Phases of the Ukrainian War and Assessments of the Current Situation.

Introduction:

The war in Ukraine, which started on February 24, 2022, has been going on for 297 days. Looking at the war in general, it is understood that it has gone through four different phases so far. The first of these is the period from 2014 to February 24, 2022, which we can describe as the crisis period. The second phase is the period from February 24, 2022 to March 29, 2022.  The third phase is the period between March 29 and April 30, 2022. The fourth phase is the period from April 30, 2022 to the present day.

Phase One of the War: Crisis Period

The first phase, the crisis period, started in 2014 with the removal of the pro-Russian Ukrainian president from power as a result of intense protests. During this process, the former president invited the Russian army into the country, whereupon the Russian army crossed the border and invaded Crimea. In the same period, pro-Russians living in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region launched a separatist movement. This movement managed to control more than 40% of these cities. In response, pro-Ukrainians living in the same region formed their own armed organization and started to fight the separatists through the Azov Battalions.

Following these developments, despite talks between Russia and Ukraine until 2022, the problems arising from the occupation of Crimea and the conflicts in Donbas could not be resolved. Therefore, in an attempt to defend itself against Russian aggression, Ukraine has voiced its determination to join NATO and the EU more loudly and has taken steps in this direction, insisting that the separatist region and the Russian-occupied Crimea are Ukrainian territory and will be taken back. This has worried Russia and prompted it to take up arms, if necessary, to settle the issue in its favor. 

However, the event that forced Russia to take military action, or more accurately, created an opportunity for it, was the opposition's protests against corruption in the Belarusian presidential election and the developments that followed. The West's attempts to bring Ukraine and now Belarus to its side, first in 2014 and now in 2014 respectively, clearly showed that the European Union and NATO were planning to extend their borders beyond the Dnieper River. For this reason, Putin has sent troops to Belarus to support the head of state. He has also deployed new troops to the Donbas region and Crimea.

This was interpreted around the world as Russia planning to attack Ukraine and seize part of its territory. Russia has responded to these allegations by saying that it has no intention to take military action, but that Ukraine's and the West's actions will determine the course of action. In this context, Russia demanded that Ukraine renounce its entry into NATO and become a neutral state, recognize that Crimea and Sevastopol belong to Russia and recognize the independence of the Donbas region. Ukraine rejected these demands.

Russia also demanded that NATO halt its enlargement, not deploy weapons near the Russian border, stop arming neighboring states, and not admit Ukraine to NATO.  To these demands, NATO responded that "there can be no restrictions on which countries can join the alliance and that it will continue to deploy troops and weapons to NATO member states". 

Russia then forced Ukraine and the West to accept its demands through political statements and troop movements within the framework of the concept of coercion. The European Union, NATO (especially the United States and the United Kingdom) and Ukraine, on the other hand, took the necessary measures against a possible Russian attack within the framework of the deterrence concept. In this context, Ukraine has organized, equipped and deployed its military units for combat. It also declared mobilization to meet its military needs and requested military aid from western countries. 

The European Union and the United States, on the one hand, announced that a possible attack would be met with very harsh sanctions, while on the other hand, they provided Ukraine with a large number of weapons. Among these weapons, a large number of shoulder-launched Stinger air defense weapons and new generation anti-tank weapons are particularly noteworthy.  This suggests that Ukraine, and especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which are supporting it and training its army, envision a concept of attrition against a possible Russian offensive. This is because the doctrines and concepts that Russia applied in its offensive against Georgia in 2008 and its invasion of Crimea in 2014 are well understood. 

Although Russia has been announcing for some time that it has started to implement a new doctrine in line with the military developments in the post-Cold War world, in these two incidents, it was seen that it still applied a concept based on superiority of movement and maneuverability with armored troops in accordance with the Soviet doctrine. It is understood that the Russians only formed battalion groups while organizing their armies for combat in accordance with their claims that they changed the doctrine. 

