Ukrainian forces continue to grimly repel Vladimir Putin’s invaders as war drags on

The present sta­tus of Vladimir Putin’s war of aggres­sion in Ukraine is very flu­id, vio­lent, and fre­quent­ly star­tling. NPI will try to err on the side of cau­tion when evi­dence behind claims or state­ments are lacking.

Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces have been unsuc­cess­ful in a direct attack toward Kyiv from the north­west and have been attempt­ing to posi­tion them­selves to the south­west of the city for a direct assault while assem­bling forces to the north­east and main­tain­ing pres­sure from both the north­west and the west­ern suburbs.

One con­se­quence of this may be an attempt to steal a march on Ukrain­ian forces and take the Kaniv Hydro­elec­tric Dam. Con­stant bom­bard­ment of Kyiv’s sub­urbs  to force out defend­ing Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary units and cre­ate large num­bers of refugees by artillery, mis­siles and now air­craft is the norm, though much of the city prop­er is still rel­a­tive­ly qui­et in comparison.

In the north­east, the cities of Cherni­hiv, Sumy and Kharkiv are either sur­round­ed or are under severe attack by artillery and/or missiles.

The Russ­ian mil­i­tary is appar­ent­ly mov­ing what­ev­er forces they can spare from these sieges to advance toward the Dnipro Riv­er and even­tu­al­ly an attack toward the east­ern sub­urbs of Kyiv, but there are also reports of assem­blies of Russ­ian forces from mul­ti­ple direc­tions with the goal of final­ly tak­ing Chernihv.

In the south, the coastal city of Mar­i­upol and the town of Vol­no­vakha to its imme­di­ate north have been sur­round­ed and are under­go­ing severe bom­bard­ment by Russ­ian forces. Elec­tric­i­ty, heat and potable water are no longer available.

Two cease­fires were bro­kered to allow civil­ians to leave both loca­tions, but Russ­ian forces were accused of main­tain­ing their fire with­in the pre­scribed cor­ri­dors for evac­u­a­tion and the effort was suspended.

What was orig­i­nal­ly declared a third attempt appears to have been actu­al­ly a request for civil­ians to sur­ren­der to Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces.

Fur­ther west along the south­ern por­tion of Ukraine, the Zaporhizhia Nuclear Pow­er Plant, near the the embat­tled town of Ener­ho­dar, was tak­en on Fri­day, March 4th by Russ­ian forces. A por­tion of the nuclear facil­i­ty was dam­aged by shelling but as of this moment it’s believed that the pow­er plant itself was undam­aged. Russ­ian forces in this area and from with­in the occu­pied city of Meli­topol may be orga­niz­ing for an attack on Zaporizhzhia.

The city of Kher­son has been tak­en by Russ­ian forces, but there have been demon­stra­tions with­in the town by Ukrain­ian civil­ians against their occu­pa­tion, in response to which a cur­few has been declared by Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces and mines laid with­in a perime­ter around where mil­i­tary units are bivouacked near the city cen­ter.  There was an attempt to advance fur­ther north and assault the port city of Myko­laiv from Kher­son, but that has so far failed. There are also rumors that a por­tion of the force fight­ing around Myko­laiv may bypass it in order to advance direct­ly on the Yuzh­noukrain­sk Nuclear Pow­er Plant to the northwest.

Ode­sa has been rel­a­tive­ly qui­et in recent days, with Russ­ian naval forces near­by, but there is a gen­er­al con­sen­sus between mil­i­tary observers and the news media that once the Russ­ian mil­i­tary believes it has a cleared and secured route between Myko­laiv and either through the Crimean Bridge or Mar­i­upol to the near­by Russ­ian city of Ros­tov-on-Don, there will a com­bined amphibious/land assault on Odesa.

West of Ode­sa, the nation of Transnis­tria, which broke away from Moldo­va in 1991 with Russ­ian sup­port, has demand­ed recog­ni­tion of their inde­pen­dence from Moldo­va, pub­licly dis­agrees with Moldova’s attempt to join the Euro­pean Union  and their Russ­ian peace­keep­ing force has been placed on high alert.

How­ev­er, Pres­i­dent Vadim Kras­nosel­sky has also declared his nation’s intent to not be involved in the inva­sion of Ukraine.

As stat­ed ear­li­er, Transnis­tria can only be accessed by air through Chișinău Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Moldo­va, but the Rus­sians could make a rough land­ing with an air­borne unit or two on flat ground imme­di­ate­ly west of the Transnis­tri­an cap­i­tal, Tiraspol, then head south­east toward Odesa.

