Analysis | Putin Is Stuck in Ukrainian Mud, but He Still Has a Nuclear Option

A Ukrainian next to her destroyed house, in Kyiv, this weekendCredit: Ohad Zwigenberg

KYIV – Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began three weeks ago, the roads leading into the capital, the main highways, the entrances to military and government buildings, and even Maidan Square have been littered with massive anti-tank obstacles made from giant metal spikes and old railroad tracks welded together. There are enough on the streets of Kyiv now to block an entire armored corps and they are becoming new icons of this historic city. But as things look right now, they won’t be needed.

 
It’s much too early to predict how the Russia-Ukraine war will end, but one thing can be said with near-certainty: the Russian armored columns won’t be driving victoriously down Kyiv’s broad boulevards.

 
The Russians failed to prepare their invasion adequately and the Ukrainians had the right tactics in place to stop them with armed drones and anti-tank teams using both old Soviet-era, rocket-propelled grenades and more modern, portable Western missiles.

The tactical and strategic lessons will be learned for decades to come in military academies, and the experts who predicted the end of the era of the tank – which entered warfare just over a century ago in World War I – will certainly be bolstered in their arguments. But the failures in Russia’s war plans began much earlier than the botched advance on Kyiv and far above the pay grade of Russian armored division commanders.

 
Naturally, the situation around Kyiv draws much of the attention, but the Russian invasion is spread over a large number of fronts throughout Ukraine. Beyond the attempt to encircle and capture the capital, there is a similar and much bloodier campaign for the second-largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv, to the east. Another important city encircled by the Russians is Mariupol, which holds the key to controlling the strategic Sea of Azov and opening the way from the annexed Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea coast. The Russians haven’t waited, however, and have opened up fronts there as well, in a push for the city of Mykolaiv and in so far botched attempts at naval landings around Odessa.

 

A neighborhood in Kyiv that was destroyed by Russia's militaryCredit: Ohad Zwigenberg

The Ukrainian flag flying atop sandbags at a defense post in Kyiv on Saturday.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg

An armed Ukrainian soldier at a press briefing in Kyiv over the weekend. Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg

Other battles are raging in the east, where the Russian forces together with separatist militias are trying to encircle the Ukrainian army’s Joint Forces Operation (JFO) group facing the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
 
There were also a number of Russian attempts to “decapitate” Ukraine’s leadership using special forces who tried to assassinate or kidnap President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and airstrikes. Air and missile strikes, as well as cyberwarfare, have also been used to try to cripple Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.

After 25 days of fighting, none of these objectives have been achieved.

 
If at the start of the invasion the Russians had concentrated their forces and logistical resources on just one or two, perhaps three, of these objectives, they would have had a realistic chance of achieving them within days, and could then continue on to further targets with the momentum of success.

 
Only one man could have given the orders to attack simultaneously on all these fronts. The same man who was convinced that Ukraine is a fake state that would crumble at his touch. President Vladimir Putin is already shifting the blame to his senior military and intelligence chiefs, but the colossal strategic error is his alone.

Of all the goals of Russia’s war, only two currently seem anywhere near their grasp: taking Mariupol – and even then it will be at the price of reducing a city of 400,000 to rubble and will take bloody house-to-house fighting at the cost of thousands of civilian casualties and thousands more military fatalities on either side. And even if the Russians do successfully capture Mariupol, their troops will be in no state to continue on to the next objective. Likewise with their encirclement of the JFO, which is also still a possibility.

 
With the exception of Mariupol, where progress is measured by streets, there have been no Russian advances on any of the fronts over the past week. In some places, they have even been forced to retreat in the face of Ukrainian counteroffensives or where their units were cut off from each other.

 

A "Kiev City" sign on an apartment block in the Ukrainian capital.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg

Residents on the street outside their apartment block, a day after it was hit by Russian shelling, in Kyiv on Saturday.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg

Theoretically at least, Russia can still change its strategy and concentrate more forces against a limited number of objectives. However, such a regrouping will take long weeks and the battalion groups that have been in the field for nearly a month – not including the months they spent in staging areas near the border – and have taken many casualties, will take longer than that to recuperate.

 
Since the Russian army is forbidden by law from using conscripts outside the country’s borders, there are few sources of reinforcements for the invading army. A few thousand mercenaries from Syria and some units moved from other areas will not change the picture. Ukraine’s population is less than a third of Russia’s, but it actually still has more personnel to throw into battle – the millions of men and women prepared to volunteer and fight for their country who are still walking around in the cities, wearing uniforms they purchased or made for themselves.

 
The great advantage Russia has over Ukraine in aerial and artillery firepower has failed to come into play, as it has not established air superiority over the country, preventing waves of bombers from pounding targets. It also seems to lack sufficient numbers of long-range missiles. The hundreds of batteries of mid-range rockets that Russia has are being used. But in a country the size of Ukraine, their effectiveness is limited if they can’t be brought close enough to the front.

 
What can still change the picture for the Russians? It is unlikely to be isolated tactical successes like the hypersonic missile strike on a military base in Mykolaiv that killed at least 50 Ukrainian troops on Friday.

 

A Ukrainian soldier on the streets of Kyiv on Saturday.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg

The collapse of Ukrainian infrastructure, forcing the Zelenskyy government to accept a humiliating cease-fire that will acknowledge Russia’s territorial grabs, is still conceivable. But it is looking less likely by the day as the Ukrainians have succeeded in repairing some of the damaged power networks and the supply chains are overcoming shortages. In recent days, many more food products are to be found in stores in Kyiv and other cities. The Ukrainian government has also changed the tax regulations in an attempt to get small businesses running again and to put the local economy back on track.

 
At this stage, it looks as if the only way Russia can get back into the game and seriously threaten Kyiv is by raising a whole new army of conscripts, after changing the legislation or declaring martial law. But that would take at least half a year, probably much more, and will cause significant unrest within Russia.

 
Yet everything said above should not obscure the fact that Russia still has one very significant claim to being a military power: It continues to have the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world – around 6,000 (500 more than the United States), two-thirds of which are “tactical” nuclear weapons that could be used against Ukrainian targets, creating untold damage but without the threat of radioactive fallout on Russian territory.

 
It is of course possible that the level of maintenance of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the delivery systems is as low as that of its conventional weaponry. But even a single nuclear explosion could change the entire picture. The first use of a nuclear weapon in war since Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 77 years ago seems unthinkable, but so was Putin’s reckless decision to unleash a war on this scale.

 
The fear of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon is one of the main reasons Western leaders have adamantly refused to get directly involved in the warfare, beyond supplying Ukraine with arms and intelligence. Even if Putin’s army remains stuck in the Ukrainian mud, he will still have the nuclear card to play. His tanks won’t capture Kyiv, but he can still inflict even greater suffering upon Ukraine than he already has.