What the commentators said

“After a chaotic start”, Russian tanks, infantry, jets and artillery seem to be belatedly “working together”, said Dominic Nicholls in The Daily Telegraph. Moscow has focused its resources on the east, and is managing to impose an effective “bite and hold” strategy – taking ground after pounding it with artillery, then hanging on to it. The only surprise is that it’s taken so long for this “once-upon-a-superpower to get its act together”. Russia may conquer Luhansk, but it won’t necessarily take the whole of the Donbas, said Michael Clarke in The Sunday Times. Russia’s standing army of 280,000 is already “at full stretch”; it has lost a lot of “significant kit”, and it’s having to scour the world for weapons components. “On present trends, Russian forces will be outgunned and outnumbered by the autumn.” It seems likely that Ukraine will soon fight Russia to a “standstill”; but whether it can counter-attack is quite another question.

The trouble is, “the world’s attention has faded”, and Ukraine’s allies are being far too slow to arm it sufficiently, said Peter Pomerantsev in The Observer. Every day brings about 100 Ukrainian fatalities, and positions are being routinely ceded due to “a lack of basic munitions for artillery”. If and when negotiations do happen, Ukraine must be “armed to the teeth to deter future Russian incursions”. There’s a tendency in the West “to go from euphoria to despair” about this conflict, said Sergey Radchenko in The Spectator: “‘Oh no, Ukraine is losing!’ ‘Oh look, it’s winning!’” It will only be after the two sides have “exhausted themselves” that talks will be possible. “Russia and Ukraine are not at this point yet.” Indeed, said Gabriel Gavin in UnHerd. Both are still intent on snatching victory from the jaws of what looks increasingly like a stalemate. At the cost of thousands of lives, Putin has only “moved his front line a little further to the West”. In truth, “neither side has the capability to vanquish the other” – and the danger is that this war may be one that “nobody can win and nobody can end”.