Eurasia Press & News
The failure of the Russian offensive on Kharkov marked another positional stalemate in the war in Ukraine: neither side can move on to large-scale maneuverable combat operations; the conflict has entered the stage of a classic war of attrition. Although losses are high by modern standards, at the current pace both sides will have enough manpower for several more decades. However, the experience of protracted wars – from the American Civil War to the First and Second World Wars – shows that mass desertion can lead to defeat long before the mobilization resource is exhausted. This can be facilitated by both economic and political factors that shape public sentiment. So far, in this regard, both sides seem ready for a long war, but the experience of other countries shows that the exhaustion of resources and a change in public sentiment can occur unexpectedly and quickly.
A war that no one wants to wage and no one can stop
Since World War I, military theorists (in particular, military historian Hans Delbrück and professor at the Red Army General Staff Academy Alexander Svechin) have identified two main strategies: destruction (or crushing) and attrition (exhaustion, starvation, etc.). A striking example of the first strategy is the brilliant victories of Napoleon Bonaparte, which implied the complete destruction of enemy forces during a decisive battle or campaign. This also includes the defeat of Poland and France by Nazi Germany, the actions of the Israel Defense Forces during the Six-Day War, and the US invasion of Iraq. All military leaders dream of such wars, but not everyone succeeds: a clear example is the Russian offensive of February-March 2022, which became known as “blitzkringe”.
A year later, the Ukrainian leadership and their partners also bet on the rapid destruction of Russian troops in the south of the country. This was supposed to force the Kremlin to end the war and negotiate, but this plan also failed (more on this in one of The Insider’s previous reviews ). As a result, the parties were forced to switch to a war of attrition.
In such a war, each side tries to “bleed white” the enemy in economic and political aspects so that he no longer has the opportunity to send new weapons and recruits to the front, is forced to abandon his goals and negotiate on suitable terms; or to exhaust his military forces so that it becomes possible to defeat him on the battlefield. The main factor in such wars is the amount of resources (both human and economic) and the ability to manage these resources, that is, the managerial stability and political will of the leadership.
The textbook example of a war of attrition is World War I, which gave birth to the term. The list could also include the American Civil War, the Egyptian-Israeli conflict of 1967–1970 (which has gone down in history as the “War of Attrition”), and the Iran-Iraq War.
This also includes the actions of North Vietnam against US troops, the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet troops, and later the Taliban against the Americans. In each case, the strategy led to the stronger side, while formally able to continue waging war, losing the political will to continue fighting.
The parties rarely adopt a strategy of attrition consciously, since it presupposes prolonged military actions with unclear final costs and results. However, this strategy is very popular to justify one’s own failures in crushing the enemy. This is how the French term grignotage (“biting off”) and the German ausblutung (“bleeding”) arose during the First World War, and more than a hundred years later – the related Russian terms “gnawing through”, “grinding” and “squeezing out”. As a rule, in wars of attrition, both sides lose more than they win, but once they get involved in it, they can no longer get out of it, since in the eyes of their compatriots only victory can justify all the previous enormous losses.
Parties rarely deliberately adopt a strategy of attrition
The deliberate use of a strategy of attrition requires a fair amount of cynicism, which is clearly evident, for example, in this quote from Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser:
“If the enemy’s actions result in three thousand casualties in this campaign, we will still be able to continue the fight because we have manpower reserves. If our actions result in ten thousand casualties for the enemy, he will be forced to stop fighting because he has no manpower reserves.”
A war of attrition does not always mean a positional stalemate at the front. The Second World War, with its rapid armored breakthroughs and the destruction of entire army groups and fronts, had many signs of a war of attrition. In fact, the defeat of Germany and Japan was due to the inability to replenish losses and maintain combat training at the proper level, as well as the collapse of industry and social infrastructure.
Most recently, during the “maneuvering period” of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny gave the order to “inflict maximum losses” on the invading Russian forces – effectively setting a course for their exhaustion on the battlefield, which bore fruit and forced the Russians to “regroup” and make “gestures of goodwill” in the form of retreating from the occupied territories.
Until the last drop of blood or the first wave of desertion
The most straightforward way to win a war is to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible. This was the case, for example, in the Paraguayan War, where, in just over five years of fighting, the losses of Paraguayan males amounted, according to historians, to 90%. A similar way is to destroy enough enemy weapons and military equipment so that their troops lose their combat capability.
The most famous success of this strategy was Germany’s defeat in World War II. By 1945, the Third Reich’s manpower had been depleted to such an extent that the Nazi leadership was forced to enlist the elderly and teenagers in the Volkssturm militia units. The once formidable Wehrmacht tank forces could no longer stand up to the armored avalanche of the Allies, and the Luftwaffe finally lost the war in the air, ceding dominance to the enemy on the fronts and over Germany’s territory itself.
