WASHINGTON — Far from bogging down in a stalemate, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has evolved into an increasingly dangerous conflict as it passes the six-month mark, with fighting around Europe’s largest nuclear plant, a high-profile assassination in Moscow, escalating threats and daring Ukrainian attacks in Russian-held territory.
“The dynamic of the battlefield” is shifting, said retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. Army Europe. Armed with increasingly lethal weapons from the U.S. and other allies, Ukraine has been able to occasionally seize the initiative and surprise Russian forces.
It is not clear, however, how long that can last or whether Ukraine can build on those small victories enough to dictate the course of the war.
“The war is far from over,” said Daniel Serwer, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foreign Policy Institute who specializes in the study of war. “The Ukrainians lack the manpower to conduct a conventional offense but are using their supplies of NATO-origin artillery, drones, antitank missiles and other weapons to batter the Russians and their supply lines.”
The six-month mark in a war that has killed thousands of people and driven millions from their homes overlapped with a normally joyous national holiday. Wednesday marks 31 years since the country broke free from the collapsing Soviet Union.
Independence Day was greeted by Ukrainians with a mixture of defiance and dread, as the U.S. State Department said it had “information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days” and repeated entreaties that U.S. citizens leave the country.
The warnings prompted authorities to ban mass gatherings in the capital, Kyiv, and in the country’s second city, Kharkiv, and order residents to shelter indoors.
Tensions are especially running high over Russia’s claim that Ukraine carried out the assassination Saturday of Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent far-right Russian political theorist and herself a vociferous proponent of the war.
The government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied any involvement in the weekend car bombing — a dramatic strike on the outskirts of the generally safe Russian capital that touched the inner ring of President Vladimir Putin’s confidants.
At a memorial service Tuesday, a who’s who of Putin-fed nationalism, including the founder of a notorious mercenary group fighting in Ukraine and parts of Africa, mourned the loss and demanded severe punishment of Ukraine. Her death, said her tearful father, Alexander Dugin, “can be justified only by victory.”
Over the weekend, Kyiv residents flocked to a display of disabled Russian tanks and armor that had been hauled into the heart of the capital on flatbed trucks to celebrate the unexpectedly staunch fight put up by Ukrainian defenders in the war’s early days. The mood was jovial as children clambered on the hulking vehicles as parents and grandparents looked on.
But on Saturday night, Zelenskyy grimly advised compatriots that Russia might bombard civilian areas of the capital and other cities during the independence anniversary.
“We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” the president said in a video message. Still, on Tuesday he appeared in public for a ceremony marking Flag Day, presiding over the raising of a giant banner.
“The blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine will again fly where it rightfully should be, in all temporarily occupied cities and villages of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy declared later.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization pledged its ongoing support, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday calling the conflict a “battle of wills.”
