Despite Widespread Russian Missile Attacks, Ukraine Forces Continue Advance

In the past week, a Ukrainian attack damaged the critical Kerch Strait Bridge, Moscow appointed a brutal new general to oversee its "special military operation," and Russia unleashed its largest missile barrage since February 24. None of these developments, however, is likely to make a significant impact on the battlefield, where Ukrainian forces continue to push forward with methodical counter offensive maneuvers on two fronts.

"Militarily, not a lot has changed," George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War told Newsweek. "The information space has been affected a lot more than the situation on the ground has."

The October 8 explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links mainland Russia to Russian-occupied Crimea, garnered front-page headlines worldwide and prompted speculation that Russia might soon be left unable to supply its occupying forces in Ukraine's southern Kherson region.

However, the attack did not render the bridge completely inoperable. Light vehicular traffic resumed on Saturday evening, though it remains unclear exactly how long it will take engineers to repair damage to the railroad section of the crossing.

"At the operational level, the physical damage done is likely to have a fairly minor effect in the long run," Barros said. "Yes, anything going over the bridge in the future will be inspected and scrutinized more than it was before, and that creates a logistical hassle for the Russians, but the strike does not prevent them from moving supplies to their forces in southern Ukraine long-term."

Russia's Monday missile barrage, which came two days after the Kremlin's appointment of Gen. Sergei Surovikin as its commander of forces in Ukraine, provides a second example of a headline-generating event that did not fundamentally change the situation on the ground.

Despite sending in a swarm of 84 missiles, 43 of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the Russian blitz killed 19 civilians and temporarily knocked out power in a handful of cities, all at a cost that Forbes.ua estimated to run at between $400-700 million.

"The attack served no tangible military purpose, but in the Russian information space, the military bloggers and nationalists loved both the Russian strikes and the appointment of Surovikin," Barros said. "A lot of them were talking about bombing Ukraine back to the Stone Age."

However, even if the Kremlin intends to take the advice of its most hawkish domestic cheerleaders, the Russian army likely lacks the physical capacity to carry out such brutality on a sustainable scale.

"The Russians do not have enough precision guided munitions [PGMs] for them to win the war through a scorched earth campaign waged against Ukraine's civilian infrastructure," Barros said.

"Yes, they damaged somewhere around 30% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, but that is already being repaired," he explained. "The only lasting effect seems to be that Ukrainians are now even more determined to continue fighting, and the West is now even more determined to increase weapons shipments to Ukraine."

"It's difficult to look at the results of the missile attack and say that, militarily, it made a lot of sense," he added.

The appointment of Surovikin, whose nickname in Russia is "General Armageddon," is unlikely to significantly affect the facts on the ground either.

"There's been a lot of reporting about the missile strikes on October 10 being a Surovikin tactic, that this portends some sort of significant inflection point in Russian strategy," Barros said. "But that's simply not the case."

Surovikin, despite his colorful nickname, does not exactly stand out when compared to his peers at the top levels of the Russian military.

"All of these Russian generals who were candidates to be the commander of forces in Ukraine did senior tours in Syria, and it wasn't as if any of them acted with noticeably greater restraint towards the civilian population than Surovikin did," Barros cautioned.

"Hitting civilian infrastructure really is just a standard tactic of the Russian way of war," he added. It's not a Surovikin thing, it's a Russian thing."

Unlike in Syria, however, where the forces under Surovikin's command enjoyed air supremacy over a lightly armed collection of anti-Assad rebel groups, the Russian air force has found Ukrainian skies to be a decidedly unfriendly place. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reports that it has shot down 268 Russian military jets and 240 helicopters since February 24.

"Russia can't just decide to start flying sorties over Kyiv in order to drop non-PGMs on targets," Barros said. "The Ukrainians have S-300s, Buks, Osas [all Soviet-era air defense systems], and they've distributed MANPADs [man-portable air defense systems] amongst their infantry."

"Russia knows that if they try to fly in Ukraine, they'll continue to lose aircraft, and they'll continue to lose pilots," he added. "Simply repeating what 'worked' for them in Syria isn't an option here."

Despite bluster from some hardline Russian media figures, who denounced Saturday's bridge attack as an act of Ukrainian state terrorism while hailing Monday's wave of Russian rockets as a welcome turning point in the war, more sober analysts in Moscow largely agree with Barros's conclusion that the past week's events have not significantly changed the overall situation on the ground.

"The strike on the Crimean Bridge was a very powerful development in terms of its propagandistic effect, but it must be said that the structure of the bridge itself proved to be just as strong," Russian military analyst Vladislav Shurygin told Newsweek. "The bridge is still standing, and it will remain in use."

Shurygin also agrees with Barros that a sustained Russian air campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure is unlikely. However, his basis for this assessment runs counter to the conventional wisdom prevalent almost everywhere outside of Russia itself.

"The idea that we're running out of cruise missiles is nonsense," Shurygin asserted. "Russia has enough rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out an extended operation that would leave Ukraine completely without electricity in advance of winter."

"There is, of course, high likelihood that Russia will not embark on such a campaign, as the resulting humanitarian crisis would only enrage the Ukrainian population and lead to increased Western pressure against us," he added. "However, if the effect of the present strikes is judged to have been positive, then this tactic could be continued in order to disrupt Ukraine's capacity to continue the war."

Still, Shurygin sees the battlefields in Ukraine's east and south as the sites where the war's outcome will most likely be decided.

"Russia's partial mobilization, not its cruise missiles, is what will have the greatest effect on the situation on the ground," he said. "In September, Ukraine was able to make advances because our battalions in the east were undermanned. Now that fresh soldiers are being sent to supplement units in the field, the situation is stabilizing."

While most Western analysts have concluded that Russia's newly mobilized troops lack the training, equipment, and motivation necessary to make an immediate difference on the battlefield, Shurygin's assertions to the contrary seem to reflect the conventional wisdom still prevalent in Moscow.

Even if the Kremlin's position is rooted in nothing more than wishful thinking, the fact that Russia appears intent on continuing to throw underprepared manpower onto the front lines all but ensures that the remainder of this war will be no less bloody than the nearly eight months of fighting that have come before.

"I foresee a scenario in which Ukraine's counteroffensive efforts will soon be exhausted, after which the situation on the ground will remain essentially unchanged for the subsequent two to three months," Shurygin said. "After that, Russia will finally be prepared to resume offensive operations of its own."