Beyond pro­vid­ing ade­quate logis­tics to such an effort, the key prob­lem is that Moldo­va and per­haps even Roma­nia, which has a close rela­tion­ship with Moldo­va and is a mem­ber of NATO, are both very like­ly to con­test an attempt to land at either loca­tion. Only Abk­hazia, the Repub­lic of Art­sakh and South Osse­tia, all break­away republics brought into being and sup­port­ed with Russ­ian arms, rec­og­nize the inde­pen­dence of Transnistria.

Anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty is invad­ing Moldo­va after suc­cess­ful­ly occu­py­ing Ode­sa, since it was once con­sid­ered part of the Russ­ian Empire, but that would run the risk of con­flict with a NATO coun­try, as Roma­nia would seek to pro­tect Moldova.

This option was alleged­ly shown in a pre­sen­ta­tion by Pres­i­dent Lukashenko of Belarus. When the Belaru­sian ambas­sador to Moldo­va was asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion, he stat­ed that the pre­sen­ta­tion had been pre­pared incor­rect­ly by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian Defense Min­istry. This might not be tak­en at its word, giv­en that two B‑52s and a KC-135 tanker were noticed cir­cling near the Roman­ian-Moldovan bor­der very ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing, Bucharest time. It would not be unrea­son­able to expect a small por­tion of the NATO muni­tions and weapons going to Ukraine through Roma­nia remain­ing in Moldo­va or Roma­nia, just in case.

Keep in mind that the “front lines” in most loca­tions across Ukraine are quite flu­id, espe­cial­ly as Ukrain­ian pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary and ter­ri­to­r­i­al defense forces have attacked Russ­ian sup­ply con­cen­tra­tions and relat­ed logis­ti­cal groups wher­ev­er vul­ner­a­ble to attack, and as the Russ­ian Air Force has been unable to achieve air supe­ri­or­i­ty over the battlefield.

Add to this poor main­te­nance of bat­tle­field vehi­cles, an appar­ent byprod­uct of siphon­ing intend­ed mil­i­tary spend­ing into oth­er pock­ets, and the sum­ma­ry result has lead to spec­u­la­tion that the the effec­tive­ness of the Russ­ian mil­i­tary, even with their suc­cess in the south, may be sig­nif­i­cant­ly overrated.

High rank­ing Russ­ian offi­cers have some­times respond­ed to this sit­u­a­tion by “lead­ing from the front” in order to min­i­mize con­fu­sion and unit paralysis.

It may have led to the death of a Russ­ian reg­i­men­tal com­man­der, Colonel Kon­stan­tin Zizevsky, a deputy brigade com­man­der, Lieu­tenant Colonel Denis Gle­bov, and the deputy com­man­der of the 41st Com­bined Arms Army, Major Gen­er­al Andrei Sukhovet­sky, accord­ing to the Russ­ian military.

There have been rumors and assump­tions that the Belarus mil­i­tary would soon join the Rus­sians present­ly on the ground in the attack on Ukraine, since the attack on Kyiv has come in part from stag­ing areas in Belarus.

Chief of the Gen­er­al Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus Vik­tor Gule­vich has appar­ent­ly resigned in protest against Belarus’ cur­rent sup­port of the inva­sion of Ukraine. This may be a sign that Belaru­sian forces may soon enter Ukraine itself.

There have been three report­ed attempts to assas­si­nate Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Zelen­skyy since the start of the war.

The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment has stat­ed that anti-war ele­ments with­in the FSB, Russia’s equiv­a­lent to the FBI, have pro­vid­ed warn­ings before­hand regard­ing at least two of these attempts. Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin led the FSB between mid-1998 and his ascen­sion to Prime Min­is­ter of Rus­sia in mid-1999.

Over one and three quar­ters of a mil­lion Ukrain­ian refugees have left the coun­try, with most enter­ing Poland. Whether or not the Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ments can reach a mutu­al agree­ment to pro­vide safe cor­ri­dors with­in Ukraine for civil­ians to leave the coun­try with­out fear of being attacked, many more are expect­ed to leave Ukraine over the next few weeks.

(By com­par­i­son, over six­ty-six thou­sand Ukraini­ans liv­ing abroad, almost all of them men, have returned to Ukraine to fight in the war,though at present the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary has only con­firmed over twen­ty thou­sand have entered the coun­try and are being pre­pared for combat.)

