Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine looks different today than it did at the start of the conflict.
It took Russia more than two years of brutal war, thousands of armored vehicles damaged and destroyed, an estimated 450,000 casualties, and tens of billions of dollars to get to this point, but Moscow seems to finally be taking its war seriously.
Much of the war in Ukraine has gone poorly for Russia. Its death toll alone — by many estimates more than 50,000 troops — is staggering. But Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine looks very different today than it did at the start of the conflict.
The country’s defense-industrial base has begun firing on all cylinders, and Putin recently installed an economist as his defense minister to boost the mass production of weaponry, especially firepower. Moscow blunted Ukraine’s counteroffensive last summer with a strong defense while rebuilding stockpiles and transitioning to a wartime economy.
It has effectively exploited Ukraine’s material, manpower, and industrial disadvantages over the spring, especially as Kyiv’s Western partners floundered, and it is now setting the stage for what could be a major, multi-pronged offensive this summer. Its forces have also found and copy-catted tactics to drive Ukraine back.
Russia finally appears committed to its ambitions in Ukraine — and, as some fear, beyond — and it comes even as Ukraine’s weapons stocks are being reloaded after US lawmakers passed a major Ukraine aid deal.
« The Russians are still dangerous and they’re learning, » George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider. « They’re improving every day. »An ‘inflection point’ in Russia’s war efforts
The war began with Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine, with command failures, tactical missteps, and high levels of confusion in the Russian ranks in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance ultimately derailing plans for a swift victory.
The Russian military continued to suffer from other problems in the first year of fighting, racking up troop and equipment losses while failing to capture significant amounts of Ukrainian territory.
And Ukraine got the better of its more powerful enemy on more than one occasion, including in its 2022 counteroffensive pushes in northeastern Kharkiv and southern Kherson.
But Russia found success in using a sophisticated array of defensive lines to prevent Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive from achieving notable forward progress. As it concluded last fall, the highly anticipated effort ended in failure, with Kyiv unable to liberate much of the territory, even with an influx of armored combat vehicles from the West.
In the months that followed, Russia took advantage of stalled US military support for Ukraine, which spent much of the winter and spring outgunned and lacking critical munitions to defend itself. Ukraine also notably failed to adequately build out its defensive fortifications until the last minute. Moscow exploited these problems to make gains in the east and prepare for future assaults.
Alarm bells have been ringing in the West in recent weeks. US intelligence assessed in March that, despite suffering serious damage in Ukraine, the battlefield deadlock has shifted momentum in Moscow’s favor.
