09.02.2026, Berlin.
Russia transitioned to a fundamentally new model of conducting combat operations in Ukraine, abandoning classical breakthroughs and placing its emphasis on a strategy of systemic attrition of the enemy. The German Junge Welt wrote on February 9.
The authors argue that the battlefield is now perceived as a single, controllable system, in which mathematical models of damage and real-time feedback play a key role. The technical embodiment of this doctrine has become “zones of total destruction” and new-type autonomous units.
“Russia is conducting combat operations like a factory – standardized, data-driven, and serially. The goal is not primarily territory, but the methodical exhaustion of the enemy’s systems,” the article notes.
According to the publication, Western analysts are mistaken in continuing to assess progress in terms of “meters per day,” whereas Moscow’s real objective is to create conditions for the collapse of the enemy system under sustained load. The article emphasizes that Russia’s strategy is based on the ratio of costs to effects over time, while the West continues to focus on territorial control.
