Saturday marks two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The war has caused enormous damage, in life and equipment, to both sides.
In the first year of fighting, the Russian army is believed to have lost half of its ground forces, but through mobilization and by converting to a war economy, the Russian defense industry has managed to restore much of what was lost.
This weekend, the Russian army achieved its first military success in over six months. But the Avdijivka mound of ruins was a costly victory with tens of thousands of Russian dead and wounded soldiers and dubious military significance.
– The war consumes gigantic amounts of materiel and ammunition, above all the firepower war. You shoot at surfaces, not at points. You shoot a lot. We haven’t thought about war that way in 30 years here in the West, says Johan Norberg, military analyst at the Total Defense Research Institute.
Russia has problems in its manufacturing
Johan Norberg makes the assessment that Russia has tied up pretty much all of its ground forces in the Ukraine war.
The war of aggression has turned into a war of attrition, and as a result an industrial war, which is about which country manages to produce, or import the most military equipment.
Russia pumps money into the defense industry, where they run three shifts. The sanctions make it difficult for Russia to produce modern weapons, because it is difficult to get components and service machines.
Lack of staff is considered another limitation. But they have compensated for that by renovating the old and manufacturing simpler products.
– They probably have problems in their defense equipment manufacturing. And so do we. They get enough out of what they can already produce. We see a lot of old stuff now, which we think is outdated. But they create enough problems for Ukraine, says Johan Norberg.
So many Russian soldiers have died
During the war, American analysts have been surprised by Russian robots missing targets or blowing up prematurely. Something the Russian defense minister indirectly acknowledged the other day.
– We have implemented measures that have made it possible for us to attack targets with greater accuracy and at the required distance, says Sergei Shoigu.
According to US intelligence reports, over 300,000 Russian soldiers have been injured or killed. With mobilization, Russia has tried to cover the losses.
– I think that the mobilization purely quantitatively made up for the losses and slightly added, quantitatively, the mass, the amount, but on the other hand it is very clear that the quality is worse than what you had at the beginning, says Johan Norberg.