In this organization, the battalion is considered as the basic combat unit. For this reason, it is organized as a unit with high mobility, maneuverability and firepower, consisting of tanks, armored combat vehicles, armored personnel carriers and tactical wheeled vehicles (to carry supplies and ammunition), so that it can carry out operations independently. 

Second Phase of the War: The Period of the Russian Army's Broad Frontal Offensive

During the crisis period, the parties continued their activities within the framework of their coercion and dissuasion concepts, but when Russia saw that it could not force either the West or Ukraine to accept its demands, it attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, thus beginning the second phase of the war.

Russia attacked Ukraine from a very wide front and from four different directions. One group of the Russian army started its offensive from the north, along both sides of the Dnieper River towards Kiev.  The second group attacked in a northeast-southwest direction.  The third group was used in the Donbas region in the part of the territory controlled by the separatists. The fourth group attacked from Crimea to the north and northwest. 

When the Russian offensive began, the European Union countries, the United Kingdom and the United States of America immediately announced a succession of sanctions packages. On the other hand, many European countries announced that they would provide arms and financial aid to Ukraine.  

In the first days of the offensive, the Russian army advanced rapidly in the south and captured the city of Kherson, while the separatists in the Donbas region and the Russian troops supporting them began to advance with successful offensives and captured most of the region. However, Russian troops in the northwestern direction were not as successful as expected. The troops advancing from the north towards Kiev, on the other hand, began to advance very slowly, forming long convoys on the roads in a way that no one could make sense of.

From the first day of the war, analysts commenting on the war on almost all national and foreign channels argued that the war would be short and Russia would get what it wanted in a short time. However, as the fog of the clashes that took place in the first days gradually lifted and the developments on the frontline emerged, it became clear that these comments were not quite correct. Because the Ukrainian army started to inflict great losses on the Russian army from the very first day by applying active defense based on territorial defense instead of establishing fixed defense lines and by applying ambushes, raids and similar tactics with small units.  

Although Russia made overconfident statements in the first days of the war that the Ukrainian regime would be changed, Kiev would be taken under control and similar statements, it had to speak more cautiously every day as the casualties increased. Because the Russian army could not move as fast as they had calculated in the planning phase and could not reach their targets within the specified time. In fact, the Russian army's advance came to a halt in the Kiev region in the north and in the Sumy and Kharkov document in the northwest. This situation increased the confidence of the Ukrainian army. It also encouraged Western countries to provide Ukraine with more economic and arms support.

There are various reasons why Russia could not advance as fast as expected. The most important of these is that the ground structure of the region is not suitable for armored troop operations due to seasonal conditions. Particularly in the north, in agricultural lands where mainly grain crops are grown, the cultivated soil, which becomes heavy with the autumn rains, is not suitable for vehicles to advance. In addition, there are many wooded and forested areas in the region. For this reason, the Russian army had to move along the main roads. Thus, unable to spread out and spread out, the Russian troops, tied to the roads, became open targets for Ukrainian attack helicopters, artillery and missile units, armed drones and tank destroyers.

It is understood that Russia has also failed to correctly identify the transformation of concepts, doctrines, tactics and techniques applied in recent wars in the world. For this reason, according to the Soviet doctrine, the Russian army applied the classical operational style of softening the target country with intensive artillery, missile and air strikes, reducing its military potential, rapidly breaking through the front from a point with armored troops on the ground, conducting airborne operations on strategically important targets in the forward area in coordination with the troops advancing deeper into the defense by entering through the breach, and ensuring the combination of armored troops with these troops conducting airborne operations.

The fallacy of this practice soon became apparent. Because the airborne troops, which were very weak and incapable of fighting for a long time, were destroyed by the Ukrainian forces because the armored troops that were to join them could not reach the junction point. The slowing down of the armored units and their inability to reach the landing points in time to join up with the airborne troops was also due to the Ukrainians' destruction of bridges and their effective use of conventional mines, IEDs and other tank-stopping materials and weapons.