Perhaps the Russian leadership is now hoping for a similar outcome to the war. If Vladimir Putin believes the figures he himself quotes , according to which Ukrainian losses are five times greater than Russian ones, then at first glance the strategy of attrition seems justified. However, if we turn to any serious estimates of the losses of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, then a much less rosy picture emerges for the Russian Armed Forces.
According to the pro-Russian resource LostArmour, Ukraine’s confirmed losses in killed troops amounted to less than 47,000 people as of the end of May 2024. Even if we assume that half of the losses do not end up on social networks and other open sources (which is unlikely, since Ukraine generally has a fairly high level of freedom of speech when it comes to military operations), and that at least as many losses are wounded and unable to return to duty, it turns out that the irreparable losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not exceed 200,000 people.
Speaking about the need for replenishment, some Ukrainian sources cite figures of a similar order – People’s Deputy Ruslan Gorbenko estimates the need for mobilization in 2024 at 110 thousand people. At the same time, the Ukrainian publication “Texti” previously calculated that the mobilization reserve of Ukraine (taking into account refugees, occupied territories, disabled people, large families, etc.) is about 4.8 million people.
It turns out that if the intensity of military actions (which, as The Insider wrote in its review of the lessons of the war, are significantly lower than during the world wars) is maintained, Ukraine will have enough human resources for almost 50 more years. Russian losses, which, for example, the French authorities estimated in May at 150 thousand people killed, are not comparable at all with the Russian mobilization resource, which former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu estimated at 25 million people.
At the current intensity of fighting, Ukraine has enough human reserves for another 50 years
But in reality, both Ukraine and Russia are currently experiencing problems with replenishing their troops . The new law on mobilization, adopted in Ukraine at the end of May, was perceived negatively by people. At the same time, complaints about the shortage of personnel from the Ukrainian Armed Forces have not ceased , and recently they have appeared from the Russian side as well .
Russian authorities are trying to undermine Ukrainian mobilization capabilities with the help of information warfare, releasing propaganda videos ( 1 , 2 ). At the same time, experts doubt ( 1 , 2 ) the Russian figures for recruiting volunteer contract soldiers, who should prevent a new wave of mobilization. The problems with personnel are also indicated by the Russian practice of returning the wounded to duty regardless of recovery.
There was also a shortage of men during the American Civil War, when the fighting, which was expected to end in a matter of months, dragged on, and the number of casualties rose rapidly due to the spread of long-range rifled muskets and artillery. It was then that the first compulsory military service in the history of the United States was introduced. The Confederacy, which had fewer manpower, did it first. This immediately led to an explosion of school teachers, pharmacists, civil servants and other categories of “professionals” who were exempt from mobilization.
Interestingly, in the northern states, conscription was not used as the main means of replenishing the army, but rather as a threat to encourage governors to recruit volunteers: each state was given a quota, the remainder of which was supposed to be covered by mobilization. A similar threat of mobilization, apparently, was also used as an incentive for Russian officials to recruit contract soldiers.
The introduction of forced conscription in the US was met with extreme negative reactions, as was the opportunity to buy oneself out of it for the then impressive sum of $300 (a similar idea of “economic reservation” was hotly discussed in Ukraine, but, as reported , it was eventually abandoned).
In the northern states, the draft even provoked mass unrest, including among immigrants, as Martin Scorsese showed in Gangs of New York. In the Confederacy, the situation was even more tense: local residents armed themselves, creating entire areas where recruiters and tax collectors were denied access – the story of the most famous uprising is described in the film Free State of Jones. The Russian protests against mobilization and the conflicts between Ukrainians and employees of territorial recruitment centers are apparently still far from the events described.
Desertion may become another problem. By the end of the American Civil War, according to archival data, every seventh Northern soldier and every ninth Southern soldier had deserted. However, for the South, due to the overall small number of troops, desertion was much more painful and in many ways led to the final defeat. There is no need to refer to American cinema here, because Russian history has its own example: mass desertion during the First World War after the February Revolution (for example, this is where the film Bumbarash begins with its song “I don’t care, I don’t care, I’m tired of fighting”). Desertion made the Russian army incapable first of offensive and then of defensive actions. In fact, the Russian Empire lost the war of attrition, possessing a multi-million-strong army that simply refused en masse to continue military action.
The problem of desertion is quite acute for both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian war: during the full-scale military operations in Ukraine, almost 27 thousand criminal cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit have been opened . There are no similar statistics for Russia, but it is known that in March 2024, Russian courts issued an average of 34 sentences per day in such cases . At the same time, a significant portion of Russian deserters and “refuseniks” who do not want to continue military operations are returned to the front by extra-judicial, often violent methods. Nevertheless, there is no evidence yet that desertion has a critical impact on the combat readiness of either side.
