posture to an offensive one, making the war economically and politically unsustainable for the Kremlin.
Ukraine Plans to Make Russia Pay
Back in July, Ukraine launched a series of drone attacks, which, per The Guardian, took up airspace above Moscow’s airport and Russians’ travel plans.
More recently, per the New York Post, Ukraine has launched another drone attack, which struck mines that Moscow’s fighters had placed under resupply routes. Per United 24 Media, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has declared that at the end of Russia’s spring-summer offensive, no significant results were achieved.
“Russian troops did not gain complete control over any major city,” Ukraine said, per a translation of the statement on Telegram. In what were described as “senseless battles” in several different regions of Eastern Ukraine, “the Russians have lost nearly 210,000 of their soldiers killed and wounded,” the General Staff said.
And one Russian vlog as shown above, from “Lisa with Love,” points to economic trouble for Russia, in the form of 25 percent mortgage rates. The Bank of Russia cut a key interest rate last month, but it was down to 18 percent, which is still very high by worldwide standards.
But the continuing war has certainly had an everyday effect on Russian civilians, and there have been hints in recent months that Russia could be headed towards recession.
Could this be a way forward in the war, to take the fight to Russia, and make life difficult for ordinary Russians, rather than merely defending Ukraine’s existing territory and fighting to win back territory that’s been lost?
A New Strategy?
One retired American colonel gave an interview last month in which he urged a new strategy for Ukraine in the war.
Per Kyiv Post, retired Army Colonel Richard Williams has called for Ukraine to abandon its “attrition game,” which he calls unsustainable. Williams was Deputy Director of the Armaments Section in NATO’s Defense Investment Division. This strategy has had some victories, including the liberation by Ukraine of a village in Donetsk Oblast this week, but progress has been slow.
“Across its line of engagement, or front, Ukraine is attriting weekly… on a greater scale than it is itself being attrited,” Williams said in the interview, adding Putin, by contrast, is working with “a seemingly endless pool of reserves.”
So What Should Ukraine Do?
“Ukraine now needs to take the initiative from the enemy,” he said in the interview. They should now instead embrace what he calls “mobile warfare.”
This means an emphasis on “local, short-term air and artillery superiority.”
The key to that is what has worked in recent weeks: Drones.
He suggested using “fast, air-delivered minefields on their flanks and employing drones on deeper enemy lines of communication.”
The View From Moscow
Meanwhile, as reported over the weekend by the New York Times, Moscow launched a months-long festival known as Summer in Moscow, meant to get Russians’ minds off the war, especially the 13 million people who live in Moscow.
The Times describes the festival as a “shining emblem of the government’s multibillion-dollar efforts to turn the Russian capital into a giant carnival and keep Muscovites in a state of perpetual distraction from the grinding war in Ukraine.”
Is it working? The Times cited a survey by the Russian polling outfit Levada, which found that 57 percent of those surveyed say that they’re satisfied with their lives- the highest number since the poll was first launched, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
T-90M. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The Times did note, however, that “the government budget to prop up the appearance of plenty is running low.” And of course, the summer has to end sometimes, and now it has.
The question remains unanswered as to whether Ukraine can find a successful way to take the fight to the Russians in a way that makes Russia’s war effort unsustainable.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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