Of course, this inva­sion is hap­pen­ing in the mid­dle of a pan­dem­ic, where Ukraine suf­fered 25,000 new cas­es on its last day of record­ing them, Feb­ru­ary 24th, and where Rus­sia suf­fered over 88,000 new cas­es on March 4th. Recent war­fare in cen­tral Africa, Syr­ia and the Cau­ca­sus region high­lights how refugee camps adja­cent to Ukraine and sanc­tions regard­ing med­ical sup­plies and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals against Rus­sia have the poten­tial to cause as much dam­age as from com­bat itself.

On Tues­day, March 1st, Amer­i­can satel­lite inter­net provider Viasat announced that it had been the vic­tim of mul­ti­ple cyber­at­tacks, poten­tial­ly by a group favor­able to or the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment itself. The com­pa­ny has been a pre­ferred choice for com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary through­out the invasion.

On Wednes­day, March 2nd, the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly vot­ed in favor of a Unit­ed Nations res­o­lu­tion demand­ing that Rus­sia “imme­di­ate­ly, com­plete­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly” with­draw its mil­i­tary forces from Ukraine.

Only five nations — Rus­sia, Belarus, North Korea, Syr­ia and Eritrea — vot­ed against the motion, while thir­ty-five nations, includ­ing Chi­na, Cuba, Kaza­khstan, Azer­bai­jan, Tajik­istan, Pak­istan, India and Iran, either were not present for the vote or abstained from voting.

A for­mer pro­duc­er for FNC, Jack Han­ick, was charged on Thurs­day, March 3rd, with vio­la­tions of sanc­tions put in place by the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States in 2014 in response to the Russ­ian occu­pa­tion of the Crimea, which at the time had been con­sid­ered Ukrain­ian territory.

There has been some frus­tra­tion between the gov­ern­ments of Israel and the Unit­ed States regard­ing Israel’s reluc­tance to join in the sanc­tions regime cur­rent­ly in place against Rus­sia, which may soon include the end­ing of Rus­si­a’s most-favored-nation sta­tus with­in the World Trade Organization.

One line of thought is that Israel is mak­ing use of its most recent diplo­mat­ic chan­nels with Rus­sia, estab­lished to ensure that Russ­ian and Israeli forces don’t fire on each oth­er by mis­take as Israel tar­gets Iran­ian, Hezbol­lah and Syr­i­an mil­i­tary units, to serve as an inter­me­di­ary toward an even­tu­al cease­fire and end to the war. (This inter­pre­ta­tion was rein­forced by Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Naf­tali Ben­net­t’s qui­et trip to Moscow with Pres­i­dent Putin this past weekend.)

Oth­ers have com­plained of Israel’s most­ly pub­lic rela­tion­ship with Russ­ian oli­garch Roman Abramovitch in par­tic­u­lar and more qui­et­ly with oth­er Russ­ian oli­garchs, and that the line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Rus­sia regard­ing the con­flict in Syr­ia may in fact be ham­per­ing any desire to fol­low through with join­ing the exist­ing sanc­tion regime. This in turn has led to dis­cus­sions regard­ing how auto­crat­ic nations in gen­er­al, and Rus­sia in par­tic­u­lar, have been using fund­ing of civic orga­ni­za­tions to their advan­tage.

NATO and the Unit­ed States in par­tic­u­lar have refused to enter­tain declar­ing a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, which was done in Yugoslavia when the Unit­ed States inter­vened in the Balkan con­flicts back in the 1990s.

This is par­tial­ly because it would be tan­ta­mount to a dec­la­ra­tion of war against Rus­sia. But even if Rus­sia held back from esca­lat­ing the scope of the war in response, giv­en the rel­a­tive absence of the Russ­ian Air Force, it would quick­ly be found to have lim­it­ed effect and demands would quick­ly expand to neu­tral­iz­ing artillery and mis­sile forces used to attack civil­ian cen­ters, guar­an­tee­ing an esca­la­tion of the war. This is in part why NATO is doing every­thing with­in its pow­er to sup­ply the Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary with air­borne ear­ly warn­ing and sig­nals intel­li­gence, as well as man-portable anti-tank and anti-air­craft sys­tems.

Pres­i­dent Putin may be either sig­nal­ing that none of this may mat­ter to him, or is attempt­ing to ratch­et up the con­flict to have a viable rea­son to point at NATO as aggres­sors, by declar­ing Sat­ur­day evening, Moscow Time, that the present sanc­tions regime in place alone is akin to a dec­la­ra­tion of war.

An attempt to fur­ther increase ten­sions was made lat­er that same evening by a nation­al­ly broad­cast late night news and opin­ion tele­vi­sion pro­gram in Rus­sia dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Rus­sia declar­ing its own “no-fly zone” over Ukraine.