Eliot A. Cohen: ‘Ukraine Is Winning’

Eliot A. Cohen, writing for The Atlantic:

The evidence that Ukraine is winning this war is abundant, if one only looks closely at the available data. The absence of Russian progress on the front lines is just half the picture, obscured though it is by maps showing big red blobs, which reflect not what the Russians control but the areas through which they have driven. The failure of almost all of Russia’s airborne assaults, its inability to destroy the Ukrainian air force and air-defense system, and the weeks-long paralysis of the 40-mile supply column north of Kyiv are suggestive. Russian losses are staggering — between 7,000 and 14,000 soldiers dead, depending on your source, which implies (using a low-end rule of thumb about the ratios of such things) a minimum of nearly 30,000 taken off the battlefield by wounds, capture, or disappearance. Such a total would represent at least 15 percent of the entire invading force, enough to render most units combat ineffective. And there is no reason to think that the rate of loss is abating — in fact, Western intelligence agencies are briefing unsustainable Russian casualty rates of a thousand a day.

Along similar lines, see this interesting Twitter thread from Levi Westerveld about how The New York Times’s graphics desk has evolved their cartography over the last month to better illustrate the state of Russia’s invasion.

★ Thursday, 24 March 2022