Kyiv was a historic Russian defeat. The invaders got off to a bad start in the battle, and things only got worse from there.
After months of buildup on Ukraine’s frontiers, President Vladimir Putin launched his war on Feb. 24, sending hundreds of helicopter-borne commandos — the greatest of Russia’s “Spetsnaz” special forces warriors — to assault and seize a lightly held airfield on Kyiv’s doorstep.
Other Russian forces launched attacks around Ukraine, notably in the eastern city of Kharkiv, the contested Donbas area, and the Black Sea coast. Kyiv, on the other hand, was the key prize because it was the seat of national power. As a result, elite airborne soldiers led the charge in the early stages of the war.
Putin, on the other hand, fell short of his goal of quickly destroying Ukraine’s outmanned and outgunned army. The Russians were unprepared for Ukrainian resistance, unable to adapt to losses, unable to successfully combine air and ground operations, underestimated Ukraine’s ability to protect its skies and botched basic military responsibilities such as supply planning and execution.
“If you want to conquer a country, that’s a tremendously horrible mix,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel, and professor of military history at Ohio State University.
For the time being, Putin’s forces have switched their focus away from Kyiv and toward eastern Ukraine. In the end, the Russian president may be able to accomplish some of his goals. His inability to conquer Kyiv, however, will be remembered for defying prewar expectations and exposing unforeseen flaws in a military that was supposed to be one of the world’s best.
“It’s amazing,” said military historian Frederick Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, adding that he is unaware of any other big military power attacking a country at its leisure and failing so spectacularly.
Russian Mi-8 assault helicopters flew south toward Kyiv on the first morning of the war, on a mission to strike Hostomel airbase on the capital’s outskirts. The Russians planned to use the airstrip, also known as Antonov airport, to build a base from which they could fly in more troops and light armored vehicles within striking distance of the country’s major city.
That didn’t work out. Several Russian helicopters were claimed to have been hit by missiles even before they arrived in Hostomel, and they suffered substantial losses from artillery fire once they were established.
A failed attempt to take control of a military airbase at Vasylkiv, south of Kyiv, saw six Russian Il-76 heavy-lift transport planes carrying paratroopers shot down by Ukrainian forces.
Although the Russians eventually took control of the Hostomel airfield, the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians in the capital region forced a rethinking of an invasion strategy based on the assumption that the Ukrainians would quickly surrender, the West would dither, and Russian forces would have an easy fight.
As the US Army demonstrated on March 24, 2003, when it dispatched more than 30 Apache attack helicopters into Iraq from Kuwait to target an Iraqi Republican Guard division, air assault missions inside enemy lines, such as the one carried out at Hostomel, are risky and complex. On their route, the Apaches were hit by small arms and anti-aircraft fire, which caused one of the helos to crash and others to be damaged, forcing the mission to be called off. Despite this defeat, the US military recovered quickly and took Baghdad.
The fact that the Russian 45th Guards Special Purpose Airborne Brigade’s Hostomel assault failed might not stand out in retrospect if the Russian effort as a whole had improved since then. However, this was not the case.
The Russians attempted modest, fruitless forays into Kyiv’s heart, and then attempted to encircle the capital by arcing further west at significant cost. Despite overwhelming odds, the Ukrainians held their ground and fought back, slowing the Russians and effectively employing a variety of Western armaments, including Javelin portable anti-tank guns, shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and more.
Russian forces abandoned Hostomel airfield last week as part of a larger retreat into Belarus and Russia.
The widely reported saga of a Russian resupply convoy that stretched dozens of miles along the main highway toward the capital was a sidelight of the battle for Kyiv. It appeared to be a concerning indication for the Ukrainians at first, but they were able to target portions of the convoy, which had limited off-road capacity and thus dispersed or became irrelevant in the combat.
“They never really provided any kind of resupply to Russian forces assembling around Kyiv, and they never really came to their aid,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. “The Ukrainians rapidly put a halt to that convoy by being nimble and knocking out bridges, hitting lead vehicles, and stopping their march.”
According to Mansoor, the Russians miscalculated the number of troops they would require and showed “astonishing ineptitude” to accomplish basic military tasks. He claims they grossly underestimated what it would take to win the struggle for Kyiv.
“Even if the Russian army had proven itself to be competent,” he continued, “this was going to be difficult.” “It has demonstrated that it is completely incapable of performing modern armored warfare.”
Putin was not the only one taken aback by his army’s early setbacks. If the invasion took place, the U.S and other Western officials expected Russia’s ostensibly superior troops would slice through Ukraine’s army like a hot knife through butter. They could conquer Kyiv in a matter of days and the entire country in a matter of weeks, but some observers wonder if Putin realizes how much Ukraine’s military has benefited from increased Western training following Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and expedition into the Donbas.
The Russians claimed on March 25, just a month after the invasion began, that they had achieved their objectives in the Kyiv region and would now turn their attention to the rebel Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Some speculated that it was a ruse by Putin to buy time without giving up his maximalist goals, but the Kyiv retreat was obvious within days.
Putin might yet be able to refocus his military effort on a more specific goal of increasing Russian authority in the Donbas and possibly gaining a land corridor connecting the Donbas and the Crimean Peninsula. However, his defeat in Kyiv exposed flaws that suggest Russia is unlikely to try to overthrow the Ukrainian capital anytime soon.
“I believe they’ve learned their lesson,” Mansoor remarked.
