Ukrainian defensive strategy faces tension between fortress mentality defending urban strongpoints and mobile maneuver warfare potentially offering better prospects against Russian numerical superiority. Fixed defenses allow leveraging urban terrain advantages and established fortifications but create encirclement vulnerabilities and force attrition battles favoring Russian firepower advantages. Mobile operations could theoretically exploit Ukrainian tactical skill advantages and create local superiority through concentration, but require resources, training, and coordination currently unavailable to depleted Ukrainian forces.
The fortress approach has dominated eastern front as Ukrainian forces attempt holding strategic cities rather than conducting mobile defenses trading space for time. The defensive emphasis reflects both political imperatives to avoid abandoning populations in contested cities and military assessment that Ukrainian forces lack resources for effective maneuver operations. However, the resulting static defenses have allowed Russian siege tactics progressively reducing strongpoints through sustained bombardment and encirclement.
Historical military analysis suggests that mobile defenses often prove more effective than static fortifications when defenders face numerical inferiority, as mobility allows concentration achieving local superiority and avoiding decisive engagements where superior enemy numbers prove overwhelming. However, implementing mobile operations requires extensive training, fuel supplies, maintenance capacity, and command coordination that Ukrainian forces increasingly lack after three years of sustained combat.
The strategic dilemma reflects broader questions about whether continued resistance offers realistic victory prospects or merely delays inevitable defeat while accumulating casualties and destruction. If mobile operations remain infeasible and static defenses face inevitable reduction, arguments for negotiated settlement gain strength regardless of peace terms’ favorability. The military strategy assessment directly affects diplomatic calculations about whether peace negotiations should aim for favorable terms supporting continued resistance or accept unfavorable terms recognizing military limitations.
Thursday’s coalition video conference should address military strategy questions and their implications for sustainable resistance. President Zelenskyy’s revised peace framework presumably reflects military assessments about defensive prospects, though public discussions may avoid acknowledging limitations that would undermine negotiating positions. As Russian forces progressively reduce urban strongpoints while Ukrainian mobile operation capabilities remain constrained, the fortress mentality versus maneuver warfare tension illustrates fundamental military challenges affecting diplomatic calculations about peace terms acceptability and resistance sustainability.