Andrew Latham
Key Points and Summary – Russia’s autumn offensive has stalled, yielding only microscopic gains at a colossal cost in blood and metal. While Russia has adapted its tactics, it has not achieved a decisive breakthrough.
-Ukraine has also adapted, using defense-in-depth and robotic systems to survive the war of attrition.
-This battlefield stalemate, where neither side can sprint, is making a “fortified freeze” along the current front lines increasingly likely
-While a ceasefire rewards aggression, a durable one—wired with strong deterrence and enforcement—could give Ukraine time to rearm and prevent a future Russian attack.
Could Putin Be Forced to Accept a ‘Fortified Freeze’ in Ukraine?
From a distance, Russia’s autumn offensive looks like a knockout punch; up close it lands like a glancing jab.
The front has shifted at the edges—villages taken, tree lines contested—but the sweeping breakthrough Moscow keeps promising never shows up. What we’re witnessing instead is less breakthrough than abrasion. And that raises the question: could Moscow be forced to accept a fortified freeze along the current front line?
There are those, of course, who believe that Moscow will be forced wo accept no such thing. To them, Russian battlefield adaptation looks like a war-winning evolution. And not without cause., Russian units have learned what works and what doesn’t. They push more small-group assaults under drone overwatch, level strongpoints with glide bombs, and flood the battlespace with cheap FPVs hunting guns and vehicles.
But, on closer inspection, these tactical innovations – as radical as they are – have not changed the fundamental battlefield calculus. Every step forward still exacts a toll in Russian blood and metal. In this “new phase” of the war, Moscow has figured out how to grind on somewhat more efficiently. But it has definitely still not figured out how to achieve a decisive battlefield victory over its Ukrainian foe.
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