Russo-Ukraine War Assessment: Week of 17 April to 25April

Note: this is a somewhat shorter update than I had originally intended due to work and personal commitments.

Overview:

Here is the ISW assessment for 25 April.

So… Russia is still doing Russia things and doing them badly. At this point the only thing surprising about this is how often we seem to repeat this observation.

Despite concentrating forces in Eastern Ukraine for an offensive earlier this week, the Russians continue their display of total mediocrity in large-scale ground combat operations.

By contrast, Ukrainian forces continue to push back against Russian forces in and around Kharkiv and Severodonetsk. Despite recent offensive successes and recapturing a great deal of lost territory over the last few weeks, sadly we’re still far off from a conclusion to this damnable war.

In one of the few places that Russia has enjoyed some measure of success, the defenders in Mariupol are unlikely to hold out for much longer. As we’ve already noted above, we can’t attribute this to any real skill on the Russians’ part. After being cutoff, starved, bombed, and brutalized for two months, defenders will eventually hit their limits. The main question about the defense in Mariupol is how much it will cost the Russians to finally crack it.