Desertion does not yet pose a critical problem for either side in the war.
The issue of a shortage of weapons and military equipment is much more acute. The military-industrial complexes of Russia, Ukraine and Western countries, which were significantly reduced after the end of the Cold War, were unable to fully support a conflict of such high intensity. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces became dependent on supplies from Western countries, primarily from the United States, which are still not enough to restore offensive potential.
In turn, the Russian army is experiencing problems with a shortage of armored vehicles and wear and tear of artillery barrels. It is believed that the reserves of Soviet equipment suitable for de-preservation and modernization will last until 2026 , and already in 2025 the potential of the Russian army will probably begin to decline . In these conditions, further offensive actions and the “grinding” of Ukrainian units can only be ensured through “meat assaults . “
At one time, the Iranian regime tried to compensate for Iraq’s technical superiority with similar (albeit much more massive) infantry attacks, but ultimately the Iraqi troops managed to nullify all of Iran’s successes on Iraqi territory with the help of well-prepared counter-offensives and end the war without territorial changes. Similarly, the “grinding” tactic proved ineffective during World War I, and a turning point in the fighting was achieved only through innovations such as assault tactics, improved use of artillery, and the emergence of combined arms combat principles, i.e. the competent interaction of infantry, artillery, tanks, and aviation. In its current form, the Russian strategy of attrition on the battlefield appears futile and threatens to exhaust the Russian forces themselves, which increases the threat of Ukrainian counter-attacks – even Russian experts admit this.
Defeat the rear
If it is impossible to achieve complete exhaustion of the enemy in the foreseeable future, then the question arises of combating the economic potential of the enemy – the ability to replenish, arm and supply troops on the front line. This also includes the destruction of social infrastructure, which in turn should undermine the morale of the “enemy” population.
Another common way to make an enemy more accommodating, known for many centuries, is a naval blockade. The United States successfully closed the ports of the Confederacy, essentially crushing the economy of the southern states, oriented towards the export of cotton and tobacco. Trade turnover with European countries decreased several times. It became much more difficult to import weapons, which was extremely painful for the southerners, given the weakness of their industrial potential.
Another successful example of a blockade was the actions of the Royal Navy in World War I. They made it impossible to import agricultural products, which, combined with a poor potato harvest, led to famine in Germany in the winter of 1916–17.
Unable to blockade Great Britain, the Germans responded with large-scale submarine warfare during both world wars, which significantly affected at least the British diet during the war years and hampered the supply of weapons to England and the USSR under the American Lend-Lease program. Ultimately, the actions of German submarines were not crowned with success, which cannot be said about the submarine war waged by the United States against Japan.
The Americans managed to effectively cut off Japanese sea communications and make it impossible to use the resources of the Japanese colonial empire. It would not be superfluous to also recall the Iran-Iraq “tanker war”, when the parties tried with varying success to limit the export of oil from the enemy’s ports, which hurt their economies.
During the war, the Russian Black Sea Fleet initially successfully established a naval blockade of Ukraine, stopping the export of grain crops by sea, which was vital for the economy. However, the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, the liberation of Zmeiny Island, and the creation of a threat to Russian ships in the Black Sea with the help of unmanned boats allowed Ukrainian forces to effectively lift the blockade: by 2024, the rate of grain exports by sea was restored to almost pre-war levels. Apparently, it was also not possible to stop the supply of Western weapons, despite the attacks on the railway infrastructure. On the other hand, it was also not possible to significantly limit Russian foreign trade, despite numerous sanctions packages from Ukraine’s partners.
Ukraine managed to lift the naval blockade established at the beginning of the war
The parties have achieved much more tangible success in terms of attacks on socio-economic targets. While the first Russian campaign of strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the winter of 2022–2023 was largely a failure (although, according to some reports , the Ukrainian authorities were then seriously preparing to evacuate Kiev), the strikes that resumed in 2024 have caused much more long-term damage, putting most of Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power plants out of action. Rolling blackouts of household and industrial consumers have begun again across Ukraine, which has already led to the National Bank revising its forecast for GDP growth in 2024 from 3.6% to 3%. Officials interviewed by the Financial Times advise Ukrainians to prepare for “cold and darkness.” At the same time, as blogger and military expert in the field of radio technology Sergey “Flash” Beskrestnov believes , it will not be possible to de-energize the Ukrainian military industry in this way due to its distribution and the presence of backup sources of electricity.
