Ukraine's Strikes Could Change The Course Of The War

The new deterrence strategy is also of critical importance for all of Europe.

The protracted Russian-Ukrainian conflict continues to radically change the very nature of modern warfare. — By 2026, the main focus of the conflict had definitively shifted from ground operations to air operations.

As recently as 2025, Putin was still hoping for a breakthrough on the ground. By 2026, a complete stalemate is already evident here (military experts say that at this stage, successful ground operations are likely impossible in principle; see Watling et al.).

The war has definitively taken on the character of a duel of strategic strikes against the enemy’s infrastructure, designed to undermine its ability to wage war.

A second characteristic is that offensive capabilities in air warfare are now cheaper and easier to scale than defensive capabilities. Therefore, building an effective shield against enemy strikes is practically impossible at this stage. Moreover, this argument applies not only to Ukraine but also to Europe.

The new concept of deterrence involves identifying bottlenecks in the enemy’s infrastructure and demonstrating to the enemy that striking these targets can inflict damage commensurate with that which the enemy would inflict through its own attacks.

Virtually the only effective defense strategy for Ukraine this winter is to identify such areas in Russian infrastructure whose destruction would force Putin to limit his own strikes against Ukraine.

However, this is a critical issue not only for Kyiv but also for Europe. If such a deterrence strategy is demonstrated through the Russian-Ukrainian war, it will limit the Kremlin’s ability to blackmail Europe with the threat of similar strikes.

Kirill Rogov, Facebook

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