International
Russia-Ukraine live: UN warns war ‘will have no winner’
The war in Ukraine has demolished the myth of Russian military might, cemented the Western alliance, bifurcated global finance and trade and devastated Ukraine’s economy.
The conflict, triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour 100 days ago, has also re-taught military lessons learned decades if not centuries ago, according to experts.
“We’re realising that firepower is the basic factor determining developments on the battlefield,” said Konstantinos Grivas, a professor of geopolitics and modern weapons systems at the Hellenic Military Academy in Athens, Greece.
“We’ve seen how important artillery is on both sides – nothing terribly advanced – multiple launch rocket systems from the sixties, and rockets … with long-range and high accuracy and high destructive power,” he told Al Jazeera.
Russia fell back on its superior firepower because it has lacked good strategic planning. A month into the war, it gave up attempting to deliver a knock-out blow to Ukraine.
“Russia set a broad political goal that couldn’t be achieved with military means … it was impossible with the forces deployed,” says Panayotis Gartzonikas, a former armoured division commander in the Hellenic Army and lecturer at Greece’s National Defence College.
Its second strategy appeared to be an encirclement of all of Ukraine’s forces in the country’s east, as it established bridgeheads at Popanska and Izyum from which to effect a pincer movement. That, too, appears to have been abandoned in favour of a direct bludgeoning of Severdonetsk, the easternmost city in Ukrainian hands, and smaller encirclements elsewhere.
Sometimes Russia has lacked tactical competence. Ukrainian forces decimated the Russian 74th Motorised Rifle Brigade last month as it attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces were caught in transit and reportedly suffered heavy losses. There have been reports of Russian mutinies amid the incompetence.
“Russia’s conventional military threat to Europe was overestimated,” said Grivas.
The United Nations crisis coordinator for Ukraine has warned the war “has and will have no winner” as Russia’s offensive enters its 100th day.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser says Kyiv does not plan to use advanced rocket systems supplied by the United States to attack targets within Russia.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence says Russia holds more than 90 percent of Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk and will likely take full control of it within the next two weeks.
The UN has confirmed more than 9,000 civilians have been killed amid the conflict, adding the true figure is likely “considerably higher” with ongoing hostilities making efforts to count the dead difficult.