Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculations; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose [the latter] without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.

George Frost Kennan, father of the ingenious strategy of containment that prevailed in Cold War I, had an absolutely uncanny ability to peer into the heart of Russian history and politics. Much of what he saw about Russian civilization he admired, but he also saw that for centuries the nation’s leaders had displayed a deep sense of insecurity over relations with foreign powers, leading them to mount recurring drives to expand Moscow’s power at the expense of all potential rivals and neighbors. Interestingly, Kennan was also one of the most articulate critics of the West’s strategies for dealing with the Kremlin, both during the Cold War and after it ended with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The lanky diplomat-scholar wouldn’t have been very surprised by Russia’s three-pronged conventional invasion of Ukraine last month, with the main effort being directed at decapitating the duly elected government of Volodymyr Zelensky. Indeed, America’s most influential student of Russian history and politics in the 20th century predicted that real trouble would rise up again between Russia and the West, if the Western alliance ignored Russia’s legitimate security concerns while letting military deterrence against Russian expansion weaken.

Both of those developments, of course, have now come to pass.

As far back as 1997, Kennan wrote in his diary, “I have been rendered most unhappy by the admission of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to membership in NATO.” How was such a development “to be reconciled with the assurances to the Russians that they need not worry, that the extension of NATO’s borders to the east has no military implications?” Kennan saw nothing in the rapid and reckless expansion of NATO “other than a new Cold War, probably ending in a hot one, and the end of the effort to achieve a workable democracy in Russia.”

Kennan also believed firmly that if the West failed to respond with counterforce, resolve, and a unanimous voice to Russia’s deeply ingrained expansionist tendencies, Moscow would surely attempt to challenge Western encroachment on territory it saw as falling within its rightful sphere of influence. “The Kremlin, he wrote as early as 1946, “has no compunction about retreating in the face of superior force.” Indeed, deterrence was an essential element of his concept of containment. As Kennan said again and again during the Cold War, Western policymakers needed to be absolutely clear about their red lines, and to back them up with credible threats of military force.

Although he’s been dead since 2005, it’s a good bet Kennan would see Moscow’s decision to launch a full-throated invasion of Ukraine as a result of both sides’ failure to respond creatively with diplomacy to address Russia’s security concerns, and a failure on the part of the United States and Europe to establish a credible deterrent to Russian expansionism at the point of a gun.

By the late 1990s, Kennan had been studying U.S.-Russian relations for well over half a century. And he had shaped the course of those relations profoundly. As the No. 2 man in the American embassy in Moscow in the waning days of World War II, Kennan waged a lonely crusade to persuade his superiors, especially the ailing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to remove their rose-colored glasses and see Russia for what it was, not what they wished it to be.

The New York Times has reported on "poor Ukrainian defenses" west of Avdiivka.

Source: NYT, referring to satellite images, US officials and military experts

Details: In an article headlined Surprisingly Weak Ukrainian Defenses Help Russian Advance, the newspaper notes that the rapid advance of Russian troops near Avdiivka is partly due to a lack of ammunition for Ukraine's Defence Forces due to the decrease in Western aid, but another reason is the weakness of Ukrainian defences.Based on satellite imagery from Planet Labs, the newspaper reports that "Sparse, rudimentary trench lines populate the area west of Avdiivka that Ukraine is trying to defend" that "lack many of the additional fortifications that could help slow Russian tanks and help defend major roads and important terrain."

Quote: "US officials said privately that it was concerning that Ukraine did not shore up its defensive lines early or well enough, and that it may now face the consequences as Russian units advance slowly but steadily beyond Avdiivka."

More details: The newspaper notes that the Ukrainian command has had enough time to prepare defences in this area.

"But the Ukrainian defences outside Avdiivka show rudimentary earthen fortifications, often with a connecting trench for infantry troops to reach firing positions closest to the enemy, but little else," the newspaper says.

Instead, the report notes that Russian fortifications near Verbove, a village in Ukraine's south, which Ukraine tried to regain this autumn, "show a much different picture".

"Unlike the poorly fortified villages that Russian forces are trying to capture outside Avdiivka, Verbove has a concentric ring of fortifications. It starts with a trench wide enough to ensnare advancing tanks and armoured vehicles, followed by a mesh of cement obstacles known as dragon’s teeth — also used to stop vehicles — and, finally, a sprawling trench for the infantry. Satellite imagery from February shows the multilayered Russian defences to the west of Verbove, with thousands of shell craters visible in the surrounding fields," the NYT writes.

According to the NYT, there are many possible reasons for the apparent lack of defence in Ukraine.

"Ukrainian officials may have been too focused on offensive operations last year to dedicate the necessary resources to building the kind of multiple trenches and tank traps that Russian engineers built since late 2022 in the country’s south, the US officials and military experts said," the newspaper says.

According to US officials, a psychological element might have influenced the situation as well. If Ukrainian troops intensively mine certain areas to impede the advance of Russian troops, it will be a tacit admission that they are unlikely to conduct offensive operations in the same area in the future, the newspaper reports.

The NYT adds that while Moscow began building defensive lines in the south more than six months before Kyiv's counteroffensive, Ukraine appears to have started planning new fortifications only three months ago.

During a visit to the frontline in late November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that areas in eastern Donetsk Oblast, where Avdiivka is, "will receive maximum attention," noting the "need to boost and accelerate the construction of structures".

But Pasi Paroinen, an analyst at the Black Bird Group, which analyses satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield, said "nothing significant has happened" since Zelenskyy's visit. According to the analyst, outside Avdiivka, "there are new positions being prepared, but they do not yet constitute a particularly formidable defensive line" and are not comparable in scale to Russian fortifications in Ukraine's south.

As the NYT notes, delays in the construction of fortifications mean that Ukrainian troops are likely having to reinforce their defences under Russian fire, making this task much more difficult.

Background:

• On the night of 16-17 February, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, announced the withdrawal of Ukrainian units from Avdiivka.
• On 19 February, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, Commander of the Tavria Operational and Strategic Group of Forces (OSGF), reported that Ukrainian troops have consolidated their positions on new defensive lines on the Avdiivka front in Donetsk Oblast.
• On 24 February, DeepState reported that Russian troops had occupied the village of Lastochkyne.
• On 25 February, Dmytro Lykhovii, spokesman for the Tavriia Operational Strategic Group, said that Ukraine's Armed Forces had withdrawn to the western outskirts of Lastochkyne, where they took up "prepared defensive positions", but on 26 February, he confirmed their withdrawal from Lastochkyne to mount a defence along the Orlivka-Tonenke-Berdychi line.
• On 27 February DeepState analysts reported that Russian troops were advancing west and northwest of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast, having captured the villages of Stepove and Sieverne after Lastochkyne. Tavriia Operative-Strategic Group confirms Ukrainian forces retreated from villages near Avdiivka.