A similar method of combating German industry was used by British aviation in 1943, striking dams and hydroelectric power stations on the Ruhr River with specially designed “jumping” bombs that bounced off the water on their way to the dam.
The aftermath took many months to clean up, but overall the air campaign against the German military-industrial complex was a failure, and the strikes on German cities did not lead to open protests against continuing the war. The situation changed when the Americans turned their attention to German oil refineries and synthetic fuel plants.
These huge structures were extremely vulnerable and, unlike military factories, could not be moved underground. As a result, by 1945, air strikes had virtually deprived the Wehrmacht of fuel and led to a transport collapse, which in turn finally caused a collapse in industrial production.
By 1945, air strikes had left the Wehrmacht virtually without fuel, leading to transport collapse and a drop in production.
Similar tactics are now being used by Ukrainian forces, who are striking Russian refineries and oil depots with kamikaze drones. The months-long campaign has succeeded in significantly reducing Russian production of gasoline and diesel fuel, leading Rosstat to stop publishing statistics on gasoline production, which is needed both by industry and by the front, where there are many emergency vehicles and generators.
However, so far it has not been possible to cause a serious fuel shortage and transport collapse, including due to the possibilities of imports from Belarus and Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, the reduction in the export of petroleum products should affect the income of the Russian budget, although not on the scale necessary for an economic catastrophe.
A much more serious problem for Russian military production in this sense is the shortage of labor and forced wage competition with the civilian sector. For now, the Russian economy has a sufficient margin of safety , despite the growing structural problems . As for the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, its main internal problem is that the state simply does not have enough funds to fully load enterprises with defense orders. It is proposed to solve the problem by attracting European funds to place contracts with Ukrainian defense enterprises.
Will as a resource
In addition to military, economic and human resources, it is important for the authorities to have political will and legitimacy, and for the population to be willing to continue making sacrifices on the altar of victory.
Thus, the participation of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary in the First World War ended with revolutionary upheavals and the fall of the monarchy in these countries. Earlier, in 1864, the election of US President Abraham Lincoln for a second term was threatened by a stalemate at the front and rising prices, and only resounding victories like the capture of Atlanta predetermined the defeat of the Democrats, who stood for peace negotiations. It is noteworthy that Lincoln’s success was largely due to the first vote in US history organized in the active army, where Republican sympathies and the desire to wage war to a victorious end were strong.
The task facing the parties to the Russian-Ukrainian war is simplified by the fact that the level of mobilization of the economy and society as a whole is significantly lower than during world wars. Thus, Russia’s military budget for 2024 is 6% of GDP , Ukraine’s – 22% of GDP . For comparison, US military spending during World War II exceeded 40% of GDP.
According to the calculations of the Telegram channel “Demography has fallen”, on average about 2% of the male population of Russia aged 18 to 49 years participates in the war, for Ukraine this figure is 7-9%. At the same time, in the United States during World War II, up to 20% of the male population of the corresponding ages were drafted . Despite the negative processes in the economies of both countries, there is no talk of introducing food cards and similar restrictions. Only residents of frontline regions, military personnel and their relatives and friends feel the full effect of the war.
The level of mobilization of the economy and society in Ukraine and Russia is significantly lower than during the world wars
In this context, it is not surprising that, according to one large-scale poll , the majority of Ukrainians still approve of the performance of President Zelensky, oppose holding presidential and parliamentary elections during the war, do not consider the level of mobilization excessive (as of February of this year), believe in Ukraine’s victory with the restoration of control over territories at least along the line of February 24, 2022, and are ready to make some personal sacrifices, such as rising prices, taxes or utility bills.
Of course, most of these figures are down compared to 2022, but it is too early to talk about a crisis of legitimacy, despite the information pressure from the Kremlin. The entry into force of the Ukrainian law on mobilization, which introduces serious restrictions against “draft dodgers”, took place without any noticeable protests, although, as reported , more people were mobilized in May than in the previous four months.
It is difficult to say whether Russian citizens are prepared to endure personal hardships in order to continue the war, but it is noteworthy that the Russian leadership stubbornly refuses to declare a new wave of mobilization, although this would solve most of the problems with replenishing personnel.
The situation when the population wants peace, but is ready to continue the war until it ends justly, in their opinion, is not unique: this is how strikes and military riots in France in 1917 led to a crisis of power and a change of government, but not to capitulation, since its terms would not have satisfied the protesters themselves.
To summarize the above: the clinch in which Russia and Ukraine find themselves may well last for many years – both sides have military, economic and moral-volitional resources for this. But the experience of other wars of attrition shows: in any of these three dimensions, a decisive turning point may occur suddenly and any of them is enough to predetermine the outcome of the war. Therefore, a long war between Russia and Ukraine, although possible, is not a predetermined scenario.