In addition, the Ukrainians started to prepare all residential areas, especially Kiev, as resistance points.  Bridges at the entrances of the cities were destroyed, deep tank ditches were dug on the roads, the soil from the ditches was filled with sandbags and barricades were set up, many tank obstacles (hedgehogs) were manufactured from steel profiles and placed in the approaching directions of the Russians, and these were supported by mines and support weapons. In addition, in order to destroy Russian armored vehicles that might enter residential areas, the civilian population started to manufacture Molotov cocktails and a large number of Molotov cocktails were prepared and the civilian population was trained in their use.

As a result, Russian troops began to rapidly melt down, become worn out and their will and determination to attack was broken. The Russian army, which believed that it would change the Ukrainian government by capturing Kiev in a short period of time, was in a stalemate when it suffered so many casualties that almost no one, especially themselves, expected, and began to look for a way out of this stalemate. 

The first thing they realized as a result of this search was the disproportion between the region they had chosen as a target and the amount of troops they had allocated to capture this region. In the face of the fierce resistance of the Ukrainian army and people, they must have decided that this force/area disproportion was the main reason for their failure, and after the peace talks brokered by Turkey, they announced that they would withdraw the troops in the north and northwest, hiding behind the rhetoric of goodwill.

Third Phase of the War

On March 29, the Russian authorities announced that they would withdraw their troops from Kiev and Chernihiv regions, marking the end of the second phase of the war and the beginning of the reorganization of the Russian army for the third phase. In this context, Russia, realizing that it was attacking inadequately together from a very large region, narrowed the borders of the region it aimed to capture. In other words, the target was reduced. 

Realizing that the initial goal of seizing the capital of Ukraine, changing the government and getting the puppet government to approve its pre-war demands (not joining NATO, recognizing Crimea and Sevastopol as Russian territory and recognizing the independence of the Donbas region) was not possible, Russia decided to focus on Crimea and the Sea of Azov. Therefore, it shifted its troops from the north towards Kharkov and the south.

The second shortcoming that the Russians realized was the inaccuracy of their force structure, that is, their organization for battle. It has been known since World War II that the use of tanks and armored vehicles in urban battles is inappropriate and that armored units cannot be used in urban areas without infantry support. This is because armored vehicles can be easily destroyed by tank fighter teams due to their limited surveillance and firing capabilities in urban areas, as well as their reduced mobility and maneuverability due to buildings, narrow streets, roadside power poles and many other reasons. Even Molotov cocktails thrown by civilians from the upper floors of apartment buildings can be quite effective. 

The Russians must have seen this in the Syrian civil war but failed to understand it, as they experienced firsthand when they attacked cities in Ukraine. For this reason, it is understood that they reorganized their troops for infantry-dominated warfare before they started to attack in the south with the center of gravity. In addition, they used Chechen armed groups experienced in urban warfare and soldiers of the Wagner company, which had gained experience in urban warfare in the Middle East and Libya. It is even rumored that they brought soldiers and civilians of the Assad regime from Syria to Ukraine to fight for a fee.

Having shifted its troops from the north to the south and completed its reorganization for combat, Russia launched an offensive on a wide front in the Donbas region as of April 18. As a result of this offensive, Russian troops approached the provincial borders of Donetsk and Luhansk cities in the Donbas region. They also captured Mariupol, which had been prepared as a resistance point in this region and had not been taken for a long time.

With the capture of Mariupol, the Russians established contact between their troops in Crimea and their troops in the Donbas and gained control over the entire coast of the Sea of Azov. However, the Russian army was not successful in its campaigns in the Kharkov region.  Despite the reinforcement of forces in the Donbas region and in the south, the Ukrainian defenses could not be completely broken.  This stagnated the war and gave Ukraine the belief that it was possible not only to stop the Russians but also to push them back.  

