Russia's war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate, which is a tribute to the toughness of defendining forces, but much bloodshed and violence are likely ahead

The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate, which sounds like a tribute to the toughness and moxie of Ukrainians defending their homeland against an assault from Russia. But it is not necessarily good news, according to a report from Axios:

"The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate after more than three weeks of fighting, with Russia making only marginal gains and increasingly targeting civilians," the N.Y. Times writes (subscription).

That was the assessment yesterday from the Institute for the Study of War, a widely respected D.C. research group:

• "Ukrainian forces have defeated the initial Russian campaign of this war," the note says. "That campaign aimed to conduct airborne and mechanized operations to seize Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and other major Ukrainian cities to force a change of government in Ukraine." That failed.
• "Russian forces continue to make limited advances in some parts of the theater but are very unlikely to be able to seize their objectives in this way."

Stalemate sounds like the two sides have pretty much reached a standoff. But that does not necessarily paint a rosy picture:

"Stalemate will likely be very violent and bloody," the institute adds.

• "Stalemate is not armistice or ceasefire. ... If the war in Ukraine settles into a stalemate condition Russian forces will continue to bomb and bombard Ukrainian cities, devastating them and killing civilians."
• "The World War I battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Passchendaele were all fought in conditions of stalemate and did not break the stalemate."

All of this is driven, in part, by miscalculations from Russian President Vladimir Putin:

Yaroslav Hrytsak, a Ukrainian historian and professor at Ukrainian Catholic University, writes in a N.Y. Times op-ed (subscription) that Putin made two huge miscalculations:

• "First, he was hoping that, as had been the case with his war against Georgia, the West would tacitly swallow his aggression against Ukraine. A unified response from the West was not something he expected."
• "Second, since in his mind Russians and Ukrainians were one nation, Mr. Putin believed Russian troops needed barely to enter Ukraine to be welcomed with flowers. This never materialized."