Campaigns

A war on the grid rather than the army — seasonal, repeated, and aimed at whether a country can be kept running at all.

Since October 20223 phases2 linked eventsConfidence: ModerateStatus as of 2026-07Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. This campaign is where the war reaches the civilian population that lives furthest from the front, and where the military, economic and humanitarian dimensions of the module are the same subject. It determines whether homes have heat and water in winter, whether industry can operate, how much of Ukraine's budget goes to imported electricity and repair rather than defence, and whether displaced people return. It is also the clearest instance in the war of an economic attack conducted by military means, and the reason interceptor supply is a humanitarian variable.

The war's centre of gravity: a slow, costly contest for fortified industrial ground that neither side can leave and neither can finish.

Since April 20224 phases5 linked eventsConfidence: ModerateStatus as of 2026-07Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. This is where the war is actually decided, and where the theory of victory on both sides is being tested. Russia is betting that superior manpower and ammunition production will eventually produce operational collapse somewhere along the line; Ukraine is betting that the cost of each advance is unsustainable for a system that must also keep its economy and politics intact. Neither proposition has been demonstrated, and the eastern campaign is the evidence base for both. It is also the reason the war's outcome depends on industrial output and mobilisation policy in capitals far from the front.

Attacking the war's supply and revenue rather than its front — refineries, airbases and the fleet, at ranges that kept expanding.

Since 20223 phases4 linked eventsConfidence: ModerateStatus as of 2026-07Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. This campaign is Ukraine's principal means of imposing cost on Russia away from a front where it is at a manpower disadvantage, and it is the clearest case in the war of a smaller power building an independent strategic capability rather than waiting for one to be supplied. It connects directly to the module's economic content — refining and export capacity is where Russian war revenue is generated — and to the naval campaign that reopened Ukraine's own export corridor. It is also the sharpest test of escalation management by Ukraine's partners.

The campaign fought in recruitment offices and budget lines, and the one that sets what either army can do on the ground.

Since February 20224 phases4 linked eventsConfidence: ModerateStatus as of 2026-07Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. Equipment can be supplied by partners; trained infantry cannot. This is why force generation, not weapons transfer, is the variable analysts watch when asking whether a line will hold. It is also the point at which the war reaches furthest into each society: conscription enforcement is Ukraine's most divisive domestic issue, and the avoidance of a second mobilisation wave is the clearest evidence of what the Russian leadership believes it can ask of its own population.

A country with no fleet pushed a fleet out of a sea, and got its export economy back without an agreement.

Since February 20224 phases4 linked eventsConfidence: ModerateStatus as of 2026-07Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. This campaign produced the clearest strategic success of the war for either side, and it did so through a category of weapon that did not meaningfully exist before it. It restored the export revenue on which Ukraine's economy and budget depend, removed a Russian coercive instrument over global food supply, and demonstrated that sea denial can be achieved cheaply against a conventional fleet — a lesson being studied intensively in other maritime theatres. It is also the module's clearest link between a military outcome and an economic one.

The same instrument used twice: decisive against an unprepared line in 2022, and stopped by a prepared one in 2023.

September 2022 – November 20234 phases2 linked eventsConfidence: HighStatus as of 2023-11Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. This campaign is the clearest natural experiment the war has produced. The same army, using broadly the same method, succeeded spectacularly against an unprepared defence and failed against a prepared one — which established that the decisive variable was preparation and density rather than equipment quality or training. Its failure ended the expectation of a negotiated settlement from a position of Ukrainian strength, preceded the interruption in US supply, and is the reason both sides subsequently invested in fortification and in deep strike rather than in manoeuvre.

The four-axis opening campaign that assumed a state would collapse in days, and the six weeks that proved it would not.

February – April 20224 phases4 linked eventsConfidence: HighStatus as of 2022-05Reviewed 2026-07-26

Why it matters. Everything after this campaign is shaped by its failure. It converted an intended coup de main into an attritional war neither side had planned or resourced; it established that Ukraine would fight and that Western states would supply it; it produced the atrocities at Bucha that ended any prospect of an early negotiated settlement; and it delivered the southern land corridor that remains Russia's most significant territorial gain and the object of every subsequent Ukrainian offensive.