As a result, Ukraine began to prepare for a counteroffensive and asked its Western backers to provide fire support weapons and armored vehicles. Having succeeded in obtaining the necessary support, the Ukrainian army launched a broad-front counteroffensive in the Kharkov region on April 30. As a result of this offensive, by May 4, it succeeded in driving the Russian troops to such a distance that they could not fire on Kharkov with supporting weapons. 

On May 6, Ukraine launched another fierce counteroffensive in the same area, putting the Russian army in a very difficult position. As a result, Russia announced its withdrawal from the Kharkov region on May 13. Upon the withdrawal of the Russian troops, Ukrainian troops advanced and took control of the Kharkov region up to the Russian border. These developments indicate that the third phase of the war ended on April 30 and the fourth phase began

The Fourth Phase of the War

The Kharkov offensive and the success it achieved proved that the battles had reached a turning point.  As it became clear in the following days that the Russians had lost their offensive power, the Ukrainian army decided to launch a new counteroffensive. In this context, on August 29, the Ukrainian army launched a counteroffensive in the Kherson region after intense artillery and missile fire. This offensive was successful and Ukrainian troops began to advance rapidly. In early September, Ukraine launched a general counteroffensive from the Kharkov region. Upon the success of this offensive, the Ukrainian President announced to the world that they would take back all the lost territories and Crimea.

The Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkov region continued to develop rapidly, the entire Kharkov region fell to the Ukrainians and the Ukrainian army again crossed the border into the Donbas province and entered the Donbas region. This success changed the fate of the war and the war reached a turning point.

Worried about this situation, Russia announced that a referendum would be held for the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions to join Russia. As a result of the referendum, it was announced that these regions accepted to join Russia with high voting rates. Russia declared that these regions were now its territory and any attack on these regions would be considered as an attack on Russian territory.

This situation shows Russia's tacit acceptance of its failure. Because this statement is a sign that Russia thinks that the Ukrainian army can continue the offensive and push the Russian army back.  As is well known to the world community, Russia has declared that it can use nuclear weapons in case its territory is threatened and the country is in danger of disintegration. By declaring these regions as its territory through a referendum, Russia sent a message to the whole world that it could use nuclear weapons if Ukrainian forces advance into these regions.

But this had no effect. Since the beginning of the war, Russia has often played the nuclear weapons card to prevent the European Union and especially NATO from intervening in the war.  Russia, the world's second largest nuclear power, also tried to create fear and anxiety in the Western public opinion and prevent them from supporting Ukraine.  However, these statements were more effective on its own people than on the Western public opinion. As a matter of fact, it was reported in the media that large numbers of people from major Russian cities, which were thought to be vulnerable to attack in a nuclear war, were preparing to migrate to the eastern parts of Russia, rural areas and other countries.

On the one hand, Russia declared that it had annexed the captured territories to its own country through a referendum and threatened to use nuclear weapons, but on the other hand, Russia declared a partial mobilization, probably because it did not think that this would work. According to this mobilization, it announced that it would gather 300,000 soldiers and bring them to the war zone. This shows that Russia was trying to make up for one of its major mistakes from the very beginning, which was to attack with a force too small to capture the territories it had set as its target.

However, this step also had some unexpected consequences. Upon learning that mobilization had been declared and that they would be sent to war, Russian youth of military age began to flee outside Russia. As a result, millions of Russians migrated to neighboring countries and even to Turkey. 

Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons again in the wake of the partial mobilization and his assertion that "it was not a bluff" did not help. Indeed, on October 8, Ukraine fired long-range missiles at the bridge over the Kerch Strait connecting mainland Russia to Crimea. In response, Russia could neither use nuclear weapons nor find any other means to prevent such attacks.

Unable to find another course of action, Russia started to attack Ukraine's infrastructure facilities with its long-range missiles and air force. As a result of these attacks, which were aimed at facilities that would be used by the civilian population rather than military installations, millions of Ukrainians living in the region during the winter season started to have difficulties in maintaining their daily lives due to the interruption of electricity and natural gas flow. 

