ISW key take aways:
* We now assess that the initial Russian campaign to seize Ukraine’s capital and major cities and force regime change has failed
* Russian forces continue efforts to restore momentum to this culminated campaign, but those efforts will likely also fail
* Russian troops will continue trying to advance to within effective artillery range of the center of Kyiv, but prospects for their success are unclear;
* The war will likely descend into a phase of bloody stalemate that could last for weeks or months;
* Russia will expand efforts to bombard Ukrainian civilians in order to break Ukrainians’ will to continue fighting (at which the Russians will likely fail);
* The most dangerous current Russian advance is from Kherson north toward Kryvyi Rih in an effort to isolate Zaporizhiya and Dnipro from the west. Russian forces are unlikely to be able to surround or take Kryvyi Rih in the coming days, and may not be able to do so at all without massing much larger forces for the effort than they now have available on that axis;
* The Russians appear to have abandoned plans to attack Odesa at least in the near term.

In short, Russia has failed decapitate the Ukrainian government and has failed to capture a major city. While Ukraine is unable to expel Russia from it's territory, they will survive as long as the West continues to supply them. The next phase of war may take months or even years and hundreds of thousands will likely die.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-19

https://asmith.ucdavis.edu/news/russia-ukraine



It goes on, essentially to finish with this isn't THAT big of a deal.

Don't tell me someone here dramatized the sanctions consequences in order to fuel his Putler narrative

Mariupol as well? I considered the city to be pro-Ukraine despite being almost 50-50 Russian/Ukrainian. It wasnt inside the separatist regions.

all of that looks pretty solid.

also i dont know the numbers re: exports, but i would say it will affect the rest of the world by driving the price of certain foods up. this will have a knock on impact across the world, but is not world ending. it will just be difficult. in terms of major city i would not have a hang up on this point. to my mind its either they can take keiv or they cant. i.e. whether they took/take other cities is (broadly) not a big chess piece (and it looks like they cant take kiev).

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 19 2022 06:13pm

Regime change was never their objective. In fact, the Russias flat out said they consider Zelinsky a legit president.
Russian goals were clearly stated:
1- Neutral disarmed Ukraine.
2- Crimea to Russian sovereignty.
3- Independence to separatist provinces.

Regime change isn't on that list, otherwise, they would not be negotiating with Zelinsky's regime.

This post was edited by Lebanon961 on Mar 19 2022 11:05pm

Only if Rusia can keep its current efforts up. The sanctions already imposed on them are heavy and will put significant pressure on their economy. This type of sanctions requires some time to take full effect, I disagree with the notion from some posters in this thread that the sanctions have failed, just because the Russian economy hasn't disintegrated within two weeks. Furthermore, it must be noted that the current war effort in Ukraine is leaving other parts of Russia strategically exposed, so I'm sceptical that the Russian generals would really want to continue the current status quo for potentially years.

Similarly, the significant death toll of their failed campaign will become harder and harder to control from a propaganda point of view. This, coupled with increasing economic hardship, will over time put pressure on the Russian "home front" and increase the incentives for the Russian leadership to negotiate a ceasefire or a peace treaty. And last but not least, Russia has wasted its trump card of threatening to stop gas shipment. This was a wake-up call for Europeans who will move swiftly to end their dependency on Russian gas and oil, taking away Putin's strongest leverage and drying up Russia's state finances in the long run.



Simply put, a lengthy stalemate would turn this conflict into a war of attrition that Russia has no chance whatsoever of winning as long as the West keeps supplying Ukraine with arms and food.

No one can take that big city with only infantry. Say there are 200k armed men and you should take 3 times more. So there are only two options: bombing it into stone age like Belgrade or besiege it for a year or two. Both lead to catastrophic civilian casualties simillar to WWII's Besiege of Leningrad or Battle for Stalingrad and you know what happened next.

They are going for the siege option. It is already happening in Mariupol... I think how Mariupol turns out will indicate how this war will evolve.

Mariupol is located between the Sea of Azov and two Russian deployment areas on Crimea and in Donezk oblast. The city was always more difficult to hold than other large cities in Ukraine. Also, Mariupol is the only major city that the Russians were able to fully encircle, which they failed to do so far in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Tchernihiv or Mykolaiv.




There might be some sort of domino effect though: once Mariupol falls, this frees up Russian forces in the South East which could help push back Ukraine's main regular military forces which are stationed on the battlefront of Donezk and Luhansk. Then, the joined up Russian forces from the south and the Donezk/Luhansk regions could apply pressure on Kharkiv from its south and south east, which in turn would reduce Ukrainian capabilities for divisionary counterattacks in the region, counterattacks which have up until now diverted Russian resources away from Kyiv's eastern flank. This, in turn, would make it more easy to close the encirclement of Kyiv.

Now, the Ukrainian high command is obviously aware of this threat; we can assume that they and their Western allies have been preparing for such a development.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 20 2022 02:43am