Conventional wisdom defines strategy as the business of winning wars, operational art as the business of winning campaigns and tactics as the business of winning battles.
At the operational level, there seems little to justify comparison. The German Sixth Army fought its way into Stalingrad though the late autumn of 1942 and the Russian winter subsequently became a decisive weapon in its own right.
It may be that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was timed to coincide with the more benign conditions of spring and summer to consolidate its operations. This could be a necessary pre-condition if the strategic aim is the neutralisation of Ukrainian governance.
During the German assault, Stalingrad was never surrounded. With the 1,300-meter-wide Volga at its back, the 62nd Army under General Vasily Chuikov fought within a shrinking perimeter but were always sustained by supplies sent across the river at night and supported by medium and heavy artillery firing from the eastern bank.
None of that is likely to be available to the defenders of Kyiv and they will be forced to fight with what they have. But at the level of the campaign there is a fundamental difference between Kyiv and Stalingrad. The eponymously named city became the total focus of attacking German forces and was seen by Hitler, if not his generals, as symbolic of his epochal struggle with Stalin.
The Russians, by contrast, maintained a wider view, and, with the utter ruthlessness of which Stalin and Zhukov were capable, Chuikov’s army was only ever reinforced to a subsistence level as it became the bait in an operational level trap.
At the tactical level, the comparison does bear scrutiny because some things don’t change and the nature of urban warfare is one of them. Again, we cannot be sure of Russian intentions.
It may be that the destruction of Mariupol by Russian indirect fire is intended both as an end in itself and also to convey the message that this is what awaits Kyiv if the Ukrainian government does not concede. Russian practice in Chechnya and Syria has been to rely almost solely on the percussive damage of artillery, rocket and air attack to intimidate defenders into surrender.
The standard Russian fighting patrol in Stalingrad went for the short barrelled automatic weapons, grenades and even sharpened spades designed to prevail in this most elemental form of combat.
The reported Russian recruitment of foreign fighters suggests they understand the implications of urban warfare and are building an expendable reserve of cannon fodder to spare the grief of Russian mothers.
At some point in any assault on Kyiv, the Russians will seek alternative means of engagement than standard infantry weapons in order to mitigate the exorbitant cost of urban battle. In Stalingrad, this took the form of short-range use of high explosive and flame weapons.