Russia's attack on infrastructure facilities has made things even more complicated. Because the West recognized this as a violation of the laws of war and human rights and started to provide Ukraine with a large number of heavy weapons and armored vehicles, despite all the threats Russia had been making since the beginning of the war. 

This further strengthened the Ukrainian army and put the Russian army in an even more difficult situation.  Russian attacks on infrastructure facilities are still ongoing. However, these attacks were not enough for the Ukrainian people and government to give up, nor for the Ukrainian army to stop its offensive. 

As the Ukrainian army has continued its offensive, the Russian troops in the Kherson region have been squeezed. Earlier, in the Kharkov region, in the face of the Ukrainian offensive, Russian troops were forced to abandon some of their weapons and retreat in panic, and pro-Russian civilians were evacuated from the region with great difficulty. Worried that the same thing might happen again, Russia announced on November 9 that the Kherson region would be evacuated and Russian forces in this region would withdraw to the east of the Dnieper River. At the same time, Russia declared that a referendum had been held in the Kherson region from which it had withdrawn, that these territories were part of Russia and that it would not give up these rights.

After the evacuation of Kherson, Russia's attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure with long-range missiles continued. However, based on recent media reports, there are assessments that this situation cannot continue in the same way for a long time. This is because Ukraine has started to respond to Russia's attacks with armed drones, attacking Russian air bases and Russia is unable to prevent these attacks. 

As a result of these attacks, it is claimed that many Russian aircraft and missile systems have been shot down. As a matter of fact, in recent days, it is claimed that Russia has been using old aircraft and missiles that have not been seen on the battlefield before. There are reports in the newspapers that some of the old Russian missiles have malfunctioned and crashed into their territory. This situation is interpreted as Russia's aircraft numbers are decreasing and its ammunition stocks are about to run out.

However, Russia's attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure are still ongoing. On the other hand, Russia is also said to be training mobilized troops and preparing to send them to the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian officials even claim that Russia will launch a new wave of offensives starting from January with this new force of 300,000.

Amid these claims and debates, the war continues, but there is no offensive operation between the troops. The battles are fought mainly through the fire of support weapons. As the weather is getting colder and the rains have started, it is unlikely that either side will undertake a general offensive operation in the near future. The parties will spend the winter licking their wounds, resupplying and replenishing, increasing the combat power of their units and developing survivability measures. This situation brought about a stagnation of the battles. 

This stagnation will probably end with the arrival of spring. Whatever Russia will do, it will do it in the coming spring months with the 300 thousand people it has mobilized. Logically, it should deploy these troops to defend the captured territories. Because the war has reached a turning point, Russia, the attacker, has become the defender and Ukraine, the defender, has become the attacker.

Conclusion

Putting aside its exaggerated goals, which were not realistic at the outset, Russia has captured the territories that will guarantee its core national interests. Since the day it was founded, Russia has wanted to reach the warm seas and has captured all the coasts of the Sea of Azov, which is an important inland sea and naval base that enables it to do so. Thanks to the captured territories, Russia has also gained a very advantageous position in the Black Sea in terms of maritime sovereignty issues such as continental shelf, exclusive economic zone and radar coverage. On the other hand, it has connected the captured territories by land and ensured the geographical integrity of the occupied territories. In other words, Russia has achieved its minimum goals. 

For this reason, Ukraine's claim that a new Russian offensive is expected and that this offensive will take place in January, when the seasonal conditions will be quite severe, does not seem to be a very logical possibility. It is more likely that the Russians will defend their captured territories with the new forces they have gathered. This is because Ukraine is receiving new weapons and armored vehicle reinforcements from the West and will probably launch a general counter-offensive in the spring. The Russians should first of all take measures against this offensive.

At least this is what the rules of military science and art of warfare suggest. However, considering that at the beginning of the war the Russians planned and executed an offensive according to their own imagination without taking even the most basic principles of military science and art seriously, it is not possible to say exactly what they will do.