Executive Summary: Delays in weapons deliveries, disproportionate political pressure, and problems with command, control, and communications plagued Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive from the start. Ukrainian forces’ ability to wage a successful 2024 campaign largely rests on Kyiv’s efforts to mobilize more military-age men to reinforce the... MORE

At the Grain From Ukraine forum in Kyiv on November 25, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine has arranged to receive additional air defense systems from Western partners to ensure the safety of vessels traveling along the grain corridor in the Black Sea. According to... MORE

Over the past few months, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have relentlessly suppressed Russia’s military presence in the Black Sea and Crimea. On November 9, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksii Danilov announced that Ukraine was making “huge gains” and “having great success in... MORE

The series of unsuccessful offensives in the Kupyansk and Avdiivka directions have caused major problems for Russian forces in Ukraine (Ukrinform, October 27; Kyiv Independent, October 29). The Russian army is losing military equipment at a high rate, which Moscow seemingly considers a worse problem... MORE

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and UN Security Council (UNSC), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strongly emphasized Ukraine’s goal to regain all of its Russian-occupied territories, including Ukraine’s territorial waters in the Black Sea (Un.org, September 19, 20). Concurrently, Zelenskyy cautioned against any land-for-peace... MORE

*Read Part One. Russia has turned much of the Black Sea into another theater of protracted conflict, adding a sizeable maritime dimension to the land dimension. This conflict at sea reproduces some key features of the preexisting, Russian-initiated protracted conflicts on land around the Black... MORE

On July 17, Russia unilaterally suspended the implementation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (“grain deal”), the year-old arrangement that has allowed Ukraine to export grain—albeit under Russian-imposed conditions—from the three ports in and near Odesa. The Kremlin and its navy had (until now) only... MORE

Following Ukraine’s successful Kherson counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, the war in Ukraine has moved into the Materialschlacht, or war of attrition phase, which is rapidly depleting critical resources. Typically, when discussing resources in this sense, Ukraine is most often referring to the tanks,... MORE

On July 19, the Ukrainian Armed Forces conducted a strike on a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea. Later, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Defense Intelligence Unit of Ukraine, confirmed the strike, calling it a “successful operation.” In his comments, he also thanked the... MORE

From the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, Moscow, the West and Ukraine have viewed the conflict primarily as a land war rather than a naval contest. But as Ukrainian, Western and Russian analysts are increasingly pointing out, from the beginning,... MORE