How Russia's Increasingly Pyrrhic "Victories" Reveal It Is Losing

A few more 'victories' like the assault on Marinka, as well as the attacks on Avdiivka, Kupiansk, Krynky and other fortified Ukrainians bastions and the Russians may be incapable of further battle. 

Putin is pushing his army and air force to attack Ukraine with everything they have right now as the Republican politicians on his payroll in the US Congress withhold further military aid. But the problem is that he is scraping the bottom of his already empty barrel. Russian public opinion polls show that support for his war is fading. Mothers and wives of soldiers are becoming increasingly bold in their complaints - and his troops keep losing even as they are being slaughtered. This is not a long term strategy, it is a last throw of the dice. JL

Erin Snodgrass reports in Business Insider:

Russia has failed to pull off any offensive operation that led to forward movement since the spring. "The story of Marinka is the cost at which it was captured, not the  utility of its capture. A flattened town is hardly the  strongpoint from which one wants to be projecting power. A small, completely destroyed settlement does not offer Russian forces a secure operational foothold from which to launch further offensive operations. Brutal, drawn-out, attritional fighting to advance barely a kilometer is a staggering cost for which the Russians will continue to pay. The assault on Marinka has left Russian forces with "severely degraded" capabilities. The Ukrainians have pulled back but are still right in the vicinity."

"The big story of Marinka is the cost at which it was captured, more than the utility of its capture," Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations, told Business Insider.

Miles added that he is "skeptical" Russia has sufficient combat power to exploit the victory.

While Marinka's eastern locale does offer Russia a strategic win, in theory — the town could serve as a gateway location to the bigger Ukrainian city of Donetsk — the country's ongoing tank troubles and depleted resources in the aftermath of the capture may hamper its ability to capitalize on the town's beneficial geography, Miles and other analysts said.

Since 2014, Russia has committed massive amounts of time and resources to capturing the tiny town of Marinka, which had a pre-invasion population of only about 9,000.

 

Russia conducted daily assaults on the town since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, according to the Washington, DC-based Institute for the Study of War, and ramped up its brutal attacks on Marinka in October.

The brutal, attritional fighting has left Marinka a ghost town, almost entirely decimated. Both Russian and Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the level of destruction waged there.

"A flattened town is hardly the sort of strongpoint from which one would want to be projecting power," Miles said.

In recent days, the Institute for the Study of War characterized Russia's capture of Marinka as a "limited tactical win."

 

"A small and completely destroyed settlement does not offer Russian forces a secure operational foothold from which to launch further offensive operations," analysts for ISW wrote in a Tuesday update.

The think tank said Russia's win does not portend an opportunity for significant advance unless the country can "dramatically improve" its ability to conduct rapid forward movements with armored vehicles — something it has struggled with for months.

Russia has failed to pull off any offensive operation that led to rapid forward movement since the spring, according to ISW, and the assault on Marinka has left Russian forces with "severely degraded" capabilities.

Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, remain on the outskirts of Marinka, where they are preparing a defensive line around the settlement, according to the Tuesday ISW update.

 

"The Ukrainians have pulled back but are still right in the vicinity and will do what they can to hamper any Russian offensives emanating from that area," Miles said.

And though Russia continued to consolidate its power in the area on Wednesday, according to ISW, the country's tank problems persist.

"They took Marinka through brutal, drawn-out, attritional fighting basically since this war began in order to advance barely a kilometer to take the town," Miles said. "That's a staggering cost for which the Russians will continue to pay."