Why the war in Ukraine has gotten so bogged down

DW (English)

Nearly two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war is at a stalemate. Russia still controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, and last year's Ukrainian counteroffensive barely moved the frontline. Why has the war gotten so bogged down.

Transcript

00:00 Positional warfare in Ukraine.

00:10 Pictures of the Ukrainian army from the telegram channel of the 3rd assault brigade.

00:16 One thing is clear, the casualty list is high on both sides.

00:20 And the front line is hardly shifting.

00:25 We are approaching a culmination point which from a military point of view is always a

00:30 point where, in principle, a situation is on the brink of shifting in one direction

00:34 or the other.

00:37 That's the opinion of military expert Markus Reisner.

00:41 The Austrian officer is one of the best known analysts of the Russian war of aggression

00:45 in Ukraine.

00:46 He believes that the stalemate will give Russia the advantage in the long term.

00:52 The war on the brink.

00:53 How did it get this far?

00:55 Ukraine's counter-offensive fails in 2023.

00:59 Russian tank traps, trenches and minefields.

01:05 Each red dot marks a Russian position along the front.

01:09 Satellite image analysis indicates that Russian troops have been reinforcing positions while

01:14 Ukraine has been waiting for Western-supplied weapons.

01:19 More than 8 million mines are buried here.

01:24 The Ukrainian army can't find a way to drive a wedge through Russian occupied territory.

01:32 Ukrainian soldiers have to ration these 155mm shells.

01:37 There is a shortage of ammunition and weapons.

01:45 The dilemma is that Ukraine only ever gets what it needs to turn an asymmetrical situation

01:50 back into a symmetrical one.

01:53 But too little to actually drive the Russians into such a corner that they are virtually

01:58 forced to enter into negotiations.

02:02 The West only ever supplies enough weapons that the Ukrainians can fight on equal footing

02:07 with the Russians.

02:09 For example, the grain corridor from the Ukrainian seaport of Odessa to the world.

02:14 Russia is threatening to sink international merchant ships that are exporting vital grain

02:19 from the Ukrainian breadbasket for countries in Africa.

02:26 France and the UK supply Ukraine with precision missiles with a range of 250 kilometers, using

02:33 them to destroy Russian radar installations in Crimea, which was annexed in violation

02:38 of international law.

02:43 Russian naval ships leave the Crimean airport of Sevastopol to the east because of the threat.

02:49 The air defense of Odessa is strengthened also with Western help.

02:56 The Ukrainian grain corridor from Odessa across the Black Sea is free, a success for Ukraine.

03:07 But Russia follows up again.

03:11 As winter begins, Ukrainian soldiers report heavy attacks on the Eastern Front.

03:17 Russia again attacks large cities such as Kiev and power stations and substations with

03:22 missiles from the air, as it did in the first winter of the war.

03:27 Russian fighter jets can fire undisturbed from a safe distance because Ukraine still

03:32 lacks its own powerful aircraft.

03:39 Western F-16s are waiting to be deployed.

03:45 Ukrainian pilots are still being trained in neighboring NATO country Romania.

03:49 Until then, Russia has the advantage with its fighter jets.

03:53 "Essentially, it's a question of air defense.

03:56 So one is active air defense and the other is passive.

04:00 Active air defense means fighter aircraft that proactively prevent enemy fighter aircraft

04:05 from approaching at a certain distance in order to release weapons.

04:09 In other words, shooting them down more or less from a safe distance.

04:13 That is one thing, and passive air defense, in other words, everything around the factory,

04:17 so that it protects the factory according to different layers so that it cannot be destroyed."

04:24 On the ground, Ukraine is successfully arming itself with Western help.

04:29 Germany is supplying three Iris T-SLM air defense systems.

04:34 The high-tech product can also supply other launch bases with radar information.

04:39 The air defense system is successfully networked to counter missiles and drones.

04:45 Today the country has state-of-the-art air defense systems.

04:49 SAMPT from France, Iris T from Germany, Patriot from the USA.

04:56 Anti-aircraft tanks such as the German G-part successfully fend off drone attacks.

05:05 Since August 2023, a newly built ammunition factory in Germany has been supplying missiles

05:11 for the G-part tanks to Ukraine.

05:15 But Russia is back at it again, now with even more drones of the Lancet or the Shaid type,

05:20 cheap to produce, expensive to launch.

05:24 In the first year of the war, Ukraine still had an advantage in the drone battle Russia

05:28 is catching up.

05:30 "This situation is now being exacerbated by technological developments.

05:36 Ukraine has introduced very innovative new weapon systems in recent months, some of them

05:41 of a quality that you could previously only read about theoretically in texts about the

05:45 future of war.

05:47 Take for example the fact that we have whole swarms of drones that are in use almost simultaneously.

05:53 These first-person view drones, for example.

05:56 The Russian side copied these innovative ideas and, due to the fact that it still has a functioning

06:02 military-industrial complex, started to produce them on a large scale."

06:09 The battlefield in Ukraine has changed constantly in the first two years of the war.

06:14 More drones, more electronics.

06:24 And if you see now that each side knows in principle what the other is doing because

06:28 of the use, especially of many of these drones, we have what many have referred to in recent

06:33 years as the future so-called "transparent battlefield".

06:36 That is, whatever happens on the battlefield, each side immediately has an idea of what

06:41 is happening.

06:42 So whoever has the best overview wins, with electronic reconnaissance, with electronic

06:48 targeting.

06:50 Russia is becoming increasingly successful at jamming Ukrainian signals.

06:55 Experts speak of controlling the "electromagnetic field".

07:00 It's the area where radio transmissions are made, where communication takes place, where

07:04 the up and downing of drones takes place.

07:06 And if we succeed in controlling this, then you can actually blind the enemy again by

07:11 depriving them of the opportunity to use their drones.

07:16 For this, Ukraine needs more modern military equipment.

07:20 It needs advanced technology to beat Russia's superiority in soldiers, weapons and ammunition

07:27 to break the stalemate in the defensive war.

07:30 "

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