Putin’s Ukraine Gamble Pivots to a Very Different Battlefield

The battles in the north that Ukraine won over the past seven weeks were fought in towns and densely populated suburbs around the capital, Kyiv. But the war is about to shift to the southeast and into a vast expanse of open flatland. That will change the nature of the combat, the weapons at play and the strategies that might bring victory.

Military analysts, Ukrainian commanders, and even Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, acknowledge that a war that began with a failed attempt to capture Kyiv will now be waged in the eastern Donbas region.

With few natural barriers, the armies can try to flank and surround each other, firing barrages of artillery from a distance.

“What we’re talking about is, no kidding, a conventional, very lethal battle of maneuvers where Russian forces are going to attack Ukraine’s fixed positions on ground that is more open,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. Read more

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