Ukraine’s winning strategy against Russia: Attrition

The Hill  |  Gian Gentile, Andrew Radin

Ukraine is successfully executing an attrition strategy against Russia by leveraging deep-strike capabilities and targeting critical infrastructure to offset its adversary's demographic advantages. Ukrainian long-range drone strikes have severely disrupted Russian logistics in Crimea and degraded industrial targets deep within Russian territory, forcing Moscow into an increasingly precarious economic position.

This systematic degradation of supply lines and industrial assets challenges the traditional assumption that a larger population guarantees victory in a prolonged conflict. By shifting the operational focus from rapid territorial maneuvers to continuous material and financial exhaustion, Kyiv is exploiting vulnerabilities within the Russian war economy and oligarchy. Consequently, the Kremlin faces mounting domestic unrest and severe economic strain as its tolerance for massive personnel losses fails to yield decisive strategic breakthroughs. Ultimately, this attritional approach demonstrates how a smaller, technologically agile force can leverage asymmetric capabilities to effectively neutralize a larger opponent's material superiority over a prolonged timeline.

Comment

Kyiv’s deployment of Liutyi long-range strike drones against energy infrastructure in Krasnodar Krai demonstrates a doctrinal shift where deep precision strikes substitute for frontline mass. By targeting oil refineries and storage depots, this strategy bypasses the dense Russian S-400 air defence networks in Crimea to inflict compounding economic costs directly on the Kremlin's war machine. This approach redefines classic Soviet-style attritional models by proving that Ukrainian forces can systematically degrade Russian refining capacity without relying on Western-supplied cruise missiles. Consequently, the operational focus of the Ukrainian General Staff shifts from costly territorial counteroffensives to the systematic hollowing out of Russian economic solvency.

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