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Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine is now entering its third week and the much-anticipated fall of Kyiv, estimated by various Western officials last month to be likely within the space of about 72 hours, has not yet occurred. Nor has Russia managed to sack any major population center. The one city it “holds,” the provincial capital of Kherson, is restive: Ukrainians turn out daily to protest their armed occupiers, and now fresh reports are trickling in of mass arrests of civilians and anyone thought to have been associated with Ukrainian authorities.
One country in Europe has been bolder in making projections that this war will not end in Putin’s favor: Estonia, for which Russia has historically been the overriding national security and military preoccupation at all levels of government. On Feb. 28, Mikk Marran, the head of Välisluureamet, Estonia’s foreign intelligence service, told New Lines that he didn’t believe Putin could “keep up an intensive war for more than two months” and that ultimately “Russia will not win this war.”
A senior Estonian analyst with years of experience tracking Russia’s military affairs concurs with that assessment but doesn’t even think it’ll take another two months to bear fruit — it already is doing so.
As this source asked to remain anonymous, we will refer to him as “Karl.”
“If Russia does not achieve a remarkable advance by the end of this week, it is difficult to see how [the advance] should come at all,” Karl said late this week.
The Russians, he added, have not made any serious encroachments for the past few days. However, the situation remains delicate. According to national security reporter Jack Detsch, a senior U.S. defense official said March 11 that Russian forces have made “additional advances” toward Kyiv in the past 24 hours and that Russian troops are less than 10 miles northwest of the capital’s city center and 20 miles east in Brovary.
But the Ukrainians have started to go on a mildly successful counteroffensive north of Kyiv. According to their defense ministry, they recaptured the town of Baklanova Muraviika, thus halting Russian efforts to take Chernihiv. Moreover, Russia’s losses in firepower also tell a story of squandered manpower. As of this writing (late on March 11), the popular, open-source intelligence analysis blog Oryx has verified at least 171 pieces of abandoned Russian equipment and 464 pieces of captured equipment, ranging from tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and even sophisticated air defense systems. All of this materiel was once manned by Russian operators who have either been taken as prisoners of war or